Fostering trust: a dialogic framework for student reference groups in higher education research

Universities often rely on student advisory and consultative structures to inform research and educational change. Yet the relational conditions that enable students to meaningfully contribute within asymmetrical staff–student relationships remain undertheorised. Drawing on relationship management and dialogic theories, this paper proposes a Principled Dialogic Trust Framework for fostering trust within these relationships. The framework comprises six relational principles: mutuality, empathy, commitment, risk, relational proximity and transparency, through which trust can deliberately be fostered when authority is not equally distributed. An illustrative case study demonstrates how these principles were enacted across a five-stage blended learning redesign project, in which non-traditional students contributed as advisors from their experiential knowledge and insight. The paper argues that trust functions not as an outcome of successful engagement, but as a relational antecedent that enables students to meaningfully contribute within staff-led initiatives. The framework extends existing dialogic and relationship management traditions to higher education, addressing participatory structures where power asymmetry is constitutive rather than incidental.