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Details
- Author(s): Dr Jane Hughes
- Title: Quality in Higher Education
- Subject: HE - Education
- Keywords: UKOER, UKPSF, OMAC, CPD4HE, teaching quality, quality management, quality assurance, quality enhancement, student learning experience, e-learning, peer observation of teaching, interdisciplinary teaching
- Language(s): English
- Material type(s): Text
- File format(s): ZIP, HTML, PDF, DOC
- File size: Various
- Publish Date: 31st October 2011
- Licence: CC-BY-SA
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Perspectives on Quality in Higher Education
This is an exploratory activity that considers different perspectives on the ‘Quality’ of HE teaching and learning.
When originally conceived, the resources were designed to generate questions that course participants would put to two senior members of staff with quality responsibilities in the institution. This was probably the most successful use of the activities.
They have also been used as pre-workshop activities, to prepare learners for a discussion in a face-to-face session. Questions and comments arising from the activity were either posted to a forum or added to a wiki before the session.
A. National quality assurance in HE
Questions
1. What is the purpose/function of the
Quality Assurance Agency?
2. What mechanisms does it employ in order to
fulfil its function?
3. Any other points of interest?
Resources
Use these websites as starting points:
- Quality Assurance Agency - http://www.qaa.ac.uk/
- Subject benchmark statements - http://www.qaa.ac.uk/AssuringStandardsAndQuality/subject-guidance/SubjectBenchmarkStatements/Pages/default.aspx
- Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF) - http://www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/enhance/tqef.asp
B. Quality from the student perspective
Questions
1. Scope: what is 'quality' from the
student perspective?
2. What measures of quality and what evaluation methods are used to judge quality from the
student perspective?
3. Other points of interest?
Resources
- Unistats - the website that reports the results of the National Student Survey - http://www.unistats.com/
- The student course experience questionnaire (SCEQ) - used quite widely in HE, especially in Australia. UK universities using the SCEQ include Oxford. This link is to the University of Sydney SCEQ page: http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/SCEQ/sceqAbout.htm
- §HEA resources on "the student experience": http://search.heacademy.ac.uk/kb5/hea/search/resources.page?qt=student+experience&sb=0&sortfield=relevance . You will probably want to refine the search, perhaps by looking for one aspect of the student experience or for resources about your own discipline. You will not have time to investigate all of these in any depth but they give an indication of the range of resources available.
C. Institutional approaches to quality management and enhancement
Questions
1. Scope: what does the word 'Quality' encompass in HE
institutions?
2. What mechanisms do universities use for enhancing quality?
3. What mechanisms do universities use for monitoring and managing quality?
4. Any other points of interest?
Resources
There are four links to relevant university web pages as starting points. You should also look at relevant documents from your own institution. Try to investigate additional institutions in and outside the UK.
- University of Exeter: http://as.exeter.ac.uk/support/admin/staff/qualityassuranceandmonitoring/tqamanual/
- University of Sydney project on teaching quality : http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/eqa/
- University of Liverpool: http://www.liv.ac.uk/tqsd/
- University of Warwick: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/academicoffice/quality
D. Other perspectives on quality in teaching and learning
Questions
1. What is meant by 'Quality' in the education press?
2. What is meant by 'Quality' in the popular press? It might be useful to
consider what would constitute “poor quality” from this perspective.
3. What is meant by 'Quality' in the view of employers and/or professional
bodies?
4. Is there a scholarly or research-based view of 'quality'
5. What is the trade union perspective on quality management?
Remember that our context is teaching and learning but if you think it is relevant, by all means include reference to research quality.
Resources
These are starting points. You should look for others; perhaps you could compare newspapers from different countries.
- Times Higher Education Supplement: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/
- Guardian Education: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education
- The Sun newspaper: http://www.thesun.co.uk/search/searchAction.do?query=education&view=internal&pubName=sol&submit=+Search+
- The University and College Union (UCU): http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm
Licence
Quality in Higher Education by Dr Jane Hughes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at www.ucl.ac.uk.
Contact us: cpd4he@ucl.ac.uk
