Shaping Perceptions of a Policy Instrument: The Political–Administrative Formation of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Norway and England

Abstract

This thesis explores learning outcomes (LOs) as a prominent policy and feature of European higher education (HE) reforms. Widely used to describe the learning expected at different levels of education, LO's emerging role in degree-level practices is explored via interviews with teachers, leaders, and students, from eight degree-programme cases at English and Norwegian universities. These evidence LOs being interpreted and used in planning, teaching, learning and management. The four publications included in this thesis provide detailed accounts of LO practices on various levels, in applications spanning course development, teaching reform and quality assurance. LOs are shown to influence practice, disputing views of them as a purely symbolic or formal policy. However, their application and influence are complex and ambiguous. They can support clear, constructive approaches to planning and teaching, but are also perceived as a problematic, potentially counter-productive way to communicate about learning. Their role in management is still emerging, but they appear to create new opportunities for oversight and steering of teaching, and their growing role in quality assurance seems to create pressure for the development of more specific, measurable LOs. The analysis highlights the challenge of reconciling flexible, open 'process' forms of LOs developed for teaching with concrete, measurement-focused 'product' LOs needed for oversight or comparison applications. The enactment process presented here is incompatible with simple 'top down' or 'bottom up' perspectives on policy formation, evidencing local adaptation and variety, and examples of highly standardised or rule-based practices. An argument is developed that explaining these findings requires a deliberate engagement with the mess and multiplicity which characterise LOs. A set of metaphors are developed to offer an alternative view of LOs as policy nets, knots and tangles. These convey multiplicity and complexity, while offering new ways to look at relationships between divergent LO forms and practices, explanations for the enactment processes identified, and a way to highlight the key choices HE actors and policy makers confront as they continue to enact LOs in universities.

Incompatible enactments of learning outcomes? Leader, teacher and student experiences of an ambiguous policy object

“…Norway is also unusual as one of a shrinking group of countries with free higher education and generous student support. A fuller discussion of the development of LO policies in the two countries, and their broader comparative features, can be found in Michelsen et al (2016).…”

Higher education learning outcomes – Ambiguity and change in higher education

“…The idea of specifying learning outcomes in higher education as part of the European Qualification Framework has resulted in different experiences in the national contexts of England and Norway, as well as in different institutional and disciplinary settings (Bleiklie et al, 2017). Whether one focuses on how HELOs are used as policy tools (Michelsen et al, ) or on the way in which they are managed is related to leadership practices (Caspersen & Frølich, ), the findings show variations. One implication is that they share the characteristics of ambiguity and the potential of being shaped differently by a number of circumstantial factors (Michelsen et al, ).…”

“…Whether one focuses on how HELOs are used as policy tools (Michelsen et al, ) or on the way in which they are managed is related to leadership practices (Caspersen & Frølich, ), the findings show variations. One implication is that they share the characteristics of ambiguity and the potential of being shaped differently by a number of circumstantial factors (Michelsen et al, ). In the articles mentioned, HELO project members analysed the role of various (structural) factors, such as type of political administrative régime and prevailing leadership models in shaping HELOs.…”

Higher education learning outcomes – transforming higher education?

“…The main observation in the article by Ivar Bleiklie, Nicoline Frølich, Rachel Sweetman and Mary Henkel is relatively straightforward: the idea of specifying learning outcomes in higher education as part of the European Qualification Framework has resulted in different experiences in the national contexts of England and Norway, as well as in different institutional and disciplinary settings. Whether one focuses on how HELOs are used as policy tools (Michelsen et al, ) or on the way in which they are managed is related to leadership practices (Caspersen & Frølich, ), the findings are varied. One implication is that HELOs share the characteristic that inflicts most reform policies – that of ambiguity and the potential of being shaped differently by a number of circumstantial factors (Michelsen et al, ).…”

“…Whether one focuses on how HELOs are used as policy tools (Michelsen et al, ) or on the way in which they are managed is related to leadership practices (Caspersen & Frølich, ), the findings are varied. One implication is that HELOs share the characteristic that inflicts most reform policies – that of ambiguity and the potential of being shaped differently by a number of circumstantial factors (Michelsen et al, ). In the articles mentioned above, HELO project members analysed the role of various (structural) factors such as type of political administrative regime and prevailing leadership models in shaping HELOs.…”