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1.
The Dearing Report in the UK supported the use of benchmarking in higher education, taking as its stimulus the use of benchmarking in industrial and commercial contexts. The UK Government's concern regarding academic standards has raised the question of whether benchmarking could be applied to them.This article reports on a pilot study of the benchmarking of academic standards in the UK, and demonstrates -- with reference to empirical data -- that benchmarking in this context needs to be approached differently from benchmarking in industrial/commercial milieux, since it requires a combination of finely-drawn comparisons and professional judgements if valid conclusions are to be drawn. It is argued that the complexity which underpins academic standards is inimical to the production of statements about standards that will be applicable across the span of a diverse national system of higher education. The argument presented can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to systems of higher education beyond the UK.  相似文献   

2.
This article, that is based upon the experience of Monash University, identifies a range of opportunities and risks involved in transnational education and addresses a number of key planning issues in establishing an international campus. These include the guiding principles adopted by the university, country selection factors, market research, considerations in developing an appropriate delivery model, and the assurance of the academic quality and educational integrity of the programmes offered. The authors refer to literature in the field concerning corporate risk and identify factors relevant to the higher education sector. The article stresses the need for an appropriate integration of strategic vision, academic priorities, and business considerations to ensure that opportunities offered by transnational education are successfully realized.  相似文献   

3.
Assessment regulations in higher education, which are important for assuring threshold academic standards, reflect institutional cultures and histories, and are shaped by pragmatic concerns about quality indicators such as retention and progression rates, as well as principles of equity. This paper articulates some of the tensions that confront higher education institutions in the development and revision of regulatory frameworks, and describes a survey of assessment regulations from a sample of UK higher education institutions for the first year of undergraduate study. The survey identifies key variations in regulatory policy and practice that challenge assumptions about comparability of academic standards between higher education institutions. These findings imply that student success and progression may not be a simple reflection of academic attainment, and raise questions about notions of equity. It is intended that this research will contribute to informed discussion in the sector about academic standards and the regulatory frameworks underpinning first-year assessment policy and practice, and thus potentially lead to more transparent and consistent practice.  相似文献   

4.
Abstract

The Dealing Report in the UK supported the use of benchmarking in higher education, taking as its stimulus the use of benchmarking in industrial and commercial contexts. The UK Government's concern regarding academic standards has raised the question of whether benchmarking could be applied to them.

This article reports on a pilot study of the benchmarking of academic standards in the UK, and demonstrates ‐ with reference to empirical data ‐ that benchmarking in this context needs to be approached differently from benchmarking in industrial/commercial milieux, since it requires a combination of finely‐drawn comparisons and professional judgements if valid conclusions are to be drawn. It is argued that the complexity which underpins academic standards is inimical to the production of statements about standards that will be applicable across the span of a diverse national system of higher education. The argument presented can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to systems of higher education beyond the UK.  相似文献   

5.
学术审查是英国最新的、综合性的外部质量评估。作为英国高等教育质量保证署(QAA)评估活动的一种方式,旨在建立、保持和提高学术标准和质量。英国每所学校及其全部专业每六年都要审查一次。其具体运作大致分为三个阶段——提交自评报告、审查小组分析、核实自评报告并作出最后判断。  相似文献   

6.
Evidencing student achievement of standards is a growing imperative worldwide. Key stakeholders (including current and prospective students, government, regulators and employers) want confidence that threshold learning standards in an accounting degree have been assured. Australia’s new higher education regulatory environment requires that student achievements are benchmarked against intended programme learning outcomes, guided by published disciplinary standards and a national qualifications framework, and against other higher education providers. Here, we report on a process involving academics from 10 universities, aided by professional practitioners, to establish and equip assessors to reliably assure threshold learning standards in accounting that are nationally comparable. Importantly, we are learning more about how standards are interpreted. Based on the premise that meaning is constructed from tacit experiences, social interactions and intentional reflection on explicit information, we report outcomes of three multi-part calibration interventions, situated around judgements of the quality of the written communication skills exhibited in student work and their related assessment tasks. Qualitative data from 30 participants in the calibration process suggest that they perceive that the process both assists them both in developing a shared understanding of the accounting threshold learning standards and in the redesign of assessment tasks to more validly assess the threshold learning standards.  相似文献   

7.
In the continuing concern about academic standards in the higher education sector a great deal of emphasis has been placed on quality assurance procedures rather than on considering how university tutors learn to grade the quality of work produced by students. As part of a larger research project focused on how tutors grade student coursework, this paper offers a new metaphor for such tutor learning, based on a sociocultural perspective. The research project used think‐aloud protocols recorded as university tutors graded student coursework, and this was followed by semi‐structured interviews. The voluntary participants consisted of 25 lecturers in four contrasting domains—humanities, art and design, medicine and teacher education—in three universities, two teaching‐led and one research intensive. We developed a metaphorical framework that helps to understand the work and learning of the lecturers and tested it by applying it to analysis of the tutor interview data. Grading, writing feedback, second marking and moderation are important situated professional learning opportunities for tutors to debate and reach agreement on the academic standard demonstrated by student coursework. The metaphor considers professional learning as interplay between the vertical domain of public knowledge and the horizontal domain of teachers' practical wisdom. The metaphor presented in this paper is proposed for critical consideration and wider use by academics, teachers, academic developers and teacher educators as an aid to better understanding of teacher's professional learning.  相似文献   

8.
ABSTRACT

Chinese universities are actively pursuing cross-border collaborations in the form of transnational higher education programmes. Our study captures the experiences of Chinese students to illuminate how they navigate their learning journeys in a China-Australia articulation programme. To communicate the complexity of learning in modern transnational higher education programmes, we employed activity theory as the theoretical framework to explore cross-cultural contradictions shaping students’ experiences of learning. Assessment, programme rules, teaching strategies, and class and campus settings created contradictions that students had to negotiate as in-between learning spaces. We argue that cross-system contradictions play important roles in transnational higher education programmes. Therefore, instead of seeking to eliminate these contradictions or smooth cross-educational differences, these contradictions should be leveraged as learning opportunities to enrich transnational higher education programmes.  相似文献   

9.
This paper argues for the re-integration of academic development (AD) and a academic language and learning (ALL) practitioners in Australian higher education. This argument is made as universities aim to develop internationally recognised, inter-disciplinary and standards-based curricula against the backdrop of international comparative education (e.g., Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the Australian Qualifications Framework and a quality emphasis on English language standards (e.g., Tertiary Education Quality and Assessment Agency). Drawing on Rowland's argument that professional life in the academy has become fragmented across five fault lines ([2002]. Overcoming fragmentation in professional life: The challenge for academic development. Higher Education Quarterly, 56(1), 52–64), I propose a sixth: the pedagogical fault line between language and learning which I argue is institutionally manifest in the historical bifurcation of AD and ALL practitioners in the academy. This paper traces the historical separation of these two fields of practice in Australian higher education in order to disturb the present distinction and show how it is more an accident of history than the result of sound pedagogical decision-making. The paper argues that in the current educational context, it is timely to consider a re-integration of these two aspects of the academic field. It is suggested that such a move will create research and teaching connections that develop synergies in educational development that are able to work with language and learning simultaneously.  相似文献   

10.
Recent concerns about ‘fairness’ in university entrance have highlighted the need to review existing practices in admissions processes. The agendas for equity and social inclusion, however, must also apply to the processes and outcomes of higher education, where considerations of ‘standards’ are additionally crucial. As principles underpinning the assessment process, ‘equity’ and ‘justice’ and ‘academic standards’ are part of taken‐for‐granted cultures and practices which impact on decisions about progression, eligibility for awards and degree classification for individual students. Changing discourses of academic standards have given rise to contrasting decision‐making processes rooted in the role and operation of assessment boards. Contrasting models of assessment board cultures are developed to highlight how practices are beset by conceptual confusions about what is being assessed and the basis for judgements about success and failure in higher education. There is a strong case, not only for critical review of assessment processes, but also for monitoring outcomes for different social groups.  相似文献   

11.
Australian universities have been actively engaged in transnational education since the 1990s. The challenges of assuring quality have seen a changing regulatory framework increasingly designed to ensure equivalence of standards wherever a course of study is offered and however it is delivered. Transnational Higher Education has grown significantly and the issues that flow from operating across jurisdictions, cultures and contexts have been addressed primarily by institutions themselves in complying with regulation. This article identifies how the Australian quality agency TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency) has revised its Standards Framework to support divergence appropriate to local culture and context, while assuring quality provision across the student life cycle. It concludes that the maturity of the quality agency may not yet reflect the provision of transnational education in practice. The article identifies a need for significant further research so that theory and practice can reflect opportunities to better serve students in a mature quality environment.  相似文献   

12.
This commentary discusses reasons that lead scholars to feel entitled to make judgements in areas where they have little or no expertise. Three current reports about the future of online learning are considered, issued by the Global Learning Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Gates Foundation. Two of these publications contain contradictions and confusion that may simply be due to lack of awareness of distance education (DE) and online learning research. The third report gives good evidence but has been criticized for being too academic. The conflicting standards and criteria evident in such writings may be due to institutional pressures to promote policies and principles despite lack of supportive evidence, and to weaknesses in the DE literature itself. As major institutional policies about online learning are likely to be based on the recommendations of such reports, it is important for DE specialists to challenge them where appropriate.  相似文献   

13.
14.
Quality assurance processes have been applied to many aspects of higher education, including teaching, learning and assessment. At least in the latter domain, quality assurance needs its fundamental tenets critically scrutinised. A common but inadequate approach has been to identify and promote learning environment changes ‘likely to improve’ learning outcomes. They are simply labelled ‘quality assurance’ without establishing their effectiveness. Part of the problem is that the case for quality assurance has been largely taken as self-evident. Originally, quality assurance principles were developed in domains outside higher education. In those, auditable product, service and other standards play a central role. Although external processes do not directly transfer to higher education, their underlying principles offer perspectives and pointers for reconceptualising quality assurance and improving assessment and grading. Quality assurance should be grounded in authoritative and properly formulated academic achievement standards applied to actual student works, performances and course grades.  相似文献   

15.
Transnational education is now essential to university international development strategies. As a result, tertiary educators are expected to engage with the complexities of diverse cultural contexts, different delivery modes, and mixed student cohorts to design quality learning experiences for all. To support this transition we developed a transnational curriculum design framework that synthesises knowledge about what impacts on curriculum design. This framework aims to help academic developers communicate complex educational concepts and foster international communities of practice. It guides cyclical implementation that is focused on achieving equivalent and quality educational outcomes for students regardless of their location across the globe.  相似文献   

16.
This paper contributes to current debates about the contradictory character of approaches to learning and teaching in UK higher education by suggesting an ideal‐typical distinction between an academic orientation and an instrumental orientation. The paper suggests that these two distinctive orientations are associated with different kinds of student expectations on entry to UK higher education. Furthermore, the instrumental orientation is associated with an increasing preference within institutions for modes of programme delivery that are compatible with the instrumental tendencies of audit and surveillance. Institutions are likely to give priority to instrumental approaches not for pedagogic reasons but because they are convenient for the administration.  相似文献   

17.
Reliability is important in the academic judgements that higher education institutions pass to employers, graduate schools and other stakeholders. However, there are well-known limits to the levels of reliability that can be reached at reasonable cost and without sacrificing validity. It is argued that a systemic approach to the assessment of student learning shows how resources may be freed up to invest in securing more reliable assessments where they are desirable and might reasonably be had.  相似文献   

18.
当前高等教育自学考试存在的质量标准问题主要有:以普通高校的学术标准为参照系;用精英教育的学历标准为统一尺度来衡量自考生;以自学考试的权威性作为教育质量的唯一保证。自学考试不能再用精英教育的学术型标准和要求来衡量其质量标准,而要放在构建继续教育、终身教育体系,建立学习型社会的大背景来做长远的战略思考。为此,要构建高等教育自学考试质量标准的保障机制:以社会需求为导向,改进专业设置;增设不同类别、不同层次的自学考试主考学校;不断改革完善自学考试的考试制度;逐步实现自学考试与职业教育的有效衔接;大力发展非学历证书、职业资格证书考试制度。  相似文献   

19.
Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews with women academics based in London higher education institutions in the UK, this paper investigates the gendered nature of the prestige economy in academia. We explore how mid-career academic women strategise their career development and the opportunities and barriers they perceive, particularly in relation to the accrual of academic esteem. Concept maps were used to facilitate dialogue about career plans and provided an artefact from the interviewee’s own perspective. The analysis draws on the concept of prestige, or the indicators of esteem that help advance academic careers, against the backdrop of a higher education context which increasingly relies on quantitative data to make judgements about academic excellence. The interviews indicated that women generally feel that men access status and indicators of esteem more easily than they do. Many women also had ambivalent feelings about gaining recognition through prestige: they understood the importance of status and knew the ‘rules of the game’, but were critical of these rules and sometimes reluctant to overtly pursue prestige. The findings are valuable for understanding how women’s slow access to the highest levels of higher education institutions is shaped by the value that organisations place on individual status.  相似文献   

20.
Using the case of a secondary English department in Ontario, Canada, this article examines the constraints that academic departments face in transforming themselves from communities of practice into learning communities. This distinction between a community of practice and a learning community has taken on heightened importance as increasing curriculum standardisation and high stakes assessments further narrow the historically fragile opportunities for deep and collaborative teacher learning within the traditionally structured academic department. The paper proposes some theoretical considerations and concrete strategies to assist academic departments in overcoming constraints to learning within an era of increasing standardisation and accountability. It further explores how the international movement of educational post-standardisation promises greater opportunities for the development of teacher learning communities within academic departments.  相似文献   

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