QAA Subject Benchmarks, National Qualifications Frameworks, Programme Specifications and Progress Fi

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QAA Subject Benchmarks, National Qualifications
Frameworks, Programme Specifications and Progress
Files Wheres the Link?

• Woburn House, Tavistock Square, London
• Friday 19th April 2002

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Introductions

• Me
• Them
• You

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Programme
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The context

• Increasing public accountability for quality and
  standards in a mass HE system
• Economic prosperity gt skills for employability
• Developing a culture of lifelong learning
• Desire to retain diversity and responsiveness
• Explicitness and referencing

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The elements

• HEQF (National Qualification Framework)
• Credits
• Subject Benchmarks
• Programme Specifications
• PDP (Personal Development Plans)
• Progress Files

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Referencing and explicitness in QAA policy

• Move to mass higher education
• Neither desirable or possible to achieve uniform
  standards
• Explicitness about what students are to learn and
  how gt learning outcomes
• Multiple reference points gt internal and external

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Referencing in QAA policy
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Promoting an outcomes approach

• A statement that predicts what learners will have
  gained as a result of the learning process
• An explicit statement of learning intent
• The process to enable the outcomes to be achieved
  and demonstrated
• The criteria for assessing if (and at what level)
  the outcomes have been achieved

INTENT
PROCESS
ACHIEVEMENT
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Links in an outcomes approach
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National Qualifications Framework
HEQF

• The purpose
• To enable the understanding of qualification
  titles
• To maintain international comparability
• To help learners to identify progression routes gt
  lifelong learning
• To help HEIs, external examiners and reviewers by
  providing points of reference for setting and
  assessing standards

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Qualification Levels

• D Doctorates
• M Masters, PG Diplomas, PG Certificates
• H Honours, Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate
• I Foundation, Ordinary, DHE
• C CHE

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Qualification Descriptors

• Outcomes at each level (not qualification)
• Cover the majority of existing qualifications but
  allow for flexibility and innovation (especially
  at Level I)
• Two parts
• Outcomes to be demonstrated for the qualification
  
• Statement of wider abilities

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Credit Frameworks

• HEQF does not provide a credit framework
• Clarify the relationship between awards at
  different levels and pathways to link them
• Widen access to lifelong learning
• Meet the Bologna Declaration to enable
  compatibility and comparability between HE in the
  EU

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The role of credit

• A set of specifications for valuing, measuring,
  describing and comparing learning achievement in
  volume and value (level)
• Represents learning for the purpose of measuring
  equivalence
• Does not impact on the content on what is learnt

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Key principles

• Award of credit
• Notional learning time
• 10 hours 1 credit
• Credit levels
• Entry, 1-3, 4-6, 7, 8
• Level descriptors
• Module (unit of assessment)
• Learning outcomes
• Assessment criteria threshold (grading
  criteria?)

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Credit values in EWNI
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Code of practice

• Sections of the code
• Postgraduate Research Programmes
• Collaborative provision
• Students with disabilities
• External examining
• Academic appeals and student complaints on
  academic matters
• Assessment of students
• Programme approval, monitoring and review
• Career education, information and guidance
• Placement learning
• Recruitment and admissions

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Subject Benchmarks

• Subject benchmarks available for all subjects
  including Business and Management and
  Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism
• Objectives to facilitate reflection on
• The idea of subject benchmarking
• The characteristics of benchmark information
• The ways subject benchmarks are expected to be
  used
• Subject benchmarks in curriculum design and the
  assessment of student learning

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The Background

• Emerged from the Dearing report 1997
• And HEQCs Graduate Standards project
• QAA
• Established 42 subject/disciplinary groups
• Convened expert committees
• Provided general guidance

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The aim

• To improve the capacity of subject communities to
  regulate their academic standards by creating
  subject-based information that can be used by
  teaching teams to prompt self-critical reflection
  and development.
• By providing a set of reference points, peer
  reviewers will be able to compare standards more
  easily

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Vocabulary

• Benchmark
• A reference point for similar things
• A criterion to be measured against
• A mark of distinction
• Benchmarking
• Referencing and comparing one thing with another

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Benchmark information

• In a subject-based curriculum
• The general intellectual outcomes of learning
• The learning that is to be promoted
• The general criteria to guide judgements on
  achievement
• At honours degree level

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Benchmark information

• Should include
• Defining principles or essence of a subject
• Nature and extent of a subject map, boundaries,
  range of programmes
• Attributes that a graduate might be expected to
  display knowledge, understanding, skills,
  methods of learning and assessment
• The criteria that would be used to determine
  whether a graduate satisfied the threshold
  standard for the award

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Variability of statements(based on initial 22
statements)

• Length 4 to 29 pages
• Most written as measurable outcome statements
• Knowledge / Themes and Topics / Principles
• Mode 20-30 skill outcomes Range 7 to 50
• Only half describe teaching, learning and
  assessment strategies
• 60 provide explicit performance criteria
• 30 provide three levels of performance
  (excellent, modal, threshold) 70 just two (modal
  and threshold)

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Exploring the standard

• Taking either the GBM or HLST benchmark
• Is the essence of the subject expressed?
• Are the boundaries of the subject clear?
• Are knowledge and skill descriptors
  comprehensive?
• Are outcomes explicit and measurable? e.g.?
• Are learning processes described clearly? e.g.?
• Are performance criteria useful? e.g.?

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The use of benchmark information

• Within institutions
• Curriculum design, review, validation
• Student assessment
• External examiners
• Academic review
• Programme specifications and self evaluation
• Used by peer reviewers
• Professional bodies

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QAA expectations

• Not in the benchmark statements
• Related to programme specifications
• not simply transpose outcomes
• a stimulus to reflection
• not all outcomes will be appropriate
• other reference points will be relevant

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QAA expectations

• Related to academic review
• demonstrate how subject benchmarks have been
  used to inform decisions about intended outcomes
  and in calibrating the assessment framework
• Changes will be reflected through internal cycles
  of programme review
• The curriculum must facilitate the acquisition of
  knowledge and understanding, cognitive skills,
  subject specific skills (practical and
  professional), transferable skills, and the
  progression to employment or further study
• a deliberative process

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Curriculum review, design and validation

• Create a set of programme learning outcomes
• Identify those aligned with benchmark and those
  that are programme specific
• Identify other influential reference points
  NICATS, professional bodies
• Review and revise existing outcomes as
  appropriate, justify variances

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Curriculum review, design and validation

• Confirm curriculum provides opportunities for
  learning outcomes to be developed, practiced and
  assessed
• Curriculum mapping
• Student evaluations
• Local ownership and distinctiveness
• Summarise on programme specification
• Institutional approaches to validation

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Curriculum maps
T taught, P practiced, A assessed
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Assessing student learning and achievement

• Statements should give
• Assessment methods but the level of detail
  varies. General easy to satisfy
• Performance criteria but also vary in detail,
  levels, coverage
• demonstrate how statements have been used in
  calibrating the overall demands of the assessment
  framework

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Options

• Map the performance criteria against the
  assessment criteria
• Map only key / capstone courses offering good
  range of skills e.g. projects
• Map criteria against all core / compulsory
  modules
• Map against all honours level modules
• Map against all modules

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Evaluating the options

• Identify the key strengths and weaknesses of the
  four options identified?
• Which option would you choose?
• Why?
• Will it calibrate the overall demands of the
  assessment framework?

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Assessment issues

• Are current assessment models geared to
  identifying threshold standards?
• Honours classification system v.
• Learning intentions achieved explicitly
• Need for increased range of effective assessment
  methods
• Competency achieving all outcomes ?
  compensation gt acceptable weaknesses?
• Areas of performance e.g. law
• Consistent interpretation at and above threshold
  level? Calibration of benchmark criteria against
  degree classification?

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Programme Specifications

• The purpose is to make the basis for standards
  explicit by encouraging teaching teams to set out
  clearly and concisely
• The learning outcomes of the programme
• The teaching and learning methods that enable
  learners to achieve these outcomes
• The assessment process that demonstrates their
  achievement
• The relationship of the programme to the NQF and
  other external reference points

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What is a programme?

• A curriculum route that leads to a named award
• Single subject route
• Major, joint, minor route through subject field
• Intergrated multi subject route created by
  academics
• Multidisciplinary route created by student

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Core information

• Awarding institution
• Teaching institution
• Accreditation authority
• Final award
• Programme title
• UCAS Code
• Relevant subject benchmark(s)
• Date of production/revision

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Core information (cont)

• Educational aims
• Programme outcomes
• Knowledge understanding
• Cognitive skills
• Subject skills
• Transferable skills and other attributes
• Teaching and learning strategies
• Assessment strategies
• Programme structures, contents and requirements

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Optional Information

• Support for learning
• Criteria for admission
• Evaluation and improvement strategies
• Regulations of assessment
• Indicators of quality

Statistical information on applications,
progression/retention, widening participation,
results relative to national norms. Results of
external review. PB accreditation. Prizes etc etc
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Potential uses
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Exploring programme specifications

• How easy is it to find your way around?
• Open text or boxed format?
• Is the optional information optional?
• Is the PS enough on its own?
• Is the PS appropriate for all audiences?
• Does it do all it sets out to do?
• How easy would it be to produce? How long would
  (should) it take?

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Putting it all together
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Summary

• Ambitious
• Drivers for enhancement by promoting an
  understanding of learning in different subject
  contexts
• Daunting
• Regulatory devices or spur for pedagogic and
  intellectual debate
• Demanding
• Sharing the wheels networks of subject centres
  and institutional contacts LTSN role

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What is Personal Development Planning (PDP)?

• PDP is part of the HE Progress File (now being
  introduced across all levels of HE)
• The Progress File will
• Provide each student with a transcript
• And a means by which the student can monitor,
  build and reflect upon their personal development
  (PDP)

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PDP is

• a structured and supported process undertaken by
  an individual to reflect upon their own learning,
  performance and/or achievement and to plan for
  their personal, educational and career
  development.
• (LTSN Generic Centre Guide for Busy Academics)

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What do we need to do?

• At the beginning of the course
• Introduce students to the opportunities for PDP
• Throughout each stage of the programme
• Provide opportunities for PDP and explain the
  possibilities, support and benefits
• The nature and scope of provision will be decided
  within departments / institutions
• In order to undertake PDP development a sound
  understanding of key skills within the curriculum
  is needed

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Examples

• The Faculty of Earth and Environment, University
  of Leeds, Reflective Portfolio
• School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, Oxford
  Brookes University, Progress File

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Where is the Link?

• Aim To be more explicit about what is learnt
  and how it is learnt.
• Approach is based on learning outcomes. The
  outcomes approach to learning has 3 parts
• 1. a specification of learning intentions
  expressed as learning outcomes
• 2. the process to enable the outcomes to be
  achieved and demonstrated
• 3. the performance standards or learning outcomes
  that are actually achieved
• (Guidelines for HE Progress Files)

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Must Look at Resources

• QAA Guidelines / Requirements http//www.qaa.ac.uk
  /crntwork/progfileHE/contents.htm
• Resource Links and Examples http//www.ltsn.ac.uk/
  genericcentre/projects/pdp/intro.asp
• Example Portfolio http//www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/publ
  ications/portfolio/
• Key Skills http//www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/c
  dell/index.htm