Reconceptualising Evaluative Practices in HE

by Saunders, Murray; Trowler, Paul; Bamber, Veronica

• ISBN13: 9780335241606
• ISBN10: 0335241603
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-06-01
• Publisher: Open Univ Pr

Summary

A considerable amount of money is invested in an ongoing basis on large scale projects to enhance the quality of teaching and learning within the higher education sector. Examples from the UK include the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund and the creation of CELTS - Centers for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Similar initiatives can be found in most other Westernized countries. These projects (and other, smaller institutional projects) require evaluation, but the higher education sector has not conceptualized such evaluation work and therefore the opportunity to understand the value of such projects is frequently missed.

Author Biography

Murray Saunders is Co Director of Here@Lancaster and Professor of Evaluation in Education and Work, in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, UK. Paul Trowler is Co Director of Here@Lancaster and Professor of Higher Education, in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, UK. Veronica Bamber is Director of the Centre for Academic Practice at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, UK.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. x
List of tables	p. xi
List of contributors	p. xii
Setting the scene: the four domains of evaluative practice in higher education	p. 1
The Higher Education policy context of evaluative practices	p. 18
National systemic evaluative practice: power and regulation	p. 33
National systemic evaluative practice: power and regulation	p. 35
Evaluation as ceremony in the Italian university system	p. 40
Student 'satisfaction' or student 'experience': interpreting and acting on evaluation results	p. 46
Research assessment: work in progress, or 'la lutta continua'	p. 51
The elephant in the room: evaluating postgraduate education in South Africa	p. 58
Evaluative practices and outcomes: issues at the national level	p. 66
Programmatic evaluative practice	p. 75
Programmatic evaluative practice in Higher Education:design diversity and degrees of programme alignmentMurray Saunders	p. 77
The national programme of Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) in England and Northern Ireland: a theory driven evaluation of change	p. 88
Foregrounding social interaction in programme evaluation: an evaluation of an innovative pre-service teacher education initiative in Australia	p. 90
Evaluation as deep learning: a holistic perspective on evaluation in the Palette project	p. 98
A social practice approach to the evaluation of enhancement strategies in the Quality Enhancement Framework for Scottish universities	p. 105
Insights into programmatic evaluative practice in HE: a commentary	p. 113
Institutional evaluative practice
Institutional evaluative practice: quality, enhancement and regulation	p. 127
Failing the challenge of institutional evaluation: how and why managerialism flourishes	p. 133
Whole-of-university strategies for evaluating the student experience	p. 139
Emphasizing the social dimension of scientific organizations: institutional evaluation at Mainz University	p. 145
Tensions between professional and organizational development: towards meaningful evaluative practices for all	p. 150
Evaluative practice and outcomes: issues at the institutional level	p. 163
Self-evaluative practice
	p. 165
Appreciative Inquiry as evaluation: enhancing and developing academic practice	p. 171
Evaluating a UK Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: bottom-up evaluation in a top-down setting	p. 177
'Tell us about it!' Evaluating what helps students from diverse backgrounds to succeed at the University of the Arts London	p. 181
Scholarly approaches to curriculum evaluation: critical contributions for undergraduate degree program reform in a Canadian context	p. 186
Evaluative practice and outcomes: issues at the self-evaluative level	p. 193
Overview	p. 201
The practice turn: reconceptualising evaluation in higher education	p. 203
References	p. 227
Index	p. 245
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