39

November 2008

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OPINION

Profiles, Contract Policies and Performance Evaluation of Teaching Staff

Gill Nicholls - Pro-Vice Chancellor Academic University of Salford

The evaluation of teaching is and always will remain a controversial issue that needs to be sensitive to the developmental needs of teaching staff, whilst reassuring a university that their students are engaged in quality teaching and learning situations.

Quality assurance can be seen as an imposition on the autonomy of academic staff, yet it can also be seen as a very successful tool in ensuring coherence, equality, parity and autonomy in the development of academic courses that are innovative, forward looking and student centred.

Setting the context

It is important to set the context within which teaching quality is assessed in England:

  • teaching staff profiles
  • recent government led changes towards teaching and learning
  • national professional standards
  • teaching qualifications
  • continual professional development
  • performance review

Teaching staff profiles

There is a mixed profile of contracts for staff who teach in English universities. They include: academic contracts, teaching only contracts, research only contracts and postgraduate teaching assistants.

The academic contract is the most common type of contract requiring staff to be active in:

  • Research
  • Teaching
  • Administration

Each of the elements can be weighted differently depending on the seniority of appointment.

The teaching only contract is used in a variety of ways, but has been increasingly used in research intensive universities as a means of releasing their key researchers from teaching duties. Teaching only staff are reviewed solely on their teaching quality. The issue here is that many universities have to develop career paths for teaching only staff because standard promotion criteria is based upon performing research, administration and teaching.

The research only contract is mostly used for staff associated with research funding and as such, tend to be for a fixed term rather than permanent. In general, staff employed on a research only contract are not required to teach at all.

It is important to understand that in England academic staff are free to move between institutions and chose where they wish to apply for posts. Universities are autonomous institutions that can freely advertise academic posts and can appoint who they feel fits best the roles within the institution. Academic staff are not civil servants; their individual contracts are with the university and can be negotiated within given parameters.

Recent government led changes towards teaching and learning

Within the structure described above there have been recent government initiatives to change and improve the quality of learning provision for students in higher education. This was initiated through the Dearing Report, which was a significant influencing element. A consequence of the report was that all universities had to produce institutional learning and teaching strategies. Upon successful completion of these strategies, universities were awarded national funds to improve the quality of teaching and learning that focused on strategies and their targets. A key element of these strategies was the introduction of the professionalisation of teaching which led to a variety of models for academic development which reflected the diversity of universities.

National professional standards

The Higher Education Academy (HEA), whose mission is to support the enhancement of academic development and improve the student experience, was established to support universities in the professionalisation of teaching. The HEA, over a period of 5 years, has developed a framework for National Professional Standards for teaching and supporting learning. The framework is flexible, uses a descriptor based approach to professional standards and is founded on three standard descriptors, each of which is applicable to a number of staff roles and to different career stages of those engaged in teaching and supporting learning. The standard descriptors are underpinned by areas of professional activity, core knowledge and professional values. The framework provides a reference point for institutions and individuals as well as supporting ongoing development within any one standard.

Performance review

With the introduction of professional standards and the increased professionalisation of teaching, a variety of methods were brought in to evaluate the performance of academic staff and overall university performance. These include:

  • Teaching observation
  • Student evaluations, both internal and externally implemented reviews, such as the National Student Survey (NSS), that all final year students are asked to complete. These results are made public and collated into national league tables.
  • External examiners reports
  • Student success rates
  • Student completion rates
  • Institutional Audit conducted by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)

More recently, universities are being asked to implement performance management systems to evaluate and assess academic staff performance.

Although there has been much written about the QAA and its over complicated methodology of assuring quality within England, more recent changes to the Institutional Audit have become vehicles for real change and improvement in universities. The lessons to be learnt are to engage with the process from the start, to influence what might be, rather than to deny what might well be the inevitable, that of a system that is imposed with no contribution from the academic community itself. Intellectual engagement and academic argument can lead to a more developmental approach to quality assurance and in turn create a more dynamic and autonomous system for innovating within higher education.

So what are the questions for the future? Certainly, in England the debate continues and is stimulated by questions such as:

  • How do we ensure continued improvement of teaching in universities?
  • How do we link teaching quality to the student experience?
  • How can good teaching be rewarded?

These questions are not mutually exclusive, nor are they exhaustive, however, they do focus on key issues that need continuous debate with and alongside the quality assurance agencies, as no doubt in time mechanisms will be introduced that will evaluate how successful institutions have been in delivering innovative, student centred, high quality teaching and learning for future generations of students.

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