V International Summer School will focus on the inequalities in higher education as well as the problematisation of the role of higher education in reproducing social inequalities. Participation in higher education has been increasing rapidly over last decades, but social equity has not been achieved. Numerous studies around the world show persistent inequalities in access and participation in higher education shaped by social background. Gains in widening access, especially in systems with high participation rates, are undermined by the increasing stratification of higher education institutions and societies. These challenges call for re-thinking, conceptually and socio-politically, the role higher education has in a modern society.

Summer School faculty and participants will discuss:

• key conceptual approaches to the analysis of the relationships between higher education and social inequality (including regional, gender and other inequalities; its global dimension);
• the roles of the state, society and markets in shaping social inequalities and stratification of higher education systems;
• various national models for addressing inequalities in society and education;
• under which conditions higher education can make a difference in equalizing social opportunities;
• higher education’s contribution to social solidarity and social wellbeing.

Confirmed faculty of the Summer School: Isak Froumin (Institute of Education, HSE), Simon Marginson (Institute of Education, UCL), Pedro Teixeira (University of Porto), Jussi Välimaa (University of Jyvaskyla), Po Yang (Peking University).

The deadline for applications is March 5, 2017.

Further information on summer school webpage.

A central aim of the centre is to develop policy tools for robust but flexible identification of research quality at all levels. Three key aims for the project include following:

In conjunction with the project, the Department of Political Science at University of Oslo has announced a PhD position. Applicants must submit a project description of up to 3000 words, outlining a precise research topic, specific problems to be studied, sources of data to be used, the choice of scientific theory and method, and a realistic schedule that details how the project will be completed within the fellowship period. The R-QUEST project description should be consulted for information on e.g. available data sources.

Requirements: the applicant must have a Master’s degree in Political Science or a closely related discipline, with at least 30 ECTS thesis, demonstrate training in quantitative and qualitative methods as well as top grades and a high quality thesis. Read more about the requirements here.

Deadline for applicants: 31st of January

Read more about application requirements and procedures here. 

Jelena Brankovic (Bielefeld University and Ghent University)

This guest entry is written by Jelena Brankovic. Jelena is a Research Associate at Bielefeld University (Germany) and a PhD Candidate at Ghent University (Belgium). She is also a HEEM master programme graduate. Currently she is working on university responses to status dynamics and competition in higher education. 

You can follow Jelena on Twitter: @jelena3121

Universities have been forming associations for more than a century now. Among some of the oldest examples of such ventures are, for instance, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the US, established as early as in 1899, the Rectors’ Conference of Swiss Universities (est. 1904), or the Association of Commonwealth Universities (1913). In principle, an association is established by two or more universities which have something in common, which could be either some specific characteristic, such as religious affiliation, ownership structure, or, perhaps, disciplinary focus; or, more often, a shared geographic, political, cultural or linguistic border. Or both. Think of examples such as the Association for European Life Science Universities, Association of Universities in Portuguese Speaking Countries, Japan Association of Private Universities and Colleges, or, for example, Association of Universities Entrusted to the Society of Jesus in Latin-America.

Associations are many and their number has increased over time. They can be regional, national and international. In addition to the level or field in which they operate, we can also distinguish between, on the one hand, those which are there to represent interests of the university institution in a particular region, such as right to autonomy and well-known academic freedoms of its members, and, on the other, those which are tied by some additional characteristic or cause, such as, for instance, the already mentioned religious orientation. To distinguish, we could call the former generalist and the latter specialist.

Any of this is hardly news. However, in recent years a particular type of university associations seems to be gaining in popularity, both in national contexts and internationally. Unlike the most commonly found type of specialist associations which seek to differentiate in a more functional or horizontal fashion, this type is made up of vertically differentiating – or status-driven – university associations. These associations are characterised by high status of their members, claims to superiority in terms of their quality and – typically – exclusivity when it comes to membership. In other words, they are invite-only clubs of the small elite at the apex of the respective hierarchy of universities. Think of the Russell Group in the UK, Group of Eight in Australia, League of European Research Universities (LERU), Japanese RU11 and you get the picture.

Here comes the interesting part: although their member universities are among the oldest institutions in their respective countries and beyond, their decision to join forces under a shared umbrella is of relatively recent origin. Out of 17 such associations identified to be currently active, 15 have been established after 1991 and as many as 8 in the last decade. The most recent additions to this club of elite clubs are German U15, African Research Universities Alliance, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, Aurora and CE7 – the 7 “respected” universities from Central and Eastern Europe. To make things more interesting, in 2013, several of these associations, led by the European LERU, decided to “step up their game” and work towards something called Global Council of Research-Intensive Universities.

One question a higher education researcher may ask here would be: what is it about the conditions under which universities nowadays operate that pushes them to form status-based associations? Although higher education fields have always been de facto hierarchical, associations formed explicitly to claim a status-based category are a relatively novel phenomenon. On the other hand, if we look at other empirical settings studied by scholars, such dynamics are not unheard of: high-status organisations tend to be more concerned with their actual status as such, especially when the status order is contested and uncertainty about “who is who” in terms of quality and reputation is growing. In circumstances of intensified competition, for instance, high-status organisations are more likely to join their forces in order to amplify their individual efforts at preserving their incumbent position. Certainly, rankings and ratings, but also national policies and initiatives, play a very important role in fueling competition for status and reputation. And while “excellence,” “world-class” and other widely diffused myths nowadays in fashion continue to inhabit mission statements of an ever growing number of universities worldwide, an expanding – yet still tiny – elite is busy working its way to make sure the rest don’t catch up.

Another question, perhaps more likely to be asked by governments, policy makers and universities themselves, would be: what could be the long-term (unintended) consequences of such (re-)positioning for both national and global higher education dynamics? Is this a phenomenon to be closely followed and responded to, or should we just disregard it as another passing fad?

One thing is, however, certain: fad or not, universities, but also policy makers, appear to be increasingly responsive to these developments. They respond to them by placing things like status and reputation on top of their agendas, by investing considerable resources in these associations (and in competition for status in general), or by privileging some universities over others because of their club membership. Again, not unheard of in other sectors. But, should this detail alone – that universities are in this respect becoming more like other organisations – reassure or alarm us? I would say it’s certainly not the former.

University Civic Engagement: What Does It Mean To Be An Engaged University?

Presenter: Dr. Bojana Culum (University of Rijeka, Croatia)

Bojana Culum
(University of Rijeka, Croatia)

Abstract for the seminar:

Civic engagement refers to the ways in which citizens participate in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape the community’s (better) future, through both political and non-political processes. Civic engagement is considered to be central to the public purpose of higher education and essential to the student experience, empowering students to become active and socially responsible citizens in a democratic society. However, in the context of major societal changes and challenges, it is argued that publicly-funded universities have to move beyond creating such engaged experiences only for students and that they have a civic duty to engage with wider society on the local, national and global scales, and to do so in a manner which links the social to the economic spheres. There are many ways to live our commitment to community and civic engagement, from big impacts to small decisions. This seminar will reflect on research in the field as well as critics and serve as a platform for discussion on what does it mean for contemporary universities to embrace civic engagement and become active and socially responsible institutional citizen(s) and caring (institutional) neighbours – how to foster meaningful connections and engagement between universities and communities to effect positive change in society.

Bojana Culum works as assistant professor at the University of Rijeka’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Pedagogy, Croatia. Her research focuses on university third and civic mission, university civic and community engagement (the concept of an engaged university) and changes in academic profession with particular interest for early career (female) researchers’ socialisation into academia. She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Portland State University, USA, during the academic year 2015/2016.

Listen without the Flashplayer

View the slides of the presentation here. 

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The recording has been reposted with permission from the research group.

View the research group homepage here.

From November 20 until November 24 the Center for Higher Education Trust (CHET) organized a workshop in the context of the HERANA research project in Cape Town. During this meeting representatives of seven flagship universities from different Sub-Saharan African countries discussed together with a group of international experts the institutional developments of the different universities on their road to becoming research-led universities.

HERANA workshop participants

The workshop started out with a presentation of the activities of CHET by its director Nico Cloete, which was followed by a short lecture from Peter Maassen, professor of higher education at the Department of Education at the University of Oslo, who presented findings from a research project that investigated the characteristics of research flagship universities in Europe highlighting commonalities but also differences between several successful institutions. Afterwards, Åse Gornitzka, professor of political science at the University of Oslo, discussed organizational change processes in higher education with an emphasis on explanations from organizational theories why change processes can be slow, unpredictable and sometimes even fail. Professor Leo Goedegebuure, director at the LH Martin Institute in Melbourne, presented to the participants recent developments in higher education in South-East Asia and offered some conclusions on institutional factors that allowed some universities in Asia to strengthen their research function and catch up with global developments. His presentation was followed by a reflection from Fred Hayward on his work during the last years for USAID supporting the reform of higher education in Afghanistan in which he also highlighted some common challenges between Africa and Afghanistan.

CHET director Nico Cloete at the HERANA workshop

The second half of the day was dedicated to insights from African experts. Ernest Aryeetey, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana and the Secretary General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), started out by offering some reflections on challenges that he experienced as rector of a university that works towards becoming a research-led institution and how he managed to circumvent some of them during his term as rector. In a final round of reflections three members of the board of CHET Teboho Moja, Lidia Brito and Esi Sutherland-Addy each contextualized the discussions of the first day in a longitudinal perspective looking back at the 21 years that CHET has been working on reform processes in African higher education. The evening ended with a brief celebration and the African launch of the book “Pathways through Higher Education Research: A Festschrift in honour of Peter Maassen”.

The second day started off with a presentation by Ian Bunting and Nico Cloete who gave an overview of the development in the universities that are part of the HERANA project throughout the course of the research project. In their presentation they focused on key indicators of the HERANA project such as student numbers, student-staff ratio, or the number of staff with PhD degrees, all of which are also available in the online open data repository of the project. This was followed by a detailed presentation by Robert Tijssen, professor of Science and Innovation Studies at the University of Leiden, who presented results of a bibliometric analysis of the most-cited output of the seven flagship universities and patterns of cooperation in these publications. He showed that the seven universities had a surprisingly high number of research publications that fell into the category of being in the top 1% of highly cited articles in the Web of Science. A differentiated pattern emerged regarding the cooperation in the authorship of these articles with some universities being more involved in international cooperation than others.

Afterwards, all participating universities presented the development of their institutions throughout the last year and engaged in an open discussion on common challenges as well as good practices. The group of universities included the University of Cape Town, Makerere University, the University of Ghana, the University of Botswana, the University of Mauritius, Dar es Salaam University and Eduardo Mondlane University. The day was concluded by some reflections from the international experts on the presentations by the universities.

Great discussions continued during the breaks

The final day of the workshop focused on data management as well as the use of open data in institutional research with the aim to strengthen the universities’ ability to pro-actively steer their institutions and base their decision-making on facts. This section consisted of presentations from different institutions that already use such systems, highlighting their advantages but also challenges in their day-to-day use. These presentations were given by Patricio Langa, professor of higher education at the University of the Western Cape, Gerald Ouma, Director of Planning at the University of Pretoria, Charles Sheppard, Director of Management Information at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and Francois van Schalkwyk from CHET.

Overall, the workshop highlighted that the seven universities who presented their development towards becoming a research-led institution have made some significant progress but also still face many challenges. In addition, the presentations clearly showed the diversity between the seven countries and universities showing the complexity of developments in contemporary Sub-Saharan African higher education. The results of the workshop will be published in an edited volume that presents all results of the HERANA project and is scheduled for the end of 2017.

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Pictures in this post were kindly provided by one of the participants at the workshop, Dr Fareeda Khodabocus who is the Director Quality Assurance at the University of Mauritius. 

Miguel Antonio Lim  (University of Manchester)

Now that next year abstract deadlines are coming up, it is just about time for reflections of what the conference season had to offer in 2016. 

This guest entry is written by Miguel Antonio Lim. He is Lecturer in Education and International Development at the University of Manchester. His research interests include the sociology of evaluation, international higher education, and professional expertise. He has worked on research projects around global university rankings and audit culture in higher education. Miguel has previously been EU-Marie Curie Fellow at Aarhus University and Executive Director of the Global Public Policy Network Secretariat. He has worked for the Asia Pacific Center at Sciences Po-Paris and taught at the London School of Economics.

The 29^th Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) conference took place on the 5^th-7^th September at Cambridge University around the theme: ‘The University as a Critical Institution?’ While CHER is among the most popular and important research-oriented conferences in the field of higher education, the organizers noted an increased participation at the 2016 conference to almost 200 delegates.

CHER 2016 was marked by the strong presence of higher education researchers from around the world. There was a babble of languages spoken throughout the coffee breaks. Colleagues working in the UK, Russia, China, the USA, Germany, Italy, and the Nordic countries, among others, presented work about their various regions.

Apart from the geographical breadth of the conference, CHER 2016 also showcased a wide variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches towards the study of higher education. These were particularly apparent in the sessions of the conference in which Sue Wright, an anthropologist, and Vicky Boliver, a social policy scholar (using statistical methods) delivered their keynotes.

Wright’s opening keynote took her listeners over a wide ranging list of phenomena that characterised what she called the Anthropocene as well as the Capitalocene. She challenged those present to think about how to make the university a liveable space for all within it while also carrying out its role as a critical institution in society. Boliver’s contribution was meant to address the question of how to widen participation in higher education and how restrictive admission criteria could be having greater impacts on social mobility.

These keynotes set the tone for a lively range of discussions at CHER 2016 around 4 key strands. There were:

1. Governance: Critical regulation and regulated criticism
2. Teaching and learning: Beyond employability
3. Growth, equality, movement, instability and limits in higher education systems, and
4. a general strand encompassing other research topics related to the conference theme

Several papers were presented in a number of parallel sessions around these themes. Apart from papers there were also organized panels – including one on gender issues in higher education and another on the results of the EU-funded Universities in the Knowledge Economy (UNIKE) Project. Two colleagues also took the opportunity to present posters during two dedicated presentation sessions.

There was, in addition, a good mix of junior and senior researchers. The Early Career Higher Education Researchers (ECHER) had a meeting just preceding CHER 2016 in which junior colleagues shared work with one another. More senior members of the community and editors from the journal Higher Education also joined the meeting to share advice and experiences.

Apart from an interest in higher education what unified the delegates was a convivial spirit that overflowed into the pubs of Cambridge during the conference evenings. A few delegates even took to taking a traditional punt on the river Cam. Everyone was also delighted to have the conference dinner at the Hall of St. John’s College and to enjoy discussions on the present as well as future of higher education in a place that is strongly associated with some of higher education’s oldest practices.

CHER 2016 was supported by Queen’s College, Lucy Cavendish College, St. John’s College and the Law Firm Mills and Reeve. In 2017 CHER will return to the University of Jyvaskyla to celebrate its 30^th Conference.

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For more reviews on conferences, click here. 

Remember, always double check with the conference websites for the dates or changes in deadlines, extensions and so forth. We still hope this can be a useful resource to plan your calendar for next year.

ECPR 2016 – Europe of Knowledge section

We have listed the conferences first as specific higher education conferences and then other disciplinary conferences that would likely be relevant for higher education researchers. The conferences are listed alphabetically in their respective sections. Where we have such reviews, we have also added a link to Hedda reviews from these conferences, to give some insight for how these conferences are like – just to make your selection process a little easier!

Again, if you have some to add – leave a comment and we add it to the list!

(Bi)Annual conferences

AERA 2017 Annual meeting

AERA is the American Educational Research Association. AERA is a primarily national research society to advance knowledge about education, but has also international members from about 85 countries. The organisation composes on 155 special interest groups (SIGs). The 2017 annual meetingis titled “Knowledge to Action. Achieving the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity”

• Time and place: April 27 – May 1, San Antonio, TX, USA
• Conference website
• Deadlines: closed (usually in June/July)

ASHE 2017

ASHE is the Association for the Study of Higher Education, it is located in the US, and in 2017 it will be the 42nd annual conference. The conference is towards the end of the year, so the information is not yet available. Note that the conference has a range of pre-conference events – with different kinds of focus.

• Time and place: November 9 – 11 (pre-conference November 8-9), Houston, TX, USA
• Conference website: not up yet, but information will be available here.
• Deadlines: not confirmed, usually 1st of May

BERA

BERA stands for British Educational Research Association. There organizers highlight that since 2015, the conference has aimed to innovate presentation modes, with sessions in the gardens, creative sessions, and even school visits, to name a few. The conference usually attracts 700-800 delegates on various themes related to education, including in 2017 also higher education.

• Time and place: 5-7 September 2017, University of Sussex, UK
• Deadline for abstracts 31st of January 2017
• Conference website

CHER 2017

CHER stands for the Consortium for Higher Education Researchers and is a consortium of academic researchers in the field of higher education. The annual conference has a research focus and usually attracts around 150-200 participants from across the world on a variety of themes. In 2017, the conference is helt for 30th time and is titled “Universities as political institutions -HEIs in the middle of academic, economic and social pressures”. Read more about conference theme here (pdf).

• Time and place: August 28-30,  University of Jyväskylä, Finland
• Call for papers: Deadline – March 17th.
• Conference website
• Read the review of the 2016 CHER conference by Miguel Antonio Lim
• Read the review of the 2014 CHER conference, by Bojana Culum
• Read the review of the 2013 CHER conference, by Mitchell Young
• Read the review of the 2012 CHER conference, by Mari Elken

CIESC 2017 and CSSHE 2017

The Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences means that more than 70 academic associations in Canada will hold their annual conferences under the same umbrella. The Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE) has its main mission to contribute to “the advancement of knowledge of postsecondary education through the dissemination through publication and learned meetings”. CIESC is the The Comparative and International Education Society of Canada. Both of these organisations hold an annual conference that takes place during the Congress.

• Time and place: May 28-30, Ryerson University, Canada
• Conference website
• Deadlines: 6th of January, 2017 – view the call here.

EAIE 2017

EAIE stands for European Association for International Education. Of the conferences listed here, EAIE is the conference with a clearly professional and practice oriented profile.  The EAIE conferences are large scale, attracting almost 5000 participants across the world.

• Time and place: September 12-15, Seville, Spain – Seville Conference and Exhibition Centre (FIBES)
• Call for session and workshop proposals is already closed
• Conference website
• Read the review of the 2014 EAIE conference by Leasa Weimer
• Read comments by Eva Maria Reina and Jason Wertz on EAIE2013

EAIR 2017

EAIR is the The European Association for Institutional Research (International association for higher education researchers, practitioners, managers and policy-makers). The conferences are relatively large and include both academic research and practitioners in higher education. In 2017 the conference will be titled: “Under pressure? Higher education institutions coping with multiple challenges”. There will be eight major tracks: governance and management, teaching and learning, quality management, strategy and strategizing, professionals, performance and assessment, funding and regional innovation.

• Time and place: September 3-6, University of Porto, Portugal
• Call for papers: Will open in December 2016.
• Conference website
• Read the review of the EAIR2016 conference, by Isabel Roessler
• Read the review of the EAIR2014 conference, by Maria Manatos
• Read the review of the EAIR2013 conference, by Lise Degn

ECER 2017

ECER stands for the The European Conference on Educational Research and it is the conference held by EERA – the European Educational Research Association. The conference has a broad focus on education and in 2017 year the theme is “Reforming Education and the Imperative of Constant Change: Ambivalent roles of policy and educational research”. ECER is a relatively large conference, attracting educational researchers from a diverse background.

• Time and place: August 22 – 25, Copenhagen, Denmark
• Call for papers: January 15 2017 – view the call here.
• Conference website
• Read the review from the 2014 ECER conference by Ana Sofia Ribeiro dos Santos

EDEN 2017

EDEN stands for European Distance and E-Learning Network. The 2017 conference is titled “Diversity Matters”. The conference format includes papers, posters, workshops and demonsitrations.

• Time and place: 13-16 June, Jönköping University, Sweden
• Call for papers: January 30, 2017.
• Conference website

EQAF – European Quality Assurance Forum

The 12th forum will be hosted by University of Latvia. Usually, the Forum organisers invite contributions from QA practitioners in higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies, students, and researchers in the field.

• Time and place: November 23-25 2017
• Call for papers: TBC
• (Preliminary information) 

EUREDOCS

Next Euredocs will be held in 2018.

HEAd’17: International Conference on Higher Education Advances 

HEAd conference is a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences, opinions and research results relating to the preparation of students, teaching/learning methodologies and the organization of educational systems.

• Time and place June 21-23, Valencia, Spain.
• Call for papers: January 31 2017. See call for papers here.
• Conference website 

ICED 2017

ICED, The International Consortium for Educational Development is a network focused on working with educational and academic development. Its membership organisations work with staff development on national level. Information on the 2017 conference has not yet been distributed as the 2016 conference is currently on its way.

• Time and place TBC
• Call for papers: TBC 
• Conference website

RAHER 2017

International Conference of the Russian Association of Higher Education Researchers is expected to be held in autumn 2017. Information about dates and venues has not been published yet. Last year, deadline for abstracts was 1st of June and the conference usually takes place in autumn (in the last few years mid-October)

SRHE 2017

The Society for Research into Higher Education is a UK based “international learned society” that has its main focus on higher education studies. Each year, they also hold an annual conference which takes place early December (thus, the 2016 conference has not been held yet)

• Time and place: TBC (usually first half of December)
• Call for abstracts: TBC
• Check SRHE website for info

University-industry interaction conference 2017

The annual conference is focused on university-industry interaction and is the largest conference on themes related to entrepreneurial universities and collaborative innovation. Usually, about 400 participants world wide, representing about 60 countries.

• Time and place: June 7-9, Dublin, Ireland
• Call for abstracts: December 12, 2016, read more here
• Conference website

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Specialized conferences

TBC

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Other conferences with HE relevant tracks

ECPR General Conference 2017

ECPR stands for European Consortium for Political Research. The conference is a large political science conference (nearly 2000 participants) with a Standing Group (SG) on the Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, currently with 231 members (look also here for a few words from two of the conveners of the SG). There has been a higher education research related section at the ECPR conference since 2011 and has been steadily growing, and various panels relevant to higher education can also be found in other sections.

Tuition fees and student support are a national issue, but under EU legislation, countries must accept other EU national on same terms as own nationals. However, behind this main logic the content of student fees and student support includes a multitude of practices. Furthermore, the report highlights that there is a significant difference in the amount of public funding provided (see also EUAs Public Funding Observatory for more information).

The data shows that there are four countries with no fees for students, and twelve countries that have universal fees. The report also analyses the relationship between fees and support, arguing that relationship to be crucial in understanding the reality students are facing. Countries are divided into four specific types, distinguishing between high and low (or no) share of fee paying students in the system, and high and low share of those getting grants. 

The report also shows variation regarding the principles for charging student fees – whereas some countries charge fees for full time students, other charge for part time studies, for non-state subsidised, or for those with poor performance or slow progression. Furthermore, different variations of these exist. In 13 of 42 countries there are fees for both full-time and part-time students. In general, there is substantial variation in the share of students who pays fees – from none in Germany, Greece, Finland, Sweden and Norway, to all students in Bulgaria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), Switzerland, Iceland, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. UK clearly stands out as the most expensive country for studying.

Regarding support, the report distinguishes direct (grants, loans) and indirect (tax allowance, or tax incentive to parents) forms of student support. All of the 42 systems studied have some form for direct student support. For the study year 2016/2017, Spain, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia there are only grants available for students, whereas in Iceland and UK (excl Scotland) there are only loans, with the remaining of the systems having some form of a mix between grants and loans. While most countries have direct support for the students, only half of the systems have indirect arrangements.

In addition to these general remarks, the report includes an individual report for each of the 42 systems studied. You can download the report here. 

The presentations are made by members of the ExCID research group that focuses on studies of higher education and work, with particular emphasis on expert cultures and institutional dynamics.

The seminar recordings were made on 27th of September 2016.

In this presetation, Dr. Ester Fremstad and Prof. Tone Solbrekke present their ongoing study on academic development: Academic developers and quality management: perspectives from institutional leaders

Listen without the Flashplayer

View the powerpoint presentation for this seminar.

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View also the presentation by Peter Maassen on quality management in higher education. Stay tuned for even more content from the seminar!

Hanne Kvilhaugsvik (University of Bergen)

Hanne Kvilhaugsvik is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen. Her research interests are organizational change in universities, governmental steering of higher education, and university governance. Her PhD project explores how learning outcomes and criteria of relevance for the labor market are used to evaluate and steer higher education in Norway and Denmark. This blog post is based on material from her master’s thesis in Administration and Organization Theory from 2015.

By the end of 2012, Norwegian higher education institutions were required to introduce written descriptions of the intended learning outcomes for each and every course unit and study program, in every discipline. Learning outcomes are connected with qualifications frameworks, the Bologna process, and the OECD, and have therefore been introduced throughout Europe during the last couple of years. So, what happens to higher education institutions when learning outcomes are introduced? Do they improve the quality of education and provide transparency, or are they simply formal requirements?

What are learning outcomes?

Learning outcomes can be defined as: “[…] written statement[s] of what the successful student/learner is expected to be able to do at the end of the module/course unit, or qualification.” (Adam, 2004: 5). In pedagogy, learning outcomes have been connected to a paradigm-shift “from teaching to learning” or “from input to output”. The recommendation is to use expected learning outcomes as a starting point for planning course units and study programs (Biggs and Tang, 2011). This is described in contrast to planning based on traditional input factors, such as reading list and content descriptions.

Learning outcomes can be understood as administrative tools or formalities. However, they have increasingly been described and promoted as instruments for reform and change (Lassnigg, 2012; Bjørnåvold and Coles, 2007). There is no shortage of goals for using learning outcomes: To improve the quality of education, provide transparency, ensure relevant qualifications for the labor market, and provide better opportunities to steer education. Learning outcomes can therefore be understood in connection with New Public Management ideas, and especially with ideas of reforming higher education towards more ‘complete organizations’ (Brunsson and Sahlin-Anderson, 2000). While learning outcomes have been studied much within pedagogy, there has been less research on learning outcomes as political instruments or policy tools (Souto-Otero, 2012). It is therefore interesting to study how learning outcomes are introduced and defined as instruments in higher education.

A case study on learning outcomes in higher education 

For my master’s thesis I did a comparative case study of two higher education institutions in Norway, and two programs of study within them. The institutions are one university and one university college. Norwegian higher education has traditionally been dominated and steered by input factors, so the shift to learning outcomes is an interesting development in this context. The two programs of study chosen are both within the discipline of engineering, which is a professional education and also a case of ‘hard’ and ‘applied’ sciences (Becher and Trowler, 2001). The first program is a Master of Science in Engineering, and the second is a bachelor’s program in engineering. The material for the case study consisted of a combination of documents and qualitative interviews with key actors from four different groups: Leadership, administration, teachers, and students. The case study covered the period 2007-2015.

An instrument, not a bureaucratic exercise

At the national level in Norway, learning outcomes and the qualifications frameworks were left to the administrative ‘experts’ and were not subject of much political debate (Bergseng, 2011; Helgøy and Homme, 2015). However, at both institutions in this study, it was emphasized that learning outcomes were not a “bureaucratic exercise”. A leader at the university college described it in this way: “[…] we wanted to focus on [learning outcomes] and make this into a development project, and not just a technical conversion of existing descriptions into a new language.”

Learning outcomes were defined as a development project both at the university and university college, and especially an instrument to improve the study programs as units. At the university, learning outcomes were defined as instruments to improve the coherence, leadership, and quality assurance of the study programs. At the university college, the instrument was also connected to these issues, but the profession and the national framework plans for engineering education were also an important element here. Because learning outcomes focus on cohesiveness and what students learn in the study program as a whole, they were defined as instruments that could contribute to open up courses and study programs up for discussions involving other actors than just the teachers. Learning outcomes were also incorporated into the quality assurance system at both institutions, which means that learning outcomes will be an important feature in future evaluations and development projects. It is interesting to note that the improvement of the quality assurance system was defined as an important part of the introduction of learning outcomes – and vice versa.

A useful instrument?                  

The teachers at the university described the process as initially top-down and with a bureaucratic focus, but after working on learning outcomes themselves they saw it as a “useful exercise”. At the university college, the teachers also described learning outcomes as “useful”, but they added that it was nothing new. One of the teachers said: “It is not something new and revolutionary, neither for the students nor for others. It was not like anyone had been waiting for this[.]” Learning outcomes coincided in time with other, similar development projects at both institutions. Learning outcomes were also seen as similar to the existing input factors, such as learning objectives, course descriptions, and reading lists. The leadership at both institutions even used “learning outcomes” interchangeably with “learning objectives”. It is therefore hardly surprising that learning outcomes were not seen as new instruments.

There were few signs that learning outcomes changed the teaching and assessment forms at the institutions, and neither the teachers nor the students saw a need for learning outcomes to be used more either. So, while the teachers thought learning outcomes were useful, they did not use them much (yet). Transparency and better information for the labor market have also been important goals for learning outcomes, but this was not much of a topic at the institutions in this study. At the university, the students explained that they already had good chances on the labor market. At the university college, the teachers described that it was difficult to formulate good, general learning outcomes that could also be useful for employers. In the teachers’ view, the employers generally wanted to know about the course content and reading lists, not the learning outcomes.

Do learning outcomes matter?

Learning outcomes definitely have potential as an instrument to steer higher education. This is especially clear in the incorporation into the quality assurance system and the use of learning outcomes to focus on the study program as a cohesive unit. The findings from the study also shows that learning outcomes must be understood in the context of simultaneous developments and instruments within the institutions and disciplines. It is especially interesting that learning outcomes were layered with more traditional input factors such as learning objectives, course descriptions, and reading lists. While the teachers and students described learning outcomes as not being used much in the teaching, the incorporation of learning outcomes into the quality assurance systems suggests that learning outcomes will be more than a formal requirement or an administrative tool in the future. Whether they then can deliver on the promises of improved quality of education and increased transparency is a different question.

References

Adam, Stephen (2004) Using learning outcomes. A consideration of the nature, role, application and implications for European education of employing ‘learning outcomes’ at local, national and international levels. United Kingdom Bologna Seminar. Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

Biggs, John B. & Tang, Catherine (2011) Teaching for quality learning at university : what the student does, Berkshire, Open University Press.

Bjørnåvold, Jens & Coles, Mike (2007) Governing education and training; the case of qualifications frameworks. European journal of vocational training, 42-43 (1-3), p. 203-235.

Brunsson, Nils & Sahlin-Anderson, Kerstin (2000) Constructing Organizations: The Example of Public Sector Reform. Organization Studies, 21 (4), p. 721.

Lassnigg, L. (2012) ‘Lost in translation’: learning outcomes and the governance of education. Journal of Education and Work, 25 (3), p. 299-330.

Souto-Otero, Manuel (2012) Learning outcomes: good, irrelevant, bad or none of the above? Journal of Education and Work, 25 (3), p. 249-258.