Reconceptualising Evaluative Practices in HE The Practice Turn

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

• ISBN13: 9780335241613
• ISBN10: 0335241611
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-01
• Publisher: Open Univ Pr

Summary

"I congratulate the authors on what I believe will be a very interesting and useful book. The language is accessible and the structure of the argument is coherent and consistent ... This is a very interesting and significant contribution to the field of higher education in general and scholarship in evaluative practices in particular." Judyth Sachs, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. A considerable amount of time and effort is invested in attempts to control, change and improve the higher education sector. These attempts involve evaluative practice, but we have not yet conceptualised the evaluations that take place so therefore the opportunity to understand the value and nature of different types of intervention is frequently missed. This book seeks to dismantle traditional boundaries in approaches to evaluation, assessing how value and worth is attributed to activities in higher education. It looks at evaluative practice in Higher Education rather than the evaluation of Higher Education. Reconceptualising Evaluation in Higher Educationaims to aid understanding, drawing on a set of evaluative practices from the UK and internationally. The book will be of value and relevance to higher education providers and policy makers within higher education. Contributors Veronica Bamber, Margo Blythman, Val Chapman, Bernadette Charlier, Rob Cuthbert, Harry Hubball, Kerri-Lee Krause, Neil Lent, Alan McCluskey, Ian McNay, Joan Machell, John M. Owen, Marion L. Pearson, Michael Prosser, Christoph Rosenbusch, Murray Saunders, Uwe Schmidt, Alison Shreeve, Paul Trowler, Massimiliano Vaira, Christine Winberg.

Table of Contents

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors

Setting the scene: The four domains of evaluative practice in Higher Education
The Higher Education policy context of evaluative practices

Part one: National systemic evaluative practice: power and regulation

National systemic evaluative practices: power and regulation
Evaluation as ceremony in the Italian university system
Student 'satisfaction' or student 'experience': interpreting and acting on evaluation results
Research assessment: work in progress, or la 'lutta continua'
The elephant in the room: evaluating postgraduate education in South Africa
Evaluative practices and outcomes: Issues at the national level

Part two: Programmatic evaluative practice

Programmatic evaluative practice in Higher Education: design diversity and degrees of programme alignment
The national programme of Centres for Excellence for Teaching and Learning (CETLS) in England and Northern Ireland: a theory-driven evaluation of change
Foregrounding social interaction in programme evaluation: an evaluation of an innovative pre-service teacher education initiative in Australia
Evaluation as deep learning: a holistic perspective on evaluation in the PALETTE project
A social practice approach to the evaluation of enhancement strategies in the Quality Enhancement Framework for Scottish Universities
Insights into programmatic evaluative practice in HE: A commentary

Part three: Institutional evaluative practice

Institutional evaluative practices: quality, enhancement and regulation
Failing the challenge of institutional evaluation: how and why managerialism flourishes
Whole-of-university strategies for evaluating the student experience
Emphasizing the social dimension of scientific organizations: institutional evaluation at Mainz University
Tensions between professional and organizational development: towards meaningful evaluative practices for all
Evaluative practices and outcomes: issues at the institutional level

Part four: Self-evaluative practice

Self-evaluative practice: diversity and power
Appreciative inquiry as evaluation: enhancing and developing academic practice
Evaluating a UK centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: bottom-up evaluation in a top-down setting
'Tell us about it!' Evaluating what helps students from diverse backgrounds to succeed at the University of the Arts London
Scholarly approaches to curriculum evaluation: critical contributions for undergraduate degree programme reform in a Canadian context
Evaluative practices and outcomes: issues at the self-evaluative level

Part five: Overview

The practice turn: reconceptualising evaluation in Higher Education

References
Index