RAPPORT
WWW.RECORDINGACHIEVEMENT.AC.UK
Issue 1 (2017)
increase competition 2 .
An analysis of the
ideological underpinnings of these policies is
merited, but for now our shorthand guide to the
reader is to suggest that, in accordance with this
official view of higher education, the TEF can be
a tool to provide students (customers),
employers (stakeholders) and the government
(regulator) with the information each needs to
make choices (to buy, to invest or to set the
basic rules), akin to the need for the prices of
commodities to be constantly on view at the
Stock Exchange. The TEF will also be the
mechanism by which the quality of teaching can
be linked to the funding of institutions (ratings will
be used to authorise increases in fees) and the
Government even foresees, as a natural
occurrence, that some institutions may have their
courses closed down or that they may even exit
the system (BIS, 2016a, p. 10). The proposed
timetable (see table 1 below) suggests that HE in
the UK must move quickly to define their
institutional
response
to
these
rapidly
implemented changes.
Table 1: Brief summary of the proposed timeline
of implementation, according to the White Paper
(BIS, 2016a).
All providers with a successful
Year 1
QAA[1] award -> ‘Meets
(2016/17):
expectations’.
Y2
Trial year. Voluntary applications.
(2017/18): Assessments at institutional level.
Y3
Assessment at institutional level
(2018/19): and pilots at subject level.
Y4
(2019/20)
Assessments at subject level.
Whereas the White Paper (BIS, 2016a)
acknowledges
that
measuring
teaching
excellence is a difficult issue and includes three
areas namely (a) teaching itself, (b) the
environment, and (c) the outcomes, the Green
Paper had specified the following metrics and
indicated some of the sources that would be
used to measure these: student satisfaction
(National Student Survey), retention (collated by
the Higher Education Statistics Agency),
employment /destination (Destination of Leavers
of Higher Education Survey), teaching intensity
and engagement with study, and learning gain
(no specific sources were identified for these
metrics).
The Government makes an important admission
in recognising the complexity of identifying
meaningful indicators, by stating that the metrics
are mostly proxies. It also nods to the importance
of a ‘qualitative element’ which will contain
additional evidence offering institutions the
opportunity to present additional information to
contextualise the quantitative metrics of teaching
excellence.
We consider that the TEF, and the reform of HE
of which it is part, do not contain a clear
definition of teaching excellence nor is it based
by a clear conceptual understanding of what
teaching and learning are all about. Valid
evaluative judgements about the proposed
metrics can be made once greater clarity about
the notion of teaching quality and the process of
leaching and learning has been reached.
2
In the UK, the vast majority of universities are entirely
funded by the state (i.e. tuition fees are subsidised by
the Government). There are only five private
universities.
Defining Teaching Excellence
Although there have been several attempts to
bring clarity to the notion of TE (e.g. Chickering
& Gamson, 1999: Gibbs, 2010), we believe, with
Gunn and Fiske (2013), that there is still a lack
sophistication in how TE is conceptualised.
Therefore, in this paper we would like to go back
to basics and start by defining TE. We would to
7