Mantz Yorke

• Lancaster University

When analysing course-level data by subgroups based upon some demographic characteristics, the numbers in analytical cells are often too small to allow inferences to be drawn that might help in the enhancement of practices. However, relatively simple analyses can provide useful pointers. This article draws upon a study involving a partnership with...

This research project investigates art and design students' interpretation of the terminology used in the UK National Student Survey (NSS) questionnaire with consideration of the oral conversation and discussion traditions that are core elements in a pedagogic "studio" environment. This qualitative interview-based pilot study was carried out throug...

There has long been the suspicion amongst staff in Art & Design that the ratings given to their subject disciplines in the UK's National Student Survey are adversely affected by a combination of circumstances – a ‘perfect storm’. The ‘perfect storm’ proposition is tested by comparing ratings for Art & Design with those for a selection of other subj...

Art & Design receives ratings on a number of scales of the UK’s National Student Survey (NSS) that are less strong than those for some other subject areas. Art & Design, along with performing arts, is characterised by a relatively high level of part-time (PT) staffing. PT staffing data are set against NSS ratings for post-92 universities and other...

Students’ sense of ‘belongingness’ and their engagement in academic study have been identified as key contributors to student success. A short instrument that can identify changes over time in students’ sense of belonging to their institution, their academic engagement and their self-confidence has been developed and used in conjunction with the ‘W...

This article reports on the ways that a group of third‐year undergraduate art and design students conceptualise the pedagogy they experience on their course. This study is part of broader research funded by the Group for Learning in Art and Design (GLAD) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) that employs qualitative interviewing approaches to expl...

Student performance data from a post-92 university in the United Kingdom showed that, for a substantial minority of programmes, there was a general dip in marks between Years 1 and 2. Longitudinal and cross-sectional data were analysed in order to ascertain whether the latter (with its advantage of a more rapid production of results) would make an...

This article reports on a survey of the expectations and experiences of first-year students who were enrolled in 2010 on programmes in Art & Design in the United Kingdom. The survey covered 20 institutions and received 778 usable responses. The results indicate considerable variation in both expectations and experiences, and provide a basis for ass...

Although institutional research has been a significant feature of U.S. higher education for more than 50 years, it is not so well understood in other parts of the world. As higher education around the world faces increasingly challenging times in responding to pressures of massification and globalization, increasing forms of accountability and comp...

The novelist Kingsley Amis once asserted forcefully, with respect to the expansion of the higher education (HE) system in the United Kingdom, that ‘more will mean worse’ (Amis, 1960: 9, emphasis as in original). This was at a time when the participation rate of young people was around 6 per cent. Currently, the participation rate across the United...

Data that have been collected for specific purposes may be exploited in the service of other interests (such as institutional research), though the exploitation may have to be accompanied by methodological compromises of various kinds. As a consequence, the findings might satisfy the criterion of being ‘good enough’ for the purposes of practical ac...

Much grading of student work is based, overtly or tacitly, on assumptions derived from scientific measurement. However, the practice of grading and the cumulation of grades into an overall index of achievement are socially constructed activities that fall a long way short of what is expected of scientific measurement. If scientific measurement is a...

Student engagement with the world of work or voluntary service has become increasingly prominent in higher education curricula as nations and states seek competitive advantage for their economies. Developments in assessment have lagged behind developments in curricula. It is argued that the incorporation of work‐engaged learning into curricula requ...

Assessors in higher education are often faced with the need to grade student work on lengthy scales. Is such fine granularity in assessment really necessary? The question can be addressed at different levels of the assessment system: here the focus is on the difference that would be made to honours degree classifications if so‐called percentage gra...

Relatively inexpensive studies that go beyond the boundaries of individual institutions have considerable attraction, particularly at a time when resources are under significant constraint. These studies can be viewed as existing under the rather larger umbrella of 'supra-institutional research'. Three examples illustrate the argument and some cond...

For a long time, links have been made between higher education and economic activity. The relatively recent emphases on employability (in the UK) and graduate attributes (largely in Australia) can be construed as contemporary variations. This article describes some of the developmental work that has taken place in the UK but which has obvious relev...

The outcomes of surveys of ‘the student experience’ that are sector‐wide, such as the National Student Survey in the UK and the Course Experience Questionnaire in Australia, are of considerable significance for intending students and institutions. Whilst they may satisfy psychometric criteria, some aspects of their design have been submitted to les...

This paper concentrates on the public and formal processes of reporting achievement. The topic is significant because employers, managers and graduate schools all use warrants when making selection and governance decisions. Should those warrants turn out to have, as we argue, local meanings, then selection and governance practices, amongst others,...

The debate in the UK about the continued existence of the honours degree classification led to a survey of the assessment regulations in 35 varied higher education institutions. This revealed considerable variation in the way in which honours degree classifications are determined, and also in the handling of weak performances by students. Such vari...

Replies to the critique by J. R. Adams-Webber (see record 1990-30936-001) concerning M. Yorke's article on repertory grid methodology (see record 1990-31006-001). The reply focuses on these issues: (1) Adams-Webber has misconstrued the significant points of the article, (2) some of the literature to which Adams-Webber alludes is less supportive o...

Repertory grids are used by some as the basis, and by others as the vehicle, for the transmission of meanings. This article is based on the premise that meanings are of paramount importance to those working within the framework of personal construct theory and attempts to establish two general propositions: (1) that, despite a considerable measure...

Higher education in the UK has seen a steady increase in the numbers of part-time teachers, yet the way in which they are inducted into teaching and the utilisation of their expertise are under-researched. This qualitative study of 33 part-time teachers from several universities suggests that their involvement in higher education should be consider...

Claims are frequently made that practice should be based on evidence. However, the nature of what should count as ‘evidence’ depends on purpose and context. In the case of curriculum development, decisions may rest on local and provisional evidence. This article takes an area of contemporary political interest*/enhancing student employability*/and...

A lot hangs on the summative grades that students are given. A good degree opens doors which otherwise might remain closed. Yet, as higher education is now a mass rather than an elite system, what is expected of its graduates is different from the expectations of previous generations. Students are expected not only to be able to demonstrate high st...

Data residing in institutional and system-level record systems are often under-exploited as a resource for decision-making. Whilst the data might neither have the characteristics, nor meet the quality demanded, of formal research projects, their relative availability offers advantages to the policy-maker and practitioner. This article illustrates w...

Educational professional development is a global concern. It is often characterised by event‐delivery methods, though there are signs that other approaches are gaining favour. The authors stress the significance of non‐formal learning, and the ways in which it can be promoted and enhanced within the activity systems within which teachers in higher...

Discusses ways of forming curriculum to promote employability and citizenship, without compromising academic values. Economic success is an aim of governments around the world. Their ‘human capital’ stance towards higher education implies the need to develop graduates’ capabilities to the full. The concept of graduate ‘employability’, currently bei...

Abstract Institutions, educators and students are increasingly being challenged by governmental expectations that higher education should contribute to economic success. The challenges are made more severe when policy drivers include the widening of participation; a desire for high levels of course completion; expectations that students will demons...

Data residing in institutional and system-level record systems are often under-exploited as a resource for decision-making. Whilst the data might neither have the characteristics, nor meet the quality demanded, of formal research projects, their relative availability offers advantages to the policy-maker and practitioner. This article illustrates w...

In this chapter, the authors argue that alignment of higher education with workforce needs should be based on careful action by institutions to embed skills and attributes within instructional programs.

Research shows that formative assessment can exert a powerful effect on student learning, yet the complexity of formative assessment is not well understood and some curricular structures and practices do not fully exploit its potential. This article outlines the background to the political promotion of employability and shows that institutional res...

Datasets are often under-exploited by institutions, yet they contain evidence that is potentially of high value for planning and decision-making. This article shows how institutional data were used to determine whether the demographic background of students might have an influence on their performance: this is a matter of particular interest where...

Government policy around the world is heavily influenced by a ‘human capital’ perspective. Education systems are pressed towards developing young people for their roles in the labour market: in the UK this is signalled in the term ‘employability’. Curricula differ in the ways in which they respond. Data are provided from three recent UK surveys tha...

This article briefly chronicles nearly a decade of research and development activity undertaken in the area of assessment by a group of committed volunteers, ‘The Student Assessment and Classification Working Group’ (SACWG). However, greater attention is given to demonstrating what a self‐help approach can achieve in respect of research and develop...

In earlier work the Student Assessment and Classification Working Group (SACWG) found that up to 15% of honours classifications in UK higher education might be different if the results had been fed through another institution's award algorithm. In this article a more sensitive analysis has been applied to two blocks of institutional results that ha...

In an attempt to gain a fuller understanding of the basis of grading, ten assessors each assessed two portfolios drawn from the course archive which had been produced by participants on a course in teaching in higher education. Assessors gave a grade or judgement on each of a portfolio's 75 portfolio elements, reasons for each judgement they made,...

Institutions outside the US have been relatively slow to develop a formally constituted institutional research capacity (rather than undertaking research into institutional functioning as the need is perceived), perhaps because of differences in the way that higher education is organised in their countries. Some examples of engagements in UK higher...

Terms such as retention and persistence reflect the interests of different parties. Much of the empirical and theoretical literature deals with retention from a ‘supply‐side’ perspective. This article has three main sections. The first consists of a summary of recent empirical findings from surveys of students who left their on‐campus programmes pr...

The self-theories of students and teachers are a neglected aspect of higher education, yet are important mediators of students' development and achievement. Theoretical considerations and empirical findings are brought to bear on the implications of self-theories for student development, and for the development of academic staff.

The importance of formative assessment instudent learning is generally acknowledged, butit is not well understood across higher education.The identification of some key features offormative assessment opens the way for adiscussion of theory. It is argued that thereis a need for further theoretical developmentin respect of formative assessment, whic...

Higher education is in flux asgovernments around the world seek to use it asan instrument to enhance national economies,and the half-life of knowledge steadilydecreases. Lifelong learning is presented ascritically important to the development ofhuman capital, but its implications forfirst-cycle higher education have yet to befully appreciated. It i...

Success in higher education for students from lower socio-economic groups and from disadvantaged backgrounds is becoming an increasingly important policy goal in the UK and abroad. An analysis of the HEFCE performance indicators identified six English higher education institutions performing above their benchmarks with regard to widening participat...

Many governments are concerned that investment in higher education should increase the stock of human capital, which is seen as a source of national economic well-being. This concern often leads to an expectation that higher education will foster the learning outcomes that employers value. In the UK it has taken the form of pressure on higher educa...

What is assessed gets attention: what is not assessed does not. When higher education is expected to promote complex achievements in subject disciplines and in terms of 'employability', problems arise: how are such achievements to be assessed? In the first part, Knight and Yorke argue that existing grading practices cannot cope with the expectation...

In order to determine trends in the percentages of good degrees awarded, data showing the awards profiles for the five academic years 1994–95 to 1998–99 for universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were analysed by institution and by subject area. Although earlier research had shown a rise in the modal class of honours degree over the pe...

Educational research is under challenge in the UK. Although the current focus of the challenge is school education, pedagogical research in higher education is not immune from collateral effects. This article examines the relevance of the ‘educational research debate’ to pedagogical research in UK higher education; outlines the conflicting pressure...

Employability, it is argued, can be embedded inany academic subject in higher educationwithout compromising core academic freedoms. Astrategy for curriculum change is described,which is sensitive to both governmentalexpectations and traditional academic values –and is relatively easy to use. The strategyprovides a way of preserving legitimatedivers...

This paper analyses the performance criteria and learning objectives contained in the first 22 QAA subject benchmark statements to be published and considers the implications for assessment. There is much variation in the amount of detail in the statements and there are also implicit performance criteria in the intended learning outcomes listed at...

Data from a study of non-completion in England showed some noticeable differences between Art and Design and other subject areas. These related particularly to the quality of the student experience, and prompt a number of questions about the way in which higher education in Art and Design might evolve, given sectoral developments such as the wideni...

Variation in mark-spread is very evident in degree classification data provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Previous empirical investigations suggested that, at the level of the module, the spread of results might, in some subjects, be influenced by the method of grading (percentage marking or shorter grade-point scale). The a...

Portfolios are widely used to document and assess professional development. They are used to assess university teachers on courses run by the UK Open University. These portfolios are assessed twice, by trained assessors, against a detailed set of requirements which include learning outcomes and underpinning values. A detailed analysis was undertake...

Metadata only It is commonly believed that the standard of student performance in coursework tends to be higher than that achieved in formal examinations. This view was tested by analysing undergraduate performances in six subjects at four UK universities. Two measures of relative coursework performance were employed. The first is the difference be...

The performance data for UK higher education institutions which were published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in the year 2000 are sophisticated in that, in the provision of benchmark data, they take account of institutional variation. However, the non-completion data do not take into account a number of significant parameters...

L'article analyse la position des nouveaux etudiants et l'incertitude qui les habitent quand ils doivent s'integrer socialement et academiquement dans un environnement propice au developpement des crises de confiance et des doutes. Les evaluations du premier semestre sont a ce titre importantes, puisqu'elles representent le premier jugement porte s...

Formative assessment is of critical importance to student learning. With learning and teaching, and also retention, high on the agenda of higher education, the professionalism of academics as educators is of increasing significance. A key component of educators' professionalism—formative assessment—is weakly conceptualised, and hence it is likely t...

This paper examines the use of portfolio evaluation in accrediting higher education teachers in the United Kingdom. It explains portfolios as an approach to authentic assessment and discusses the issue of reliability in portfolio assessment when teacher accreditation depends on it. Researchers investigated one course, collecting data on 53 assessme...

Bipolar rating scales find considerable use in educational research, whether in formal instruments or as ad hoc scales produced by respondents (for example, in elicited repertory grids), and the data generated are often subjected to statistical analysis. This article examines the concept of bipolarity from primarily a linguistic perspective, taking...

The publication of a series of performance indicators for UK higher education late in 1999 drew attention again to the move towards a massified system that accelerated two decades ago. Elements of the press took the published data as an opportunity to attack the massification that has taken place, since non-completion was found to be higher in the...

In 1998 the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)commissioned a survey of the extent to which institutional learning andteaching strategies were being used in English higher education. Thesurvey was seen by HEFCE as a necessary precursor to the enactment ofits policy decision to allocate a component of institutional funding onthe bas...

This article reports some findings which have emerged from research into assessment that has been carried out over a number of years by the Student Assessment and Classification Working Group in the UK. The findings raise questions at a number of levels about assessment practice. The heterogeneity in the distribution of honours degree classes that...

Surveys of students who had prematurely left six institutions in the north-west of England during, or at the end of, the academic years 1994–1995 and 1995–1996 generated 2151 responses from full-time and sandwich students. The influences on their non-completion could be reduced to six main factors, in which dissatisfaction with the quality of the s...

Although quality and qualityassurance have become embedded into the discourse ofhigher education, the development of a quality culturewithin higher education has (paradoxically) laggedbehind the implementation of quality assurancepractices. Part of the paradox, as far as learningand teaching are concerned, can be attributed toexternal demands which...

Although quality and quality assurance have become embedded into the discourse of higher education, the development of a quality culture within higher education has (paradoxically) lagged behind the implementation of quality assurance practices. Part of the paradox, as far as learning and teaching are concerned, can be attributed to external demand...

Entering higher education requires considerable adjustment, and hence the first year experience is of critical significance to students. Some make the adjustment well, others do not. Evidence from studies of non-completion of full-time students indicates that, for some of them, insufficient attention has been given to preparation for the transition...

This study set out to ascertain whether percentage mark distributions show evidence of discipline‐related marking behaviour and, if so, to consider the implications of this for equity in assessment outcomes. Performance data were obtained for 10 subjects at seven English universities for 1993–94, 1994–95 and 1995–96. The data showed that mark distr...

The article reports on a small‐scale project that investigated the potential of using a benchmarking club on assessment practices in History as a means of establishing and comparing academic standards. The context of the project is described and the benchmarking club's key findings are presented. Issues addressed are the subject goals, levels of st...

Relates higher education to the labour market, noting that the pace of change in national and international economies requires higher education to encourage the development of people who can act effectively in turbulent circumstances. Shows that quality and standards are open to interpretations which depend upon the interpreter’s perspective. Argue...

The Dearing Report in the UK supported the use of benchmarking in higher education, taking as its stimulus the use of benchmarking in industrial and commercial contexts. The UK Government''s concern regarding academic standards has raised the question of whether benchmarking could be applied to them.This article reports on a pilot study of the benc...

The Dealing Report in the UK supported the use of benchmarking in higher education, taking as its stimulus the use of benchmarking in industrial and commercial contexts. The UK Government's concern regarding academic standards has raised the question of whether benchmarking could be applied to them. This article reports on a pilot study of the benc...

The extent to which students complete programmes of study, and the time that ‘computers’ take are two matters of concern to policy makers, not least because of their implications for the consumption of national resources. This paper draws upon a substantial study of non‐completion in the North West of England, which was commissioned to provide info...

The costs to the public purse of the non-completion of full-time and sandwich students' programmes of study was calculated to be of the order of 91.5 million for the academic year 1994–95. The influences on non-completion arise at three levels: those of the educational system, the institutions, and the students themselves. The reduction of the cost...

Performance indicators are well‐established in the language of accountability in higher education, and are used to serve a variety of political and micro‐political ends. However, the speed of their implementation has not been matched by equivalent progress in the development of their technical qualities, particularly in the general area of the deve...

Submits The Times’ 1997 “league table” of universities to statistical analysis. Concludes that the changes made to the table since 1996 have made it more strongly unidimensional, with research performance being overwhelmingly dominant.

Non-completion is of considerable significance to any government which is concerned to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of its national system of higher education. The study reported here shows that non-completion in England is costly. Non-completion has complex causes, some of which can be addressed by institutions and some on a supra-ins...

The management of assessment—in contrast to assessment methods themselves—has received surprisingly little attention in the literature, yet is of considerable importance at a time when students are increasingly taking on customer‐like roles, with all that this implies for complaints, appeals and—in extreme circumstances—litigation. It is argued tha...

Subjects the league table of universities published in The Times and The Times Good University Guide in 1995 and 1996 to statistical and conceptual analyses. Shows the “measures” used by the compilers of the tables to be problematic in a number of technical respects. Shows that the number of underlying variables is largely reducible to a single fac...

Examines the extent to which the purposes of quality assurance stated by the Joint Planning Group (JPG) in its Final Report are likely to be fulfilled, and points to a number of weaknesses in the JPG’s proposals. Argues that a more forward-looking approach is needed, and suggests that, if the JPG proposals are implemented, the new arrangements will...

The external examiner system in higher education is, for a variety of reasons, widely believed to be under strain: as a result, the role of the external examiner has, in recent years, come under particular scrutiny. Reports a survey of current and desired practice regarding external examining in higher education courses in art and design. Suggests...

This article explores the proposition that, as it has typically been used, performance‐based funding has limitations which may not encourage the fullest development of the quality of academic programmes. Beginning with a discussion of the relationship between accountability and improvement, the article then moves on to consider different approaches...