Haydn Mathias

Assessment options in higher education

This article evaluates an initiative to introduce assessment choice within a taught unit on an undergraduate healthcare programme as a means of addressing poor performance, especially for those students diagnosed with dyslexia. Students’ perceptions of the assessment experience were sought via the use of two focus group interviews (n = 16). The article describes the effect the assessment experience had on students’ stress levels, individual learning styles and achievement. Students’ performance improved and statistical analyses indicated parity between the assessment methods offered with similar performance profiles between students with and without dyslexia. The conclusion reached is that while the introduction of assessment options may be time consuming for staff to develop, the benefits of an enhanced student‐centred approach to assessment may be well worth this investment in time. Although a limited study owing to the small sample size, the results should be of interest to those academics who are concerned with assessment and its impact on students’ achievement.

Mentoring on a Programme for New University Teachers: A partnership in revitalizing and empowering collegiality

This paper evaluates the use of subject‐based collegial mentors in an initial teacher development programme for new lecturers in a research‐intensive UK university. The use of mentors is common in such programmes but their status tends to be that of critical friend and they have little formal influence in the programme. In the programme reported, departmental mentors were accorded a higher status as collegial partners and members of the programme team who also acted as formal assessors. The rationale for their enhanced involvement was to facilitate a genuine sense of ownership and responsibility by subject departments for the initial development of their new lecturers as university teachers. The evaluation study found that formalized mentoring engendered a strong sense of collegiality and ownership by disciplinary communities of practice in the process of initial teacher development. Some of the anticipated issues, such as the potential role conflict of mentor as guide and assessor, did not arise. The longer‐term development of the use of disciplinary mentoring in the programme is discussed. Cet article évalue l’emploi de collègues‐mentors disciplinaires dans le cadre d’un programme de développement initial pour les enseignant‐es au sein d’une université de recherche située au Royaume‐Uni. L’emploi de mentors est chose commune dans le cadre de tels programmes; leur rôle tend cependant à être celui d’“ami critique”, ce qui leur accorde peu d’influence dans le cadre du programme. Dans ce cas‐ci, le mentors départementaux se sont vus accorder un statut supérieur, étant considérés comme partenaires‐collègues et membres de l’équipe du programme, devenant du coup des évaluateurs formels. Leur implication accrue visait à faciliter le développement d’un sentiment de propriété et de responsabilité par les départements disciplinaires relativement au développement initial en tant qu’enseignant‐e de leurs nouveaux membres. Cette recherche‐évaluation semble indiquer que le mentorat formalisé a engendré un fort sentiment de collégialité et de propriété par les communautés disciplinaires de pratique au sein du processus de développement initial des enseignants. Certains des problèmes anticipés, tels que le conflit potentiel causé par les rôles contradictoires de guide et d’évaluateur du mentor, ne se sont pas concrétisés. Le développement à long terme de l’emploi du mentorat disciplinaire au sein du programme est aussi abordé.

The Role of the University Head of Department

Abstract The head of department occupies a key institutional position yet the role is a complex and demanding one which is subject to pressures, conflicts and uncertainties. This paper examines aspects of the role of the head of department through the proceedings of a day conference for heads of department at one university. It highlights issues and concerns, and analyses them in terms of the cultural and organisational characteristics of universities as institutions. Among the key issues identified are: the nature of institutional management structures; relationships with the administrative centre; and the nature and definition of the head of departments role.

Strategies for Change in Higher Education: Three Political Models.

This article describes three models which give insight into the factors that promote or inhibit change in institutions of higher education: a structural model; a social model; and a personal model. Although each offers a distinctive perspective, a number of recurrent themes are identified where the models support and complement one another. The usefulness of the three models in practice is illustrated by analysing how they might help in a possible innovation - the rapid expansion of Continuing Education in a traditional university.

Lecturers as evaluators: The Birmingham experience

ABSTRACT This paper describes the origins, development and implications of the Course Evaluation Scheme which operated at the University of Birmingham between 1974 and 1978. The Scheme was an interesting example of group collaboration among lecturers to evaluate each others courses through reciprocating partnerships of teacher and evaluator and the use of a flexible combination of evaluation procedures designed to illuminate the characteristic features of each particular course. Implications for evaluation methodology, staff development and course development are discussed as a result of the accumulated experience of the Scheme.

Decisive Factors Affecting Innovation: A Case Study.

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to synthesise two models of innovation processes which seek to explain why some innovations are successful while others fail. The history of the Course Evaluation Scheme at the University of Birmingham provides a case study through which the value of the perspective derived from these models is explored.

Exploring the Role of On-line Discussion in Academic Staff Development for New Lecturers.

Web-conferencing was used within an accredited staff development programme for new lecturers. Its use was embedded within the programme and was designed, in part, to enable participants to achieve a learning outcome that required them to ‘use learning technologies that are appropriate to the learner, subject, content and level’. Using learning technologies within the programme was one approach to encourage wider engagement with learning technologies. Research was conducted to determine how web-conferencing was used; how usable it was perceived to be; views on how appropriate its use was; and on how it might be used more widely. The results indicate that although web-conferencing did enable all formally required interactions to occur within the programme, there was limited enthusiasm, either for its use or to extend its use. The paper explores tenuous links between the processes of embedding learning technologies and establishing motivation to learn about them.

Continuing Education as Innovation: Two Case Studies∗

Abstract Innovation in universities is notoriously difficult to implement in such a way as to effect stable and significant changes in values and practices. This paper uses innovation models developed specifically in the higher education context to suggest how continuing education as an innovation might be developed to optimize its likelihood of success. Furthermore, two contrasting case studies of continuing education initiatives at the Universities of Aston and Southampton are described and analysed in terms of these innovation models. The analyses highlight the interplay of factors in the emergence of each innovation, and suggest where emphasis might be placed in order to facilitate future developments. * This paper is a revised and extended version of a paper originally presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education, Goldsmiths’ College, 1985, which was published in 1986 as Continuing education: an innovation perspective, in Studies in the Education of Adults, 18,...

THE EVALUATION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHING: CONTEXT, VALUES AND INNOVATION

ABSTRACT This paper takes the view that the problems surrounding the evaluation of university teaching have more to do with the values and structures of the university system rather than of arguments as to whether or not teaching can be evaluated. Following an examination of the value, structural and interpersonal context in which university teaching takes place, an innovation persepective is discussed which explains the process of innovation in terms of the characteristics of the host system. This perspective is then used to assess the acceptability of two broad formal approaches to the evaluation of university teaching: one relating to the evaluation of teachers themselves (‘appraisal’) and the other relating to the evaluation of teaching provision (‘validation’). Although this analysis concludes that appraisal accords more closely with the values and structures of the university system, recent events indicate that universities are having to consider validation as a consquence of earlier failures to evo...

Continuing Education in Universities: An Innovation Perspective

This paper will consider continuing education in the university sector within an innovation perspective. It aims to use models of the innovation process in order to illuminate the conditions and factors which have a significant bearing on the success or failure of current continuing education initiatives. Two specific case studies of recent continuing education initiatives in British universities will be examined and evaluated in terms of the particular models of the innovation process considered.