Understanding fairness and meeting competence standards

1
Understanding fairness and meeting competence
standards

• Through reasonable adjustments and curriculum
  design and pedagogy
• Barbara Waters

2
UK research understanding the interaction of
competence standards and reasonable adjustments
in higher education

• Sponsored by the Equality Challenge Unit,
  research in final stages at May 2014
• Researchers Barbara Waters and Liz Maudslay
• Advisory Committee from UK institutions
• Outcome - a guidance document to aid
  understanding of the principles behind setting
  and assessing competence standards

3
Who the guidance is for

• Those involved in drawing up competence
  standards eg Heads of Academic Departments/Faculti
  es
• Subject specialists eg Course leaders
• Disability advisers
• Staff involved in admissions
• Those providing information for students eg
  student course handbooks, web prospectuses

4
Approach to the guidance

• Integrate with other work academics are currently
  engaged in, for example, implementing the new QAA
  Quality Code including previous code for disabled
  students
• But recognising the changing context for disabled
  students and staff
• Not a bolt-on for disabled students
• Dealing with the not disability again factor

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The changing context

• Growth in numbers of disabled students (doubling
  numbers between 2003/04 and 2011/12)
• Equality Act 2010
• Greater complexity of impairments, noted growth
  in disclosure of mental health issues and
  autistic spectrum
• QAA Quality Code for Higher Education
  Institutions 2013 - new approach to quality
  standards, embedding equality expectations
• Moving towards Universal Design

6
Research base

• Face to face interviews involving 16 UK Higher
  Education Institutions on Nursing and Teaching
• Individual meetings with agencies and specialist
  groups and organisations
• Questionnaires to subject specialists in French
  and Spanish and Geography, Environmental and
  Earth Sciences (GEES)
• Literature review

7
Legal definitions

• Disability Discrimination Acts, followed by the
  Equality Act 2010
• Sets out expectations of HEIs the anticipatory
  duty for the student body
• Requires individual reasonable adjustments/accommo
  dations to be made to avoid disability
  discrimination
• Defines competence standards

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Defining a competence standard

• an academic, medical or other standard applied
  by or on behalf of an education provider or
  qualifications body for the purposes of
  determining whether or not a person has a
  particular level of competence or ability
• must apply to all students
• must be genuine and objectively justified ie fair
• must be relevant to particular course
• must not lead to direct discrimination

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Competence standards

• Legislation states that competence standards are
  not subject to reasonable accommodations
• In HE courses, competence standards can be
  described as
• subject knowledge and understanding
• skills, abilities and attributes
• Often expressed as learning outcomes
• Course materials should set out
• The intended learning outcomes to achieve the
  purpose of the study programme, including
  external professional requirements, which cannot
  be changed
• The methods of assessment by which students
  demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes
  including work placements or fieldwork, which can
  usually be adjusted by accommodations

10
Impact on quality

• More flexible and inclusive means of assessment
  benefit all students not just disabled students
• QAA quality code for higher education states
• Reflecting the needs of students with different
  protective characteristics in the design and
  approval of programmes reduces likelihood of
  making one-off modifications to assessment in a
  reactive manner. Reliance on one reactive
  modifications can be place both students and
  staff under additional pressures and may lead to
  inequities
• QAA code B6 2013

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Emerging issues 1

• Prompting the team who develop and design course
  programmes to
• understand more about the course requirements in
  relation to the competence standards legal
  requirements
• Develop a wide range of experiences and practice
  on inclusive design and review over reliance on
  some generic reasonable adjustments - and share
  them
• Improve student information on course
  requirements/learning outcomes and competence
  standards to inform course choice

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Emerging issues 2

• Understanding the power of inclusive design and
  embedding it in quality
• Communicating inclusive design developments to
  disabled students who have only experienced
  individual adjustments
• Evaluating the progression and achievement of
  disabled students to inform future course
  development
• Developing supporting procedures for staff and
  students when difficult decisions need to be
  made, for example Fitness to Study policies

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Potential to use a wider partnership approach
to programme design

• The departmental disability representative
• Team and subject leaders
• Disability services staff
• Developing team work in order to
• Draw up competence standards
• Review existing programmes
• Evaluate equality aspects of new courses
• Make decisions on method of assessment
• Communicate these to prospective students

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What is the teams task regarding course
competence standards ?

• Designing the course programme content and
  academic standards/learning outcomes all students
  must meet
• Deciding on the assessment element of the
  programme
• Identify the competence standard being assessed
  by a particular assessment
• Does the assessment genuinely reflect this
  standard?
• Is the assessment method and the particular
  standard made clear to students? How?
• Does the form of assessment being considered
  present a particular barrier to disabled
  students?
• Could the method of assessment be more inclusive?
  
• Evaluating year by year results relating to
  disabled students

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Assessment on work placements

• Method and purpose of assessment should be
  identified in course programme guide, including
  how students can demonstrate achievement of
  competence standard of external professional
  bodies
• A range of methods, similar to university based
  study
• Maximum flexibility but must show can
  independently meet the standards the job must
  be done
• Culture of placements may need negotiation

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Culture of placements

• Unused to student reliance on technology
• For example, student nurses using smart phones to
  access notes leads to concerns about patients
  misunderstanding
• Creating immediate notes using hospital IT
  systems which have a time out feature
• Requirement for handwritten notes in some nursing
  settings could be a standard

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Making good choices

• Staff concerned that students, including disabled
  students, are not being prepared for the modern
  work place, which are target driven, are busy and
  noisy and change is constant
• Its important students receive much more
  guidance on the demands of a course before
  enrolling, including assessed placements which
  might be 50 of the course timetabling of
  fieldwork
• volunteering experience may not be enough as
  volunteers are sheltered

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Specific subject areas the research looked at

• Nursing
• Teaching
• French and Spanish language
• Geography, Environmental and Earth Sciences (GEES)

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Nursing and Teaching professional considerations

• Assessed placements are 50 or more of the course
  and students must pass all placements
• Supporting students with more complex needs to
  meet course competencies and professional
  standards
• Development of inclusion plans to share with
  placement mentors who may have less experience in
  disability support
• Student support available from home institution,
  eg skype, evening drop in sessions
• Joint risk assessments on placements
• Travel to work placement time and expense

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In nursing

• Successful flexible adjustments have made to
  achieve course competancies and professional
  competence standards
• Breaking night duty into smaller components
• Use of recording equipments for taking a
  patients history or handover procedures
• Use of smart phones with dedicated apps
• In clinical tasks, electronic stethoscopes,
  amplified telephones, radio aids for deaf
  students, lifting procedures

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In teaching

• Despite advances in access to buildings and
  inclusive teaching practice the matching of
  school placement and individual student needs to
  be individually tailored
• Some examples of adjustments included
• Students with mobility impairments having changes
  to the location and layout of classrooms
• Students with fatigue issues have rest periods
  using flexible timetabling or shorter days

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Foreign languages

• Staff identified a range of university based
  adjustments, mostly for students with sensory
  impairments and achieving learning outcomes
  through appropriate recorded and live language
  resources
• Main concerns were the placement abroad
• Understanding where the year abroad fits into the
  learning outcomes and how students demonstrate
  their learning - its not compulsory so the
  competence can be demonstrated in a different
  way, but this would be very unusual
• Unwillingness to disclose disability to hosts
• Reasonable adjustments requested not being
  provided

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GEES

• Early discussion of student needs at admissions,
  particularly related to fieldwork which can start
  in the first term
• Students may underestimate the impact of the
  impairment
• Fieldwork learning outcomes may be met by
  alternatives but it depends on the course
  components and would be very unusual
• A range of successful accommodations to field
  work have been developed and are being shared
  through a new publication by the Higher Education
  Academy on accessible fieldwork in May 2014

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Impact on disabled students of moving to an
inclusive approach

• Challenging for students (and staff)
• Students used to certain accommodations, for
  example extra time to complete assessments
• May experience feelings of their needs being
  sidelined and being unsupported

25
Procedures to support students and staff when a
student experiences difficulties

• HEIs were keen to develop a fair and consistent
  approach to students unable to meet the
  expectations of the learning programme
• Fitness to Study policies which focus on student
  progress and include steps to support, not
  discipline the student including an agreed action
  plan
• Fitness to Practise committees deal with
  professional standards
• Exit awards/qualifications and - credits

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Evaluating the impact on disabled students

• Assess if the anticipatory and individual
  reasonable adjustments are fit for purpose and
  sufficiently resourced through student
  progression data
• Gather anonymised progress reports on the number,
  range and effectiveness of reasonable adjustments
  implemented for students, with examples, and
  share
• Seek feedback from disabled students to identify
  improvements for the future

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Conducting the evaluation

• Gather feedback from students in a range of
  formal and informal ways
• Inform students of the inclusive learning
  approach and how this is being implemented in
  programme design and delivery - recognising that
  in the past all the information has been about
  individual reasonable adjustments
• create ongoing forums for communication

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What next?

• Final review of research and guidance and final
  decisions on recommendations May/June 2014
• Guidance publications available from Equality
  Challenge Unit, UK in September 2014
  www.ecu.ac.uk
• Individual subjects briefings aimed at
  stimulating discussions between academic
  departments and disability services with regard
  to embedding equalities approaches to programme
  design and delivery and consider the changing
  roles within inclusive design