The challenge addressed by the international scholars and academic practitioners contributing to "Quality Enhancement of University Teaching and Learning" is how best to enhance the quality of university teaching and learning, and thereby generate a culture of quality in higher education. The book focuses on approaches to quality enhancement (QE), a process which has significant differences to the interrelated concept of quality assurance (QA), particularly in relation to aspirations for change. The contributors believe that the status quo is no longer a viable option if the role of higher education as a fundamental part of the knowledge (and wider) economy is to be safeguarded. Believing that the primary purpose of every institution s quality enhancement work should be the improvement of students learning experiences, they argue that innovative QE initiatives offer better ways of handling students intricate learning processes than does a focus on QA paradigms. Higher education institutions (HEIs) need to establish quality enhancement frameworks that focus explicitly on the relationship between the activities of learning and teaching and students learning outcomes. All institutions need to follow approaches that seek out and value novel and effective practices and disseminate these where appropriate. Focusing on the dynamic and complex processes and relations that create their learning environments is necessary if HEIs are to move from cultures of compliance to cultures of enhancement. When successful, the outcome should be a culture where ownership of the institutional quality enhancement agenda extends down to the point of delivery. Since successful QE initiatives must always involve jointly the student, the teacher and the institution, the three sections of the anthology address the practice of QE in relation to each of these constituencies. Examples of quality enhancement in higher education from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, Iceland, Portugal, Scotland, and United Arab Emirates are presented, with each section starting from contributions offering microlevel approaches and progressing to those offering macrolevel perspectives."
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Quality Enhancement o University Teaching and Learning
Quality Enhancement o University Teaching and Learning
he rigt of Claus Nygaard, Nigel Courtney and Paul Bartolomew to be identified as te editors of tis work as been asserted in accordance wit te Copyrigt, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
ISBN 978-1-909818-12-5eISBN 978-1-912969-53-1
All rigts reserved. No part of tis publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mecanical, potocopying, recording or oterwise, witout te prior written permission of te copyrigt older for wic application sould be addressed in te first instance to te publisers. No liability sall be attaced to te autor, te copyrigt older or te publisers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of reliance on te reproduction of any of te contents of tis publication or any errors or omissions in its contents.
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Contents
Foreword Professor Jon Biggs Capter 1 heoretical and Empirical Perspectives on Quality Enancement in Higer Education Claus Nygaard, Nigel Courtney and Paul Bartolomew Capter 2 Students Constructing te Curriculum – An Experiment to Increase Responsibility Marja Mäensivu, Tiina Nikkola & Pentti Moilanen Capter 3 Differentiated Assessment Activities: Customising to Support Learning Swapna Kosy Capter 4 Independent Studies in Higer Education: Great Expectations or Hard Times? Andrew Green Capter 5 Enancing Music Students’ Learning and Pedagogic Understandings troug Cultural Excange Jennifer Rowley and Peter Dunbar-Hall Capter 6 Developing Undergraduate Students’ Generic Competencies troug Researc Activities Isabel Huet, Ana Vitória Baptista & Carla Ferreira Capter 7 Using Computer Supported Collaborative Learning to Enance te Quality of Scoolteacer Professional Development Andrea Raiker Capter 8 Quality Enancement troug te Peer Review of Teacing for Learning and Learning for Teacing - a Process and an Outcome. Cristoper Klopper and Steve Drew Capter 9 Quality Attributes and Competencies for Transformative Teacing: a heory of te Transformative Teacer Sigrídur Halldórsdóttir
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Capter 10 Enancing te Enancers: Action Researc as a Quality Enancement Tool 163 Lesley Lawrence and Helen Corkill Capter 11 Course Evaluation Systems for Open-ended Quality Enancement 181 Jesper Piil and Jens Smed Rasmussen Capter 12 Quality Enancement troug Student Engagement 199 Paul Bartolomew, Stuart Brand and Luke Millard Capter 13 A Comparison of Two Learning and Teacing Centres in te E.U. Area: Strategies for Quality Enancement of Teacing and Learning 217 Lorenzo Vigentini and Laurent Ledouc Collected Bibliograpy 239
About te Editors
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Foreword
Universities ave, in te past ten years or so, dramatically increased participation rates and at te same time ave sifted from being publicly funded institutions to becoming businesses, run on corporate lines. Funding is provided in large part from student fees, wit students justi-fiably demanding value for money. Universities, like oter corporate institutions, tus rely eavily on quality assurance procedures wic, in part, involve key performance indicators for assessing te performance of staff. Quality assurance procedures may be appropriate in te busi-ness context but in te academic context tey can actually interfere wit teacing effectiveness, undermine staff morale and compromise te conduct and reporting of researc (Hil, 2012; Meyers, 2012). Furtermore, tere is a logical problem. he quality assurance of teacing and learning attempts to ensure tat te standards at present reaced in degree programmes meet external criteria. If tey do not, te best tat can evidently be done is to blame tose involved and order tem to do better next time. But te orse as already bolted. As tis book makes clear, and as I ave long maintained, universi-ties sould be concerned not wit quality assurance, wic is summative and operates retrospectively, but wit qualityenancement of teacing. Quality enancement is formative and proactive in tat it monitors ongoing teacing and learning, takes steps to prevent problems and attempts to solve tose tat do arise. Quality enancement ensures tat watever te standard of teacing is currently, it will be better in future. herefore quality enancement to a large extent subsumes quality assur-ance. All tat time spent in form-filling and oter busywork associated wit quality assurance procedures can be better spent in paying attention to te improvement of teacing troug staff development and by putting in place quality enancement procedures.
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Foreword As outlined in te first capter, quality enancement involves taking intentional steps at te level of te institution to enance te quality of learning prospects; it is about improving quality, not controlling quality. here is a uge cultural difference ere. Controlling quality operates witin a culture of compliance - wic McGregor (1960) calls a ‘heory X’ institutional climate - tat, as Hil and oters point out all too clearly, radiates a demoralising lack of trust in teacers. On te oter and, improving quality involves a culture of innovation; a ‘heory Y’ climate tat is not about supporting te status quo but about making room for new ideas, for collegiality and for participation in a positive working system. hree agents are involved in quality enancement: te teacer, te student and te institution. Recognising tis leaves room for institu-tions to follow teir individual approaces to quality enancement in line wit teir teories of teacing and teir available resources. So quality enancement is not just about an individual teacer practising action researc – altoug tat is important – but teacers, students and institution working togeter as an interactive system. he contributions to tis volume variously address tese foci: six capters address quality enancement in relation to students, two capters in relation to teacers and four capters in relation to te institution, providing a tougtful range of quality enancement strategies. Altoug tese contributions are presented as “perspectives” from nine countries, te aim is not to compare approaces from different countries but rater to demonstrate te universality of te issues (tat said, it is a pity tat Asia and Nort America aren’t represented). he overall message, and it is an important one, is to seek te active engagement of all participants to instil a culture for enancing te quality of student learning troug reflective prac-tice, initiative, creativity, collaboration and sared experiences among stakeolders. I say ‘Amen’ to all tat. But it seems to me, speaking now largely from an Australian perspective, tat a major problem is tat management all too frequently operates in a self-created heory X climate in wic key performance indicators, wic claim to assure quality but rarely do, are a demoralising part. he business model applied to academe is counter-productive because it subjects academics to devices for exerting control. he way to go in te academic context is not by applying business models
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Forewordtat operate witin a culture tat is alien to academe. A truly academic culture, and one tat is essential for quality enancement, operates in a trustful and supportive heory Y climate witin wic academics ave freedom to teac, to innovate, to conduct untrammelled researc and to publis witout fear or favour. Underlying quality enancement, ten, is te unspoken but necessary assumption tat te university is an academic, not a business, enterprise. hose wo are truly concerned wit quality teacing and learning will benefit enormously from tis compreensive book, wic as been care-fully designed to address te interacting levels of student, teacer and institution in enancing teacing and learning at university. Jon Biggs February, 2013
About the Author Jon Biggs is Honorary Professor of Psycology at te University of Hong Kong. His influential work on quality enancement in iger education is captured in ‘Teacing for Quality Learning in University’, co-autored wit Caterine Tang (Biggs & Tang, 2007). He can be contacted at tis email: jbiggs@bigpond.com