The Continuous Learning Framework: Applying accountability for widespread organisational change

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This article explores the current evaluation education program opportunities in the Australian higher education market and identifies potential research areas to inform pathways for future investment. Findings from our initial scoping phase are provided as a prelude to future work required in this space. The overarching research question investigates whether there is an opportunity to deliver further evaluation education programs in Australian higher education. Emerging from this question are three objectives: (a) to determine the current landscape of Australian university evaluation education program offerings; (b) to gain an understanding of the evaluation education discourse articulated within six selected evaluation journals and (c) to consider whether evaluation is a viable and meaningful discipline within higher education programs. An action research approach was adopted commencing with a benchmarking activity of Australian university offerings, followed by a bibliometric analysis of six evaluation journals, and concluding with a rapid scan of the literature. The selected methodologies reveal a potential gap in the higher education market, with the literature identifying inconsistent and mismatched programs while emphasising the need to invest in evaluation education. This article seeks to stimulate debate about formal higher education qualifications in evaluation and highlights the importance of potential future curriculum structure that can offer evaluators value, utility and growth.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scoping recent investment in evaluation education in Australian universities

Quadrelli

Staheli

Cook-Watkins

et al. 2022

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“…This article forms part of a special issued for the journal and is based on the theoretical model Continuous Learning Framework and its four elements of quality Accountability, Improvement, Performance and Investment (Alderman, 2014; 2022, this issue). Therefore, the application of the performance element from the Continuous Learning Framework has offered the University of Southern Queensland increased insight and objectivity when reviewing existing and new academic programs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance through the lens of evaluation: How to stretch evaluative thinking with strategic decision-making tools

Harris

Alderman

2022

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Australian higher education continues to be plagued with decreases in funding and increases in regulation. This is leading to a reality within many universities where quality alone is not enough to consider academic programs viable and sustainable. Today, universities compete fiercely for students, as increasing or retaining market share is required to remain financially sound. Universities usually make these difficult decisions through an analysis of internal student data as a metric of performance. Factors such as declining student enrolments, high attrition rates, low progression rates and poor student feedback would typically strike university executives as alarming; however, this is often not the full picture. This process can often become political and not grounded in evidence-based informed decision-making, as strategic decision-making to reduce academic programs may have direct impact on academic employment. Moreover, these analyses often lack independent evaluation and consideration of the broader environment. This can lead to tensions between faculty and university administration, which may lead to political outcomes guided by passionate academic debate rather than strategic evidence-based decision-making. This theoretical article outlines how an internal evaluation team can contribute to this exercise to stretch evaluative thinking by applying a range of strategic decision-making tools to evaluate academic program performance.

Course enhancement conversations: A holistic and collaborative evaluation approach to quality improvement in higher education

Forbes

Murphy

Alderman

2022

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This practice article describes the use of collaborative evaluation for institutional improvement leading to continuous learning at a regional university in Australia. The University of Southern Queensland’s Academic Quality Framework (2019–2022) was developed in response to external drivers to improve practices relating to the comprehensive and systematic analysis of academic data. One aspect of the response was to introduce ‘course enhancement conversations’, which were a collaboration between the central Academic Quality Unit and academic staff, including course teams and learning and teaching leaders within schools and faculties. A feature of these conversations was the use of sentinel rather than performance indicators of course (not teaching) quality to prompt the holding of conversations. Conversations were conducted in a spirit of constructive collaboration, where the shared goal was to support course teams to deliver an outstanding student experience. Through adopting a collaborative approach to evaluation, Academic Quality Unit staff were evaluation champions who gradually acculturated academic staff and learning and teaching leaders to evaluative thinking and data-informed decision-making. Issues brought to light during these conversations have informed changes in practice at the university level, including the development of a new evaluation procedure to embed best-practice monitoring and evaluation across all levels of curriculum delivery.