QA Handbook

1.2.1 University Approach to Quality

Introduction

The University is committed to the drive for quality in its teaching and learning; it has drawn up a learning and teaching strategy which integrates the pursuit of quality across a range of activities – teaching, staff development, learning resources, student support services, quality monitoring and enhancement.

Rationale for Developing a Learning & Teaching Strategy

During the 1990s, the University grew significantly in terms of student recruitment, range of disciplines and mission with the merger of Winchester School of Art, development of the School of Ocean and Earth Science at its dock-side campus, expansion of health-related studies, and the merger with former La Sainte Union College of Higher Education, reopened as University of Southampton New College, to deliver a broader range of routes into higher education. During this period of expansion, the University has established itself in the top flight of research institutions with a reputation for excellence which draws students and researchers from all over the world.

The University recognises that the pace and scope of change will continue and that to maintain and improve its position as an internationally respected institution, it needs to adopt a strategic stance towards the operation of all its activities.

A major challenge will be to recognise and make connections between different activities and strategies – allocation of resources, collaboration and partnerships, curriculum development, research directions, widening participation, student support and guidance, staff development. The pressures on time and resources are so great, that improvements in the coordination of activities are essential if we are to maintain the high standards of quality in research and teaching.

Vision

The University is committed to providing a learning environment, which is based on the following key principles:

• Learning environment
  

The University is committed to a learning environment in which all students will be able to fulfil their full intellectual potential. The University’s undergraduate and postgraduate students will be supported so that they acquire the knowledge and skills of their discipline as well as the generic learning attributes which will prepare them for graduate employment and lifelong learning. The University will work with its partners in education, the professions, business and the community to create a safe environment that is stimulating, creative and tolerant of diversity.

• Focus on inclusive approaches to learning

The University’s approach to inclusive learning is to provide programmes which are equally accessible to the full cultural diversity of its student body, and which are alert to the variety of skills and attributes which students bring to their learning.

• High quality teaching within an active research environment
  

The University will continue to offer a curriculum which communicates the findings of recent research, and which meets the professional standards of its external accrediting bodies. The commitment is to an ethos of curiosity-driven inquiry and intellectual excitement on the part of students and staff.

• Extend the professional development of its teachers and those who support teaching

The University is committed to raising professional standards in teaching, learning and assessment; it will support all staff who deliver teaching, including those on part-time contracts, with appropriate induction and development opportunities; it will recognise and reward high quality teaching.

• Flexibility in approaches to learning and teaching

The University will seek to deliver teaching in a variety of modes which include the teacher-led and student-centred; it will build on the expertise and enthusiasm of academic schools and academic support groups in developing a greater use of resource based learning and will encourage students to make use of the full range of learning resources, including library-based and communication and information technology (C and IT), appropriate to each discipline.

• Quality assurance and enhancement
  

The University will continue to review its monitoring of quality in learning and teaching to ensure that all who teach and support learning are working at the best possible level.

Relationship between Quality and Learning

All universities throughout the world are being assessed for their quality in teaching and research. Definitions of quality in learning and teaching are many and varied. Staff are often concerned that more time is spent on how quality is monitored rather than what it is that defines quality.

Definition of Quality

Differing conceptualisations of quality in learning have been grouped into a much quoted typology of five discrete but inter-related ways of thinking about quality by Harvey and Green (1996).

Quality as exceptional

• as perfection or consistency
  
• as fitness for purpose
  
• as value for money
  
• as transformation

In Appendix 1 below we provide a fuller discussion of these approaches which Schools may wish to draw on when they compile their Learning and Teaching Strategy or their self-evaluation documents for academic review.

Different disciplines may define quality differently to suit their mission but the following principles are ones which the University would expect all Schools to support.

• The focus for quality is on the attributes of graduates and/how our teaching prepares them for the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
  
  
• Quality monitoring is not about complying with bureaucratic procedures; its focus is concerned with improvement and enhancement of student learning.
  
  
• In every class, some students learn while others do not. Students make sense of the same task in different ways and approach learning differently. When asked about learning, student see it in the following ways:
  • Learning as a quantitative increase in knowledge; that is, learning as ‘knowing a lot’.
    
  • Learning as memorising; that is, learning as storing information that can be reproduced.
    
  • Learning as applying, skills or information.
    
  • Learning as understanding, making sense or abstracting meaning.
    
  • Learning as interpreting and understanding something in a different way.
    

Learning involves comprehending the world by reinterpreting knowledge.

Source (Säljo 1979 in Changing Academic Work: Developing the Learning University) E Martin Society for Research into HE/Open University 1999 (see CLT Library).

• Our task in providing a curriculum and teaching is to ensure that our methods of teaching and assessment take account of different learning styles and include a variety of modes so that the maximum number of students benefit from what we offer.
  
  
• Quality enhancement is about planning procedures and improvements in the context of a School strategic plan which is reviewed annually and is updated in the light of colleagues’ experience and professional judgements as teachers.
  
  
• Involving students and other significant stakeholders in the School’s planning and evaluation of Learning and Teaching is a key element in enhancing students’ learning. Giving students the opportunity to comment on the education they are receiving is an important way of getting them to be more independent and responsible for their own achievements.

Definitions of Good Teaching

What ‘good teaching’ involves has been debated endlessly but a summary of research reveals that when students are asked, they repeatedly emphasise the same qualities:

• enthusiasm for and knowledge of the disciplinary matter
  
• regular and timely feedback on their work
  
• appropriate assessment which tests that which has to be known
  
• clear goals from which students can understand what they need to know
  
• appropriate workloads that don’t overload with content but allow time to explore and engage with the topics
  
• a capacity to engage students with the mystery and importance of key ideas balanced with the ability to give a clear explanation of these ideas.
  

	Table 1.  Relationship between Quality and Standards
	Quality	Definition	Academic Standards Definition		Standards of Competence	Service Standards
			The demonstrated ability to meet specified level of academic attainment. For pedagogy, the ability of students to be able to do those things designated as appropriate at a given level of education. Usually, the measured competence of an individual in attaining specified (or implied) course aims and objectives, operationalized via performance on assessed pieces of work. For research, the ability to undertake effective scholarship or produce new knowledge, which is assessed via peer recognition.		Demonstration that a specified level of ability on a range of competencies has been achieved. Competencies may include general transferable skills required by employers; academic (‘higher level’) skills implicit or explicit in the attainment of degree status or in a post-graduation academic apprenticeship; particular abilities congruent with induction into a profession.	Are measures devised to assess identified elements of the service provided against specified benchmarks? Elements assessed include activities of service providers and facilities within which the service takes place. Benchmarks specified in ‘contracts’ such as student charters tend to be quantified and restricted to measurable items. Post hoc measurement of customer opinions (satisfaction) are used as indicators of service provision. Thus, service standards in higher education parallel consumer standards.
	Exceptional	A traditional concept linked to the idea of ‘excellence’, usually operationalized as exceptionally high standards of academic achievement. Quality is achieved if the standards are surpassed.	Emphasis on summative assessment of knowledge and, implicitly, some ‘higher-level’ skills. Implicit normative gold-standard. Comparative evaluation of research output. Élitism: the presupposition of a need to maintain pockets of high quality and standards in a mass education system.		Linked to professional competence; emphasis mainly on traditional demarcation between knowledge and (professional) skills	Input-driven assumptions of resource-linked service/facilities. Good facilities, well-qualified staff, etc. ‘guarantee’ service standards. Reluctance to expose professional (teaching) competence to scrutiny.
	Perfection/ Consistency	Focuses on process and sets specifications that it aims to meet. Quality in this sense is summed up by the interrelated ideas of zero defects and getting things right first time.	Meaningless, except for an idealistic notion that peer scrutiny of standards or quality will be undertaken in a consistent manner.		Expectation of a minimum prescribed level of professional competence. Problem in assessing for 'zero defects'.	Primary relevance in ensuring service-standard based quality - mainly in relation to administrative processes (accuracy and reliability of record keeping, timetables, coursework arrangements, etc.)
	Fitness for purpose	Judges quality in terms of the extent to which a product or service meets its stated purpose. The purpose may be customer-defined to meet requirements or (in education) institution-defined to reflect institutional mission (or course objectives).	Theoretically, standards should relate to the defined objectives that specify the purpose of the course (or institution). Summative assessment should be criteria referenced, although as purposes often include a comparative element (e.g., in mission statements) these are mediated by norm-referenced criteria.		Explicit specification of skills and abilities related to objectives. Evidence required to, at least, identify threshold standards. Professional competence primarily assessed in terms of threshold minimums against professional-body requirements for practice.	The purpose involves the provision of a service. Thus, process is assessed in terms of (minimum) standards for the purpose - usually in terms of teaching competence, the link between teaching and research, student support (academic and non-academic) and so on.
	Value for money	Assesses quality in terms of return on investment or expenditure. At the heart of the value-for-money approach in education is the notion of accountability. Public services, including education, are expected to be accountable to the funders. Increasingly, students are also considering their own investment in higher education in value-for-money terms.	Maintenance or improvement of academic outcomes (graduate standards and research output) for the same (or declining) unit of resource. That is, ensure greater efficiency. Similarly, improve the process-experience of students. Concern that efficiency gains work in the opposite direction to quality improvement. Provide students with an academic experience (qualification, training, personal development) to warrant the investment.		Maintain or improve the output of generally 'employable' graduates for the same unit of resource. Similarly, ensure a continual or increasing supply of recruits to post-graduation professional bodies. Provide students with an educational experience that increases competence, in relation to career advancement, which ensures a return on investment.	Customer satisfaction analyses (student, employers, funding bodies) to assess process and outcomes. Students and other stakeholders are seen as 'paying customers'. Customer charters specify minimum levels of service (and facilities) that students (parents, employers) can expect.
	Transform- ation	Sees quality as a process of change, which in higher education adds value to students through their learning experience. Education is not a service for a customer but an ongoing process of transformation of the participant. This leads to two notions of transformative quality in education: enhancing the consumer and empowering the consumer.	Assessment of students in terms of the standard of acquisition of transformative knowledge and skills (analysis, critique, synthesis, innovation) against explicit objectives. Focus on adding value rather than gold standards. As transformation involves empowerment, formative as well as summative assessment is required. Transformative research standards are assessed in terms of impact in relation to objectives.		Provide students with enhanced skills and abilities that empower them to continue learning and to engage effectively with the complexities of the 'outside' world. Assessment of students in terms of the acquisition of transformative skills (analysis, critique, synthesis, innovation) and the transformative impact they have post-graduation.	Emphasis on specification and assessment of standards of service and facilities that enable the process of student learning and the acquisition of transformative abilities.
	Source: Harvey and Knight (1996) Transforming Higher Education, SRHE and OU Press Available in CLT Library Building 2, Level 4.