Students’ perceptions of student voice in assessment within the context of Iran: the dynamics of culture, power relations, and student knowledge

Student voice across various contexts attempts to propose a deeper appreciation of the dynamics of curriculum making. However, little is known about how student voice interacts with culture, power relations, and student knowledge, particularly in assessment planning. Informed by democratic assessment, the current study investigated how student voice within higher education is either expressed or oppressed during assessment and what attitudes Iranian university students hold towards the concept of voice. To this aim, the data was accrued from 43 TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) students by means of interviews and open-ended questionnaires. The results indicated that students’ autonomy was suppressed, and students’ agency was restricted in the decision-making phase. Moreover, it was evidenced that students held superficial views towards student voice constructs within democratic assessment, which could have been because of their previous experiences. The implications are to raise awareness towards student voice complexities and how creating democratic spaces for students is culture-embedded.