Quality Of Teaching In Higher Education Research Articles

The Human Student

Higher education institutions are investing significant effort into the improvement of student success, retention and satisfaction. Some effort is being expended in research seeking to understand influencing factors, but the majority of effort is directed towards improving teaching quality. Effort to improve teaching quality is characterised by professional development initiatives, the general aim being to facilitate the shift away from traditional teacher-centred approaches, towards student-centred approaches. Though these initiatives are useful there exists an omission (or at the very least an area of severe-under-emphasis) within the discourse surrounding teaching quality in higher education – explicit attention to the teacher-student connection. The premise of the present article is that to make greater inroads into bettering student experiences and outcomes, the teacher-student connection, along with the humanist perspective in which it is embedded, is integral to the quality teaching practice in higher education.

Metrics and methodologies for measuring teaching quality in higher education: developing the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)

The creation of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) represents a significant development concerning the teaching mission of the university in the UK. This paper considers the background to, and the development of, the TEF. It explains the context from which the TEF emerged and unpacks a series of rationales which illustrate the need for, and the role of, the new framework. The TEF is presented as an instrument to fulfil a range of functions, including: a mechanism to determine tuition fee rises and inform student choices in a reconfigured higher education market; a means of updating the quality and regulatory regime; and a way of raising the esteem of teaching within the academy, and the importance institutions place on student education. The paper explains how the contested idea of “teaching excellence” is defined within the framework, and the metrics and methodology used to assess this. An overview of the submission process and results illustrates how the TEF works in practice. How the TEF embeds two agendas in higher education is discussed: the use of quantitative measures to capture and convey performance, and the role of the student as a consumer not just a learner. The paper concludes the TEF can be viewed as a multi-purpose evaluation tool, not merely designed by the imperatives of teaching excellence or quality assurance, but also by the need for a measure to provide market information to consumers and allocate fee increases to institutions, and this is reflected in its content and character.

Inclusive Learning Resource Design Based on Universal Design for Learning—Case Study of Mechanics of Materials Course

Universal design for learning is an effective means to improve students’ learning effects and to improve lecturers’ instructional design, which may benefit improving teaching quality of higher education under new situation in China. This paper carried out the learning resource design according to UDL theory by setting mechanics of material subject as an example, which aims to integrate the main principles of UDL theory into inclusive course design. By applying UDL theory, ICARE model and novel technical means, the course design details have been expounded from teaching representation means for lecturers, action and expression means for learners, and engagement means for learners, respectively. The benefits of integrating UDL into course design for lectures, learners and daily teaching activities are analyzed as well. The work in this paper would have a great significance to promote the integration of UDL theory, advanced teaching philosophy, and novel technical means into learning course design to improve teaching efficiency of lecturers and learning outcome of learners.

Reconstruction and Transformation-“Four-in-one” Teaching Design Integrated with “Guidance Learning + Flipping + Tracking + Evaluating” with the Blending Teaching Background

MOOCs is giving rise to revolutionary transformation to higher education. Gradual perfection and development of MOOCS and blending teaching reform with the informatization construction background play a non-negligible and important role in accelerating high education teaching revolution and improving teaching quality of higher education. Blending integrated teaching design is the key for blending teaching. It is necessary to aim at the growth and cultivation of students, and give play to the creativity of teachers, and motivate the initiatives of students with the teaching design integrated with “guidance learning + flipping + tracking + evaluating”. In this way, it realizes the reconstruction and transformation of curriculum teaching, contributing to the innovation and deepening of teaching reform.

LIBERAL ARTS COURSES IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Liberal arts courses (LACs) have been introduced in education faculties for high quality teacher education. This study aims to examine the views of education faculty lecturers, graduates and senior year students about the place and implementation of LACs in teacher education. The study group of the qualitative study includes lecturers (17), senior year students (21) and graduates (19) who volunteered to participate in the study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. One-to-one interviews were held with lecturers and graduates, and 30-45 minute focus group interviews were held with groups of 3 to 5 senior year students. Data analysis involved the formation of a list of codes. Related codes were gathered together for thematic coding. The following themes emerged from LAC-related lecturer and student comments: General perceptions, contents, implementation, lecturer quality, measurement and evaluation in LACs, recommendations and desired LACs. The study ends with recommendations for teacher education. Article visualizations:

Study on the Cultivation of the “Double Ability” Talents of Financial Management Specialty Based on “Dual System”

Personnel training program is the guarantee of teaching quality of higher education, and it is also an important basis for achieving the goal of personnel training. The traditional teaching system is usually emphasizing theory, but underestimating practice. With the deepening of teaching reform in higher education, the universities have reached a “theory and practice” combination of training objectives for consensus talents and the construction of modern university teaching system is relatively perfect, but it is still in the exploratory stage in the construction of practical teaching system. In this paper, the author takes application of financial management specialty construction as an example, starting from the theoretical teaching and practical teaching to analyze the main problems existing in the financial management system in theory and practice. She also starts from the development theory and strengthens the practice platform for the construction of a simulation point of view. Then she puts forward to optimize the “dual system” and the structure of “double ability construction”, which can strengthen the integration of financial management theory and practice. So that more suitable applied talents for market demand can be trained.

Approaches to Multiple Attribute Decision Making Based on the Hesitant Fuzzy Uncertain Linguistic Information and Their Applications to Teaching Quality Evaluation in Higher Education

In this paper, we investigate the multiple attribute decision making problems based on the power aggregation operators with hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic information. Then, we have developed some power aggregation operators for aggregating hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic information: hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic power weighted average operator and hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic power weighted geometric operator. Then, we have utilized these operators to develop some approaches to solve the hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic multiple attribute decision making problems. Finally, a practical example for evaluating the teaching quality in higher education is given to verify the developed approach and to demonstrate its practicality and effectiveness.

Evidence does not support the rationale of the TEF

The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) has evolved since it was first announced, and HEFCE guidance to institutions on its implementation reveals a number of significant concessions to evidence, common sense and fairness. Institutions may well implement useful teaching improvement mechanisms in response, as they have always done regardless of the nature of external quality assurance demands. However the rationale of the TEF remains – and it is deeply flawed. It is the rationale that this paper focuses on. It is argued here that its interpretation of evidence about educational quality, employability and value for money ratings, used to justify a TEF, are irrational and are not supported by evidence. Making fine judgments about institutional rankings (and hence fee levels) on the basis of metrics is likely to be thwarted by the very small differences in scores between institutions. Some of its proposed metrics are invalid. Its belief in the ability of a small panel of experts to make sound quality judgments is not well founded given the poor record of past attempts to make such judgments about teaching quality in higher education. The higher education market is very complex and perhaps only a minority of institutions will be able to benefit in the way the TEF intends. The TEF seems unlikely to be perceived, by most, as rewarding.

Student evaluations of teaching: improving teaching quality in higher education

ABSTRACTStudent evaluations of teaching (SET) are widely used in both North America and the UK as a means of documenting and improving teaching quality. This article discusses current research on SET administration and interpretation in both regions. Sections of the article are dedicated to various problems associated with SETs and how these may be addressed. Attention is focused on the underlying theme of engaging students to become active participants in improving teacher quality. Given the large investment in SETs and the strong likelihood that they will continue to be used to measure teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes, it is important to maximise the practical information gained from them.

Measuring teaching quality in higher education: assessing selection bias in course evaluations

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are widely used to measure teaching quality in higher education and compare it across different courses, teachers, departments and institutions. Indeed, SETs are of increasing importance for teacher promotion decisions, student course selection, as well as for auditing practices demonstrating institutional performance. However, survey response is typically low, rendering these uses unwarranted if students who respond to the evaluation are not randomly selected along observed and unobserved dimensions. This paper is the first to fully quantify this problem by analyzing the direction and size of selection bias resulting from both observed and unobserved characteristics for over 3000 courses taught in a large European university. We find that course evaluations are upward biased, and that correcting for selection bias has non-negligible effects on the average evaluation score and on the evaluation-based ranking of courses. Moreover, this bias mostly derives from selection on unobserved characteristics, implying that correcting evaluation scores for observed factors such as student grades does not solve the problem. However, we find that adjusting for selection only has small impacts on the measured effects of observables on SETs, validating a large related literature which considers the observable determinants of evaluation scores without correcting for selection bias.

Video use in teacher education: a survey of teacher-educators’ practices across disciplines

Video methods utilize tenets of high quality teacher education and support education students’ learning and application of learning to teaching practices. However, how frequently video is used in teacher education, and in what ways is unknown. Therefore, this study used survey data to identify the extent to which 94 teacher-educators used video in their teacher education courses along with the specific uses of video. Further, multilevel multivariate analyses identified what factors impacted these uses. Findings included that many teacher-educators underused video in their teacher education courses, and typically used only one type of video in each course. Any type of video use was significantly related to teacher-educator, course, and discipline-area factors, and interactions amongst these. Specific types of video use were significantly related to institutional-demographic, teacher-educator, support, course, discipline-area factors, and interactions amongst these. Implications for increasing video use and breadth of types of video uses in teacher education are discussed.

Perceptions versus Realities: Teaching Quality in Higher Education

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of both students and faculty members on teaching quality in higher education, taking nationality, gender, GPA and faculty members’ perceptions of university priorities into consideration. The mixed method approach was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously in the study. The quantitative data were collected from two countries: The United States and Turkey through a questionnaire developed for the study. Qualitative data were collected through focus group meetings; two with the faculty members and two with the students. The results indicated a difference between the perceptions of the student and faculty groups, regardless of nationality. In contrast to the students, faculty members perceived themselves competent in the three areas of delivery of instruction, rapport, and assessment. It was also found that nationality and GPA had an impact on students’ perceptions whereas gender had an insignificant effect. As for perceived priorities, although both groups stated that teaching is important, it was interesting to note that Turkish group also emphasized administrative work and research/publication as priorities for the university. The results of this research suggests that more work is still needed to reach the high expectations for teaching quality in higher education such as in-service training and professional development activities, particularly on as self-reflection, improvement of teaching skills, and innovative teaching methods with an emphasis on technology.

Evaluating Teaching Quality in Higher Education: Analytical Modelling and Computerized Implementation

Evaluating Teaching Quality in Higher Education: Analytical Modelling and Computerized Implementation

Role of Borderless Higher Education for Refugees programme in offering high quality teacher education and training for refugees in Dadaab settlement in Kenya

The quality of refugee education across the world is wanting. Teacher quality for all in refugee camps/settlements is difficult to achieve in many countries that host refugees. Reason is because most international agencies that come to aid of the refugees are mostly concerned with basic humanitarian assistance like health, food and shelter. But teacher quality is a key determinant of students’ participation rates and achievement levels. It also remains an important ingredient towards attainment of social justice in terms of equity in educational quality for students. One contributing factor to teacher quality is professional training and education though its availability and quality create inequity for many refugee teachers in their camps. This paper describes how Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) initiative is improving access, equity, and quality in professional training and education of refugee un-trained volunteer teachers in Dadaab refugee settlement schools in north eastern Kenya.

Improving learning & teaching quality in higher education

This paper argues that, to manage the powerful combination of change forces currently bearing down on higher education (HE) around the world successfully, universities have be good at determining not only what needs to change in their current approaches to learning and teaching (LT • show how these lessons have been successfully applied to improve the quality and performance of LT and • provide a framework for the effective management of L&T quality improvements in all our universities. The paper is based on a keynote address given at the South African Association for Institutional Research Forum in October 2011 and the discussions that followed.

Quality Teaching in Indian Higher Education in Present Senario: A Study

The present study was conducted to assess the quality teaching in Indian higher education. The present paper based on Curriculum design and improvement; course and methodology development; promotion of social values; professional skills; knowledge and use of advance technology. To access quality teaching in Indian higher education, the data was collected for the study from the graduate and post-graduate students of various colleges and institution of Agra. The questionnaire includes general and specific questions related to quality teaching in higher education. The total number of students who responded the questionnaire was 243, out of which 137 from graduation and 106 from post-graduation. The concepts of quality might be different from institution to institution, while sharing the experience, new views, and idea come out which they can include in their norms and strategy to achieve the target of superior quality in education.

Quality Teaching and Learning in the Health Sciences

Quality teaching is a central tenet to the retention and success of students in higher education but teaching quality measures and indicators have not enjoyed sufficient debate and discourse within the higher education sector. The Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal investigated the use of various programme and module statistics as well as student and peer evaluations of teaching to inform quality improvements in teaching and learning. Quantitative data allowed benchmarking in relation to internal University targets and national norms and pointed to the student cohorts who collectively required teaching and learning interventions but was found to have limited use in improving individual teaching practice. Qualitative data from students and peers was best able to highlight strengths and weaknesses and provided the most useful data to inform changes in teaching practice as it engendered and enhanced reflective practice. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on quality teaching in higher education found that most evaluation instruments were related to teaching input indicators and that there was a dearth of instruments to evaluate the impact of teaching, i.e. there was no explicit evaluation criteria linking teaching input to learning outcome. The challenge for the second cycle of institutional reviews/audits will thus be (1)identifying suitable qualitative indicators/measures for quality teaching , (2) striking the correct balance between quantitative and qualitative teaching quality indicators/measures, and (3), ensuring that such indicators, both quantitative/qualitative address teaching impact/learning outcomes in addition to teaching inputs.

The economics of research, consulting, and teaching quality: theory and evidence from a technical university

ABSTRACTWe investigate the effect of both research and consulting on teaching quality in higher education, at the individual level. We propose a theoretical model in which academics allocate effort between the three activities, over a two period time horizon, under the assumption of positive spillovers from research to both consulting opportunities and teaching, and of life-cycle effects on incentives. Propositions from the model are tested against data from a mid-sized Italian engineering faculty. We find that teaching quality is negatively related to consulting and positively related to research experience. However, both relationships are not linear, due to the importance of several mediating factors, such as seniority and the role of scientific publications as a signal for attracting consulting opportunities.

Challenges and Issues in the Evaluation of Teaching Quality: How Does it Affect Teachers' Professional Practice? A UK Perspective.

Evaluation of the quality of higher education is undertaken for the purposes of ensuring accountability, accreditation, and improvement, all of which are highly relevant to veterinary teaching institutions in the current economic climate. If evaluation is to drive change, it needs to be able to influence teaching practice. This article reviews the literature relating to evaluation of teaching quality in higher education with a particular focus on teachers' professional practice. Student evaluation and peer observation of teaching are discussed as examples of widely used evaluation processes. These approaches clearly have the potential to influence teachers' practice. Institutions should strive to ensure the development of a supportive culture that prioritizes teaching quality while being aware of any potential consequences related to cost, faculty time, or negative emotional responses that might result from the use of different evaluation methods.

Developing an appreciation of what it means to be a school-based teacher educator

The nature of partnership between schools and higher education institutions is changing in many countries, with experienced teachers taking on more responsibility for teacher education whilst remaining in their school as teachers, rather than entering the higher education sector to become teacher educators. This research considers the perspectives of these school-based teacher educators (SBTEs) in England, exploring the impact that this role has on them, their student-teachers and their schools. Some benefits and challenges that they face in the dual role of teacher and teacher educator are revealed. The research takes an interpretive perspective, listening to the meanings being constructed by the participants through use of a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and a focus group of student-teachers who learned from these SBTEs. Possible impacts on student-teachers’ learning and implications for the development of high-quality teacher education are examined.