The power of reflective transformations

The purpose of this paper is to analyze two students as partners (SaP) collaboration experiences and identify transformations of four undergraduate students and faculty who partnered to enhance an English as a second language (ESL) course taught at a Sino-foreign university. This paper utilized qualitative exploratory research with a pre-post design, where photovoice as a visual research method was adapted and used to portray and highlight the participants’ actual experiences and transformations that happened during the student-faculty partnership. The three transformations experienced by members of the partnership include: (a) the transformation from solitary to cooperative, referring to the closer relationship amongst faculty, student partners, and enrolled students; (b) the transformation from prey to predators, signifying the increased professional and learning capacity of both faculty and students; and (c) the transformation from inexperienced to mature, indicating self-growth based on overcoming obstacles. The findings have practical implications for future studies in that researchers can use the photovoice methodology to track participants’ experiences, except for traditional verbal and written data collection methods. However, the size of the research sample, which consisted of five females, limits the findings, and the uncertainty of the long-term effect of the transformations mentioned above should be further explored.