A Preliminary Small-Scale Enquiry into Student Agency in a Master of Fine Arts Programme in Hong Kong: An Ecological Perspective

Abstract

As research on student agency in higher education gains popularity, a gap remains in investigating university student agency from an ecological view. In Hong Kong, despite the increasing number of Creative Writing programmes in higher education institutions, there is a lack of recent research from the students’ learning experience. The present study investigates the agency of five graduate student-writers who were enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts programme in Creative Writing in English at a university in Hong Kong during the 2021- 2022 academic year, with data collected one year after their graduation. Adopting an ecological framework, the study poses two research questions: How do student-writers explain their agency, and what forms of agency are emerging? A qualitative research method is used, with data obtained primarily from semi-structured interviews, supplemented by my autoethnographic experience, where I position myself as a creative writer in Hong Kong, as additional evidence. The findings reveal that student-writers become aware of the multilingual nature of their environment and act by means of this environment rather than merely within it. Past experiences play a crucial role in enabling student-writers’ agency, while contextual situations—such as the multilingual environment and materials in Hong Kong—interact with students as they take actions during the learning process. Theoretically, this study demonstrates the applicability of using the ecological perspective in interpreting university students’ agency. Pedagogically, it underscores the importance of a contextualised environment and materials in fostering student agency. Although the study includes only a small group of students, it holds implications for advancing the theorisation of the Creative Writing discipline and research into student agency from an ecological view in university settings. For future research, arts-based research methodologies could be adopted to shape both a critical and creative research.