Quality Assessment and the Tension between Teaching and Research

Abstract

In 1992, the United Kingdom government introduced a formal system for the assessment of teaching quality in higher education, the Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA). One of the key aims of the TQA was to encourage continuous quality improvement in teaching and learning. This study analyses the experiences of senior staff, responsible for the management and development of quality in teaching and learning, and explores the perceived impact of the TQA, on the value and esteem of teaching. Utilising semi-structured interviews, conducted with senior academic personnel of the 13 Scottish universities, it was noted that senior management perceived difficulties in making judgements about the teaching aspect of academic work and were reluctant to promote staff on the basis of teaching performance. The respondents' statements further indicated that this reluctance was compounded by the continuing tension between teaching and research, in which research-based criteria took precedence over other matters. These findings are in line with previous research in the United States and Australia, which has suggested that the prioritisation of research may have created disincentives to the development of innovative teaching and learning processes. The TQA, in the United Kingdom, has fallen short of its goal of raising the profile of teaching, as an activity in higher education, primarily because competing demands for research output have taken precedence over attempts to improve teaching.