Abstract
This paper uses a trial audit of history programs undertaken in 2011-2012 to explore issues surrounding the attainment of Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) in an emerging Australian national standards environment for the discipline of history. The audit sought to ascertain whether an accreditation process managed by the discipline under the auspices of the Australian Historical Association (AHA) could be based on a limited-intervention, “light-touch” approach to assessing attainment of the TLOs. The results of the audit show that successful proof of TLO attainment would only be possible with more active intervention into existing history majors and courses. Assessments across all levels of history teaching would have to be designed, undertaken, and marked using a rubric matched to the TLOs. It proved unrealistic to expect students to demonstrate acquisition of the TLOs from existing teaching and assessment practices. The failure of the “light-touch” audit process indicates that demonstrating student attainment under a national standards regime would require fundamental redevelopment of the curriculum. With standards-based approaches to teaching and learning emerging as international phenomena, this case study resonates beyond Australia and the discipline under investigation.
Highlights
In the last decade, higher education systems around the world have become increasingly involved in the development of quality assurance and quality improvement frame works to evaluate what students gain from a university education
Drawing on standards frameworks operating overseas and driven domestically by the 2003 introduction of the Australian Universities Quality Assurance Agency (AUQAA), Bradley advocated for a new system for Australian tertiary education under which uni versity programs would be taught to national standards with external evaluation as a di mension of quality assurance
What should constitute a “pass” for an assessment or a course in a standards environment? Were the results indicative of marking cultures that saw a bare pass as akin to a reward for effort? How many pieces of student work should be exam ined per course in order to determine that a major had “passed,” i.e., to demonstrate that all students graduating with the major had attained all of the Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs)? Should all of the as sessments submitted be required to have met the TLO in question to rate a pass or, for example, only three out of five? Should a major be judged against all TLOs at once to Brawley, Clark, Dixon, Ford, Nielsen, Ross, Upton Table 4
Summary
Higher education systems around the world have become increasingly involved in the development of quality assurance and quality improvement frame works to evaluate what students gain from a university education. In 2010, history was chosen to participate in the Australian Learning and Teach ing Council’s (ALTC) “Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project” (LTAS) as a pilot discipline for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Once students have attained such discipline-specific threshold knowledge and skills, they may be deemed to have crossed a significant boundary: “[T]hreshold concepts lead to transformed thought but to a transfiguration of identity” Such threshold concepts inform the construction of TLOs proposed by LTAS for courses or programs of study
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