Ecological Teaching Evaluation vs the Datafication of Quality: Understanding Education with, and Around, Data

Abstract

Current evaluation of higher education programmes is driven primarily by economic concerns, with a resulting imbalance towards the summative assessment of teaching and away from faculty development. These agendas are advanced through datafication, in which the transformation of social and material activity into digital data is producing a narrow, instrumental view of education. Taking a postdigital perspective on contemporary practices of evaluation outlined in higher education literature, we argue for an ecological view, in which evaluation must take account of those aspects of teaching, learning, and educational context, missing from digital data. We position quality as distributed across teacher, student, institution and context, arguing for the crossfertilization of diverse kinds of data and non-datafied understandings, along with greater involvement of teachers and students in ways that enhance their agency, and develop their evaluative judgement of the quality of educational practices. We conclude that datafied practices can complement expert judgement when situated within a trusting, formative environment, and informed by an understanding of both pedagogy and technology, and clarity of educational purpose.

Raising Regional Academic Voices (Alongside Data) in Higher Education (HE) Debate

“…Hayes 2019a). As such, they call for analytics that are part of a wider, ecological view of education, where relationships and holistic conceptions of practice are valued above individual variables (Goodyear and Carvalho 2019), and where it is acknowledged that metrics do not capture everything that is important (Fawns et al 2020). It is here that we suggest that audible regional debate has an integral part to play.…”

“…By definition then, no direct links can now easily be drawn between a framework once aimed at improving the learning experiences of students through reflexive teaching practice, which has been reappropriated to support 'neoliberal "carrot and stick" performance review policies aimed at improving the skill level of the workforce and/or rooting out underperformers' (Warnes 2020). Fawns et al (2020) point out that many practices are not adequately captured in data that relies on teachers' and students' activities conforming to an anticipated model. They suggest instead that a balance of data, evidence, dialogue, and expertise is necessary.…”

“…They suggest instead that a balance of data, evidence, dialogue, and expertise is necessary. Furthermore, within their 'ecological' view of HE institutions, rather than considering the performance of individuals in isolation, evaluation can also look at policies, systems and environments, and how these support and constrain educational practice (Goodyear and Carvalho 2019;Fawns et al 2020;S. Hayes 2019a).…”

“…It is here that we suggest that audible regional debate has an integral part to play. Fawns et al (2020) emphasise the importance of dialogues between teachers and students to make sense of how the formal curriculum intertwines with informal, extra-curricular activity and emergent sites of learning. They suggest that in engaging in dialogue (through workshops, interviews, and other events) with stakeholders, including teaching and administrative staff, students, and the wider community, a values-led vision for universities can be furthered (Fawns et al 2020).…”

A Postdigital Exploration of Online Postgraduate Learning in Healthcare Professionals: A Horizontal Conception

“…Reductionist standardization of quality by what is perceived as easily quantifiable means, focusing on student satisfaction and outcome measures as instrumental metrics, miss the potential value of the collaborative elements as reported here. This ecological, activity-based framework addresses some of the deficits common in more instrumental approaches (Fawns et al forthcoming 2020). Considering, for example, the value of the collaborative nature of part-time, postgraduate study as described here both in terms of academic programme development and on longer-term outcomes, as practiced by graduates in the workplace offers such a holistic approach.…”