Managing Reform in Universities

Stensaker, Bjørn; Välimaa, Jussi; Sarrico, Cláudia S.

doi:10.1057/9781137284297

Cited by 23 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 244 publications

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“…On the institutional level, the impact of assessment results on the agents' decisions towards improvement is only one of a variety of complex influences on organizational change (Stensaker 2012). Within these micro-political processes, it is difficult to promote results in a way that they become the foundation of strategic decisions, even when assessment has been conducted with great effort (Blaich and Wise 2011).…”

Section: Ii: Organizational Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing engineering competencies: the conditions for educational improvement

Musekamp

Pearce

2015

Studies in Higher Education

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Low-stakes assessment is supposed to improve educational practice by providing feedback to different actors in educational systems. However, the process of assessment from design to the point of a final impact on student learning outcomes is complex and diverse. It is hard to identify reasons for substandard achievement on assessments, let alone the means that should be undertaken to improve the educational setting. Furthermore, it is difficult to show a causal link between educational reforms and change in test achievement over time. This paper examines the potential impact that low-stakes testing initiatives have in engineering higher education on educational improvement by examining two case studies. It discusses how the design of constructs and particular assessment conditions may foster or limit educational improvement and outlines conditions to ensure that low-stakes assessment designs achieve educational improvement. IntroductionHigher education continues to grow in significance and scale across the globe. As the number of programmes and graduates increases, there is a clear rationale for ensuring sufficient quality graduates who have acquired the necessary competencies to enter the workforce. Coupled with this push, there is increased regulation in the sector, with more regulatory bodies requiring more quantitative evidence that university and vocational graduates are reaching minimum standards.In order to react appropriately to these global and national developments, lowstakes assessment is intended to be a means for improving educational practice by feeding back information on learning results to different actors in educational systems. However, the process from assessment design to the test administration, to the analysis and reporting of results, followed by the respective reaction of educational stakeholders, to the point of a final impact on student learning outcomes, is complex and diverse. It is hard to identify reasons for substandard achievement on assessments, let alone the means that should be undertaken to improve the educational setting (Blaich and Wise 2011). Equally, it is difficult to show a causal link between educational reforms and change in test achievement over time (Black and William 1998).

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Section: Ii: Organizational Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing engineering competencies: the conditions for educational improvement

Musekamp

Pearce

2015

Studies in Higher Education

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“…Much of the recent literature on management in HEIs has been dominated by the debate on collegiality and new managerialism (Clegg & McAuley, 2005;Ramirez & Tiplic, 2013;Stensaker, Välimaa, Henkel, & Sarrico, 2012), and the literature review for the thesis took place within that context. In conducting the literature review, it emerged that with idea of the advent of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and new managerialism, the role of the academic in HE is changing which appears to be a particularly interesting development when juxtaposed against the rising influence of the non-academic professional manager in HE.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The future of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is in the hands of the anonymous, grey non-descript mid-level professional manager.

Murphy

2016

telji

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Much of the research into the implementation of TEL has centred on teaching approaches and the change (or not) in the role of the academic, which is reflective of the importance of the academic to what takes place in a Higher Education Institute (HEI). Technology enhanced learning (TEL), however, poses a considerable challenge to how the Higher Education (HE) sector operates, as it has done with numerous other sectors. Typically, technology confronts existing practices and boundaries. For HEIs, TEL has accelerated the move away from the discipline-based academics as being at the centre of the education process and replaced them with students. This displacement of the academic for the student has been complemented by changing approaches to teaching, (the growth of network learning for example) and the introduction of new work practices from the private sector in the guise of new managerialism. With the academic's role reduced from controller to that of participant, the space left is being filled by client-focused mid-level professional managers. Distinct from academic managers, mid-level professional managers are situated between academics and senior management, which is a key position for the implementation of TEL at a time when its future rests on bridging the gap between the bottom up initiatives of the past and the institute-wide initiatives of the future. This discussion piece reflects on the changing role of the academic in a new managerialist TEL HE sector and argues for the overdue recognition of the importance of the mid-level professional manager to the future of TEL.

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Researching ‘Quality Work’ in Higher Education

Elken

Stensaker

2020

Higher Education Dynamics

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Managing Reform in Universities

Cited by 23 publications

References 244 publications

Assessing engineering competencies: the conditions for educational improvement

Assessing engineering competencies: the conditions for educational improvement

The future of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is in the hands of the anonymous, grey non-descript mid-level professional manager.

Researching ‘Quality Work’ in Higher Education

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