EMPLOYABILITY: SOME ISSUES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

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QUALITY AS TRANSFORMATIONLee
Harveywww.uce.ac.uk/crqPresentation at the
Quality in Pedagogy in Higher EducationSeminar
at University of Minho, Braga, PortugalApril
2002
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Overview

• Quality evaluation
• Quality and standards
• Transformative learning
• Enabling transformative learning
• Assessing transformative learning
• Internal quality processes for transformative
  learning

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Quality evaluation
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Quality evaluation
Evaluation is an umbrella term for all forms of
quality monitoring, assessment, audit,
enhancement, legitimation, endorsement or
accreditation.
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Delegated accountability
Market
Semi-market
British
Growing state control via EQM
Accountability requirements
Accred-itation
Impro-vement
Accountable autonomy
New autonomy
Newly-devolved
Continental
Centralised
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Focus
External monitoring purposes
Rationale
accreditation
accountability
standards monitoring
improvement
assessment
audit
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Accreditation

• Institution or programme (inputs)
• Public recognition threshold standard, granting
  of licence
• Integrity
• Regional, national or international bodies
  government or agency with delegated power

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Standards monitoring

• Long established external exam/ministries
• Academic/ professional competence
• Specify or check
• International comparison

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Assessment

• Measure overall or components
• External criteria/fitness for mission
• Complex grading or threshold league tables
• Students receive comparable service
• Research assessment
• Benchmarking

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Audit

• Quality assurance procedures existence or
  effectiveness
• Documentation and visit
• Non-evaluative
• Drill-down option
• Improvement audit
• Sweden, Finnish polytechnics, NCA in US, AUQA?

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Accountability

• Value for public money
• No erosion of academia credibility
• Delivery and value to students
• Public information transparency accessibility
• information models, league tables, feedback,
  useful.
• Compliance information, political agendas,
  resources smokescreen

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Improvement

• Expectation of improvement secondary
• Some primary Swedish audits
• Accountability versus improvement
• second stage emphasis,
• continuous improvement accountability
• Catalyst dialogue and trust.
• Performance indicators manipulation to meet
  targets

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Quality and standards
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Quality
Standards
Outcomes
Process
traditional
academic
perfection
competence
fitness for purpose
service
value for money
organisational
transformation
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Quality
Standards
organisational
service
academic
competence
traditional
perfection
fitness for purpose
value for money
transformation
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Transformative learning
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Transformation
Transformation is a process of transmutation of
one form into another. In the educational realm
this involves the development of domain expertise
AND the development of attributes that
enable the development of new understanding.
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Transformation
Transformation in higher education is about
producing people who can lead, who can produce
new knowledge, who can see new problems and
imagine new ways of approaching old problems.
HE has a role to prepare people to go beyond
the present and to be able to respond to a future
which cannot now be imagined. HE has to
transform to do this.
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Transformative learning

• A continuous process of assimilation, reflection,
  synthesis and critique.
• Questionning absolutes, preconceptions and
  taken-for granteds others and ones own.
• Deconstructing knowledge and building alternative
  understandings.

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Transformative learning
Accepting
Engaging/ Questioning
Rote
Understanding
Transformative learning
Reconceptualising
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Critical transformative learners

• have domain expertise
• are independent learners
• attempt to develop alternative understandings.

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Expertise within a domain
Knowledge of structure, principles and procedures
in a domain
Ability to use new data to re-shape old concepts
and form new ones accommodation of discordant
data not just
assimilation of non-discordant data
Skilled (transferable)
Metacognitive
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Independent learner
Develop own learning agenda
Commitment to continued learning, especially
through reflection, construction and
deconstruction
Continuous refinement of own values and
self-reflection
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Develop alternative understandings
Draw upon a variety of explanatory and
interpretive frameworks
Recognition that frames of reference empower and
limit
Go beyond the preconceptions or
taken-for-granteds of frameworks
Development of critical, dialectical thinking
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Transformative learning
Enhancing students abilities and knowledge
Empowering students to be active learners
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Enhancing learners
Enhancing students as transformative learners
means

• providing students with access to a body of
  knowledge
• enabling students to develop a range of
  intellectual and other attributes as well as a
  body of knowledge.

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Attributes
intellect
knowledge
analysis, synthesis, critique
ability to find things out
willingness to continue learning
communication
team working
interpersonal skills
self skills
risk taking
flexibility and adaptability
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Empowering learners
Empowering students as transformative learners
means

• treating students as intellectual performers
  rather than as passive recipients of teaching
• encouraging critical engagement with a body of
  knowledge.

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Critical graduate
Increasingly, in a world of change, learners need
to be CRITICAL.

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CRITICAL graduate
C
R
I
T
I
C
A
L
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CRITICAL graduate
Critical
Reflective
Intelligent
Transformative
Interactive
Communicative
Analytic
Lifelong learner
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Enabling critical transformative learning
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Enabling critical learning
Necessitates an approach to teaching and learning
that goes beyond requiring students to learn a
body of knowledge and being able to apply it
analytically.
Requires facilitation of learning rather than
didactic teaching.
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Facilitating learning
Teacher oriented
Knowledge
Teacher
Student
Attributes
Learner oriented
Knowledge
Teacher
Student
Attributes
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Facilitating critical learning
Developing critical ability involves encouraging
students to challenge preconceptions, their own,
their peers and their teachers. This is
difficult if the domain is narrowly circumscribed
and student work closely structured
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Structure
Where the work is less structured, learners can
be seen as advanced beginners. Where students
interact with teachers to create their own work
structures then there is an enhanced possibility
of transformative thinking.
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Enabling transformative learning
imaginiative engagement with the domain (use of
IT, practical exercises, research projects)
maximising the interactive and critical elements
of face-to-face time
diverse forms of staff development pedagogic
principles, new information sources, etc.
use of work experience to develop abilities and
make links between theory and practice
recognition of attributes developed through
extra-curricular activities
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Assessing transformative learning
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Assessing transformative learning
varied and relevant forms of assessment of
student learning knowledge attributes clearly
linked to identfiable outputs but not foreclosed
commentary on assessed work that clearly
identfies strengths and weaknesses and enables
improvement of critical processes (rather than
just correcting content)
responsive feedback and improvement mechanisms
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Internal quality procedures for transformative
learning
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Internal
External processes are not the primary mechanism
by which quality in higher education is assured.
Day-to-day quality assurance is from internal
academic processes. External processes should
articulate with and augment internal procedures.
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Building internal processes

• Explicit
• Grow out of normal academic processes
• Engage academics
• Rigorous and continuous
• Improvement-oriented

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Purpose

• enhance the quality of provision
• encourage learner autonomy
• share good practice
• identify areas of satisfaction

Effectiveness depends on action cycles
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Data
Feedback
Analyse
ACTION CYCLE
Implement
Report
Plan
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Data
Feedback
Analyse
INPUT
Implement
Report
Plan
Data
Feedback
Analyse
PROCESS
REGULATIONS AND GUIDELINES
Implement
Report
Plan
Data
Feedback
Analyse
OUTPUT
Implement
Report
Plan
STRATEGIC PLAN
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Managing quality

• Leadership not management
• Encourage improvement
• Enable ownership
• Delegate responsibility
• Encourage teamworking
• Set parameters for quality improvement
• Establish a suspicion-free context
• Disseminate good practice

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Conclusion
Quality as transformation in the contest of
undergraduate education focuses on the
development of student learning Transformative
learning is about shifting the traditional
balance of power from the education provider to
those participating in the learning
experience. Internal quality procedures should
aid this process.
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Thank you