Ratings, rankings, research evaluation: how do Schools of Education behave strategically within stratified UK higher education?

Abstract

While higher education research has paid considerable attention to the impact of both ratings and rankings on universities, less attention has been devoted to how university subunits, such as Schools of Education, are affected by such performance measurements. Anchored in a neo-institutional approach, we analyze the formation of a competitive institutional environment in UK higher education in which ratings and rankings assume a central position in promoting competition among Schools of Education (SoE). We apply the concepts of "institutional environment" and "organizational strategic actors" to the SoE to demonstrate how such university subunits articulate their qualities and respond to the institutional environment in which they are embedded-by using ratings and rankings (R&R) to compete for material and symbolical resources as well as inter-organizational and intra-organizational legitimacy. Through findings from 22 in-depth expert interviews with members of the multidisciplinary field of education and a content analysis of websites (n = 75) of SoE that participated in REF 2014, we examine the stratified environment in which SoE are embedded (1). We uncover how R&R are applied by SoE within this competitive, marketized higher education system (2). Finally, we indicate the strategic behaviors that have been triggered by the rise of R&R in a country with a highly formalized and standardized research evaluation system (3). The results show both homogenization and differentiation among SoE in their use of organizational vocabulary and the applications of R&R while simultaneously revealing strategic behavior, ranging from changes in internal practices to changes in organizational structures.

Market orientation and capacity for change in higher education performance in Indonesia

“…Interestingly, over the past two decades, there had been increased autonomy and pressure for accountability (Christensen, 2011). The growing influence of global rankings represents a new global standard for “performative accountability” (Oancea, 2008) to obtain a world-class status (Bak and Kim, 2015; Marques and Powell, 2020). Because HEIs produce “positional goods” that provide access to social prestige and income-earning (Hirsch, 1976), highly reputable HEIs could offer high-value positional goods (Marginson, 2006).…”

“…Prior studies have found that rankings force “profound transformations” (Hazelkorn, 2011) to make them more proactive about the challenges associated with reflexive transformation (Pollock et al , 2018), particularly in the context of indicators adopted and used by global ranking institutions (Brankovic, 2018). In short, rankings cause universities to implement changes ranging from internal practices to organisational structures (Dahler-Larsen, 2011; Marques and Powell, 2020).…”

How can inhabited institutionalism inform the analysis of medical education?

“…Without such conformity to external social pressures, organisations may risk resistance to, or provoke interference in, their activities. It would be very brave (or foolish) of the senior management of a medical school to ignore the current competitive institutional environment of ranking teaching and research, the marketplace of higher education, and neo‐liberal globalisation 12,13 …”

Comparative education in an age of competition and collaboration

“…Yet attempts to transform qualities into numeric forms to measure, compare, and inform decision-making reduce the quality of information. This threatens to narrow the recognition and impact of knowledge generated in diverse systems, especially as media companies convert peer review judgements into products to market for profit, such as higher education rankings (Marques et al 2017;Marques and Powell 2019). Further discipline-specific studies are needed to emphasise how research evaluation impacts the structural organisation and cognitive development of research, reinforcing stratification and standardisation.…”

“…Organizations seeking legitimacy, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, as actors, themselves engage in and manage themselves in competition with generalised others (Hasse and Krücken 2013). Given continuous and world-spanning connectivity, peer review-based ratings of research quality are converted by for-profit media companies into rankings marketed globally for profit, affecting entire higher education systems, organisations, and organisational subunits (Marques and Powell 2019). Continuous research evaluation and policy-driven research programmes distribute competitive grants via peer review at various levels, making not only educational research funding much more competitive.…”