Teaching and Learning: A Journey from the Margins to the Core in European Higher Education Policy

Sin, Cristina

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20877-0_22

Cited by 21 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In other words, internal guarantees of quality have not led to improved pedagogical teacher training. In the context of the recent emphasis on teachers' pedagogical development in European higher education policies (Sin, 2015), This impact represents a poorly researched area (Harvey and Williams, 2010) that has generated diverse results.…”

Section: Perceptions Of How Quality Assurance Reforms Have Improved Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking stock of changes in quality assurance in Portuguese higher education between 2007 and 2015

Sin¹,

Tavares²,

Amaral³

2017

Annual Review

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This article documents the changes that occurred in Portugal after the adoption of the new higher education quality assurance framework in 2007. The most obvious results of the new higher education evaluation and accreditation agency's actions can be observed primarily at the level of teaching-program provision. Accreditation activities resulted in a 40% reduction in the supply of the courses on offer between 2009(Sin et al., 2016. This reduction was felt mainly in private institutions, which confirms that substandard programmes were more common in the private sector. Another consequence was that institutions started to take a more formal and systematic approach to quality by implementing internal quality assurance systems. These systems were driven by a logic of accountability rather than by genuine self-reflection aiming to engage all those involved and which would have led to improvement. Therefore, it appears that most academics perceive internal quality assurance to have had negative effects on teaching and learning, mainly because of increased bureaucracy, while the positive effects are still perceived as being relatively modest.

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Section: Perceptions Of How Quality Assurance Reforms Have Improved Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking stock of changes in quality assurance in Portuguese higher education between 2007 and 2015

Sin¹,

Tavares²,

Amaral³

2017

Annual Review

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“…LOs have emerged as an increasingly widespread and influential feature in contemporary higher education Sin, 2014). In Europe in general, and in the two case study countries, England and Norway, this is most obvious in LO's constitutive role within European and national qualifications frameworks and the Bologna process.…”

Section: The Increasing Salience and Potential Influence Of Los In Eumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of the publications approach the analysis of LOs more in terms of their role as a policy tool (Publication 1) or as a pedagogic intervention (Publication 4). However, overall the project approached LOs as a 'policy object' set out by Sin (2014) as a way of designating and investigating specific areas of policy embedded in wider agendas or reforms. In this case LOs are understood as an area of policy we can investigate as a 'discrete preoccupation' embedded in the wider Bologna agenda and reforms.…”

Section: Learning Outcomes As a 'Policy Object'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this case LOs are understood as an area of policy we can investigate as a 'discrete preoccupation' embedded in the wider Bologna agenda and reforms. Sin (2014) notes that the Bologna process involves many actions and instruments (including ECTS, degree frameworks and LOs) whose meaning, expression, and influence are linked through overlapping policy agendas but also inevitably linked through enactment. Understanding the enactment of any one of these 'policy objects' requires us to consider both the ways actors understand the object, and how these understandings 'translate into enactment' (Sin, 2014, p. 436).…”

Section: Learning Outcomes As a 'Policy Object'mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shaping Perceptions of a Policy Instrument: The Political–Administrative Formation of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Norway and England

et al. 2016

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This thesis explores learning outcomes (LOs) as a prominent policy and feature of European higher education (HE) reforms. Widely used to describe the learning expected at different levels of education, LO's emerging role in degree-level practices is explored via interviews with teachers, leaders, and students, from eight degree-programme cases at English and Norwegian universities. These evidence LOs being interpreted and used in planning, teaching, learning and management. The four publications included in this thesis provide detailed accounts of LO practices on various levels, in applications spanning course development, teaching reform and quality assurance. LOs are shown to influence practice, disputing views of them as a purely symbolic or formal policy. However, their application and influence are complex and ambiguous. They can support clear, constructive approaches to planning and teaching, but are also perceived as a problematic, potentially counter-productive way to communicate about learning. Their role in management is still emerging, but they appear to create new opportunities for oversight and steering of teaching, and their growing role in quality assurance seems to create pressure for the development of more specific, measurable LOs. The analysis highlights the challenge of reconciling flexible, open 'process' forms of LOs developed for teaching with concrete, measurement-focused 'product' LOs needed for oversight or comparison applications. The enactment process presented here is incompatible with simple 'top down' or 'bottom up' perspectives on policy formation, evidencing local adaptation and variety, and examples of highly standardised or rule-based practices. An argument is developed that explaining these findings requires a deliberate engagement with the mess and multiplicity which characterise LOs. A set of metaphors are developed to offer an alternative view of LOs as policy nets, knots and tangles. These convey multiplicity and complexity, while offering new ways to look at relationships between divergent LO forms and practices, explanations for the enactment processes identified, and a way to highlight the key choices HE actors and policy makers confront as they continue to enact LOs in universities.

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“…The Communiqué is significant for those researching teaching and learning in higher education because it states that "Enhancing the quality and relevance of teaching and learning is the main mission of the EHEA" (p. 2). This is a major development given that teaching and learning did not even feature in the original discussions of the Bologna process (see [Sin, 2015]). …”

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confidence: 99%

Why Would Going to University Change Anyone? The Challenges of Capturing the Transformative Power of Higher Education in Comparisons of Quality

Ashwin¹

2016

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Abstract. In this paper, I examine the tensions between the transformational potential undergraduate degrees and ways we have of measuring and comparing the quality of those degrees nationally and internationally. I argue that what makes higher education a higher form of education is the relations that students develop to knowledge through the study of particular bodies of disciplinary and professional knowledge. Given, this I argue that this needs to be central to the ways in which we understand and measure the quality of an undergraduate education. I review current ways of measuring quality and argue that they do not capture these aspects of an undergraduate education and so are not fit for purpose. In conclusion I argue that higher education researchers have a responsibility to develop more valid ways of comparing the quality of undergraduate degrees.

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Teaching and Learning: A Journey from the Margins to the Core in European Higher Education Policy

Cited by 21 publications

References 11 publications

Taking stock of changes in quality assurance in Portuguese higher education between 2007 and 2015

Taking stock of changes in quality assurance in Portuguese higher education between 2007 and 2015

Shaping Perceptions of a Policy Instrument: The Political–Administrative Formation of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Norway and England

Why Would Going to University Change Anyone? The Challenges of Capturing the Transformative Power of Higher Education in Comparisons of Quality

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