Lewis Elton

Research and Teaching: Conditions for a positive link

It has become increasingly clear over the past decade that the question of a positive link between research and teaching has no simple or general answer. At the same time, there may well be a positive link under particular conditions. This paper argues that a positive link can be due primarily to the processes, rather than the outcomes, inherent in research and teaching, and that, in particular, student-centred teaching and learning processes are intrinsically favourable towards a positive link, while more traditional teaching methods may at best lead to a positive link for the most able students, who in the perception of traditional academics are, of course, the future university teachers. This finding, in turn, leads to a rational explanation of the persistent myth of a general positive link. Finally, it is argued that pedagogic research and its outcomes could play an important role in strengthening the link.

The UK Research Assessment Exercise: Unintended Consequences

It is argued that many of the consequences that have followed successive Research Assessment Exercises (RAEs) have been unintended and a high proportion of these, particularly the longer term ones, are deleterious or potentially so. Of these, the most serious is almost certainly the competitive, adversarial and punitive spirit evoked by the RAE which is clearly inherent in it. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of long term consequences that, by the time that they become apparent, they are usually beyond remedying. It is therefore essential, now that there is to be a more fundamental review of the RAE, to be aware of potentially deleterious consequences, so as to avoid them before they become apparent, let alone researchable.

Research and teaching: symbiosis or conflict

Existing research into correlations between teaching and research in higher education is criticized for its inadequacies, which readily account for the uncertainty of the results obtained. Arguments are then presented to show that for such a correlation to exist it is necessary for it to be mediated through scholarship. The extent to which this effect is subject dependent is discussed. Finally the conclusion is reached that there is a strong case for continuing the present practice of pursuing teaching and research in the same institution, to the mutual benefit of both.

Leadership and management in higher education

ABSTRACT Different models of academic governance and the way that these lead to different roles for management and leadership are discussed, with particular stress on the cybernetic model. The discussion is based on the experience of universities and polytechnics in the United Kingdom over the past 10 years. Both have successfully met the immediate threats and difficulties that faced them during that period, but they have done this through increased managerialism, which is the very opposite of the essentially collegial cybernetic model. There is a distinct possibility that the short-term success of the institutions may in consequence have been bought at the expense of their more long-term well-being.

Dimensions of excellence in university teaching

Abstract The paper analyses the concept of ‘teaching excellence’ and attempts to give it precision. In the process, it is found that the lack of precision is due essentially to the multidimensionality of the concept, which has led to serious confusion in any attempt to reduce its dimensions to a single one. The dimensions are of two kinds; first, classificatory, distinguishing the three levels of institution, department and individual, and second, substantive, describing the different ways in which each of the three levels can exhibit excellence. Ways of recognizing and rewarding individual excellence in its different dimensions are then discussed and recommendations are made for action. It is argued that under present circumstances, excellence at institutional and departmental levels are almost unattainable, but that this is not so at individual level. Finally, it is noteworthy that recognizing and rewarding teaching excellence at all three levels is found to be significantly different from corresponding...

Strategies to enhance student motivation: A conceptual analysis

ABSTRACT The traditional view of academics is that student learning should go beyond and even ignore assessment. The paper demonstrates that students are unlikely ever to have held this view and that academics have gradually come to accept this. There follows an analysis of Herzbergs motivation at work theory and how this may be applied to student learning. This leads to an understanding of the relationship between motivation for learning and motivation for assessment and points to ways that assessment may be expected to enhance learning. Strategies are developed for increasing the kind of learning motivation favoured by academics, but an argument is also made for the right of students to determine their own motivational priorities. Finally it is shown that the world of work may have something to learn from the world of learning. The conclusions are reinforced through the use of catastrophe theory to model change.

Student motivation and achievement.

ABSTRACT Recent work on student learning has identified three main dimensions of study strategy—personal meaning, reproducing, achieving. University teachers commonly favour the first, deplore the second and tolerate the third. This paper argues that teachers can and should use definite teaching strategies available to them which will enable students to use all three study strategies in support of each other and not in conflict with each other. The curricular consequences of such an approach and its effect on teacher and student attitudes are discussed.

Using the online environment in assessment for learning: a case‐study of a web‐based course in primary care

The development of e‐learning has opened up new opportunities for innovation in assessment practices in higher education. This descriptive case study draws upon staff and student experiences of teaching and learning on a web‐based Masters programme in primary health care to explore how specific features of the online environment can be exploited to promote assessment as part of learning. It begins by identifying different ways of conceptualising assessment in order to highlight the fundamental value choices facing those developing and delivering assessment systems, and then describes our own approach to assessment. In the second part of the paper we explore two key ways in which the online learning environment enables assessment to contribute to learning—through its potential to support collaborative learning, and through facilitating high quality feedback between teachers and students.

Are UK degree standards going up, down or sideways?

ABSTRACT It is argued that the most likely explanation of the upward drift in degree results over the past two decades is that the assessment instrument has been changed, through the inclusion of coursework (so that it now does not measure what it measured before), although the degree boundaries have been left unchanged. If this is so, then the effect reflects bad practice on the part of examiners rather than changes in student achievement. To discover whether there have been changes in student achievement requires a comparison of student performance with fixed standards. This article discusses the extent to which this can be achieved in practice and proposes appropriate means for achieving it.

Accountability in higher education: The danger of unintended consequences *

Higher education in Britain, which until recently had been allowed to conduct its affairs with minimal governmental direction, is now being subjected to increasing pressures resulting from governmental policy decisions, especially regarding public accountability. Such decisions have the effect of substantially changing social systems and frequently lead to unintended consequences, and a number of examples from higher education are given which illustrate this statement. These are analysed by means of a simple model of change. This model is then used to suggest a form of accountability based on a sharing of both power and responsibility between government and universities, which may be expected to reduce the probability of unintended consequences.