| This interpretive study explicates how students perceive empowerment in the classroom. The literature to date lacks a clear understanding of how students perceive empowerment, and what communicative behaviors and teaching methodologies students find empowering. This study seeks to fill a gap in our understanding of critical pedagogy by exploring empowerment through students' voices. A triangulation of qualitative methods (focus group interviews, individual interviews, and email responses) was employed in order to understand how students' experience empowerment. A 7-item interview guide was used with each data gathering method. Once it was determined that method did not affect results, a thematic analysis was conducted using participants' responses for all questions. The primary contribution of this study was to open the dialogue of empowerment to include those situated at the center, the students. In doing so, I found that students define empowerment as emerging from interaction; and its central construct is genuine participation through the sharing of opinions with peers and with the instructor. Empowerment is fostered by supportive communication behaviors and teaching methodologies that offer opportunities for the creation of shared-meaning. These findings highlight the need for continued qualitative research that uses reflexive triangulation to expand our understanding of how students experience empowerment, inform us on how empowerment affects learning, describe teaching methodologies that support empowering communication, and maintains students at its very center. |
