Madeleine King, John Widdowson, Jane Davis, Carl Flint
The Mixed Economy Group of Colleges, UK
This paper seeks to explore the role of research, scholarship, scholarly activity and continuing professional development in supporting the delivery of programmes of higher education (HE) in further education (FE) colleges. It does so by reference to previous research in the area, noting the expectations of professional bodies with regard to scholarly activity and professional updating and reflecting on the impact of information provided by national organisations such as Quality Assurance Agency for higher education (QAA). A major part of the paper, however, is concerned with the outcome of a survey of scholarly activity conducted across the summer of 2013 amongst 60 colleges that offer HE.
Whilst only 10% of all undergraduates study in an FE college, HE in FE is a well-established part of the HE landscape. All political parties support the growth of CBHE, partly in recognition of its distinctive nature, partly because it is perceived as offering better value for the public purse. They are also agreed that whilst the providers of HE may become more diverse, the quality of their product must meet stringent quality assurance standards. The QAA remains the uncontested guardian of prescribed HE standards, and its expectations remain the baseline for the award of Taught Degree Awarding Powers (TDAP) and Foundation Degree Awarding Powers (FDAP).
This paper takes as its baseline two reports produced by the Mixed Economy Group of Colleges (MEG). In their introduction to Scholarly activity in higher education delivered in further education, King and Widdowson (2009, p. 3) suggested, “There is an emerging need for a new dimension to both our definition and our approach to what constitutes appropriate activity by teachers in supporting the delivery of high-quality, vocational skills-based HE”. The report reviewed the definitions in use amongst the MEG colleges, looked at those used by partner universities and examined the debate between universities and colleges and private providers. The recommendations from the study addressed issues of both policy and practice. The recommendations for colleges included the need for locally-published, supported and monitored definitions of scholarly activity appropriate to the professional development of staff teaching in HE.
In the following year, MEG produced what still remains one of the largest-scale surveys of English HE in FE, including a report on the continued professional development (CPD) needs and sources of support for staff teaching HE in a college setting. In Strategic options, operational challenges (King, Buckland, Greenwood, Ives & Thompson, 2010, p. 101), King et al. concluded, “Many staff felt that college management were yet to establish a culture of scholarly activity as part of strategic approach to continuing professional development. Staff felt that this was vital both for the currency of teaching and credibility of HE programmes being delivered.”
This paper seeks to establish the extent to which definitions, expectations and practice have changed, with particular reference to the recommendations of the original reports.
The institutional culture of mixed economy colleges is held accountable for the differences between that considered scholarly activity within the university sector and that supported or undertaken in colleges (Lea & Simmons, 2012; Harwood & Harwood, 2004). Lea and Simmons (2012) assert that the corporate accountability of employees of FE colleges works to counter the freedom of expression they associate with academic life within the university sector, whilst Feather (2011, p. 21) highlights the dangers of managerialism associated with the “target oriented and funding driven” culture of further education. Neither corporate accountability nor managerialist behaviours are exclusive to CBHE. Since 1998, there has been increasing discussion of impact of managerialism within higher education institutions (HEIs) (Deem, 1998) and the associated perception of a curtailment of academic supremacy within the structures and processes of universities.
Creasey (2013, pp. 44–49) prefers to take a less segregated view of higher education provision, suggesting that as “some institutions are concerned with both FE and HE it may be more useful to consider the post-compulsory education sector as constituting one continuum and seek to identify where each institution sits, HEI or FEC […] HE is a contested concept and the HE sector is not homogenous”.
The research activity took place across April to September 2013 and was made up of four stages: an online survey, a set of voluntary interviews undertaken with college representatives who had been responsible for completing the survey and a discussion with professional body representatives around their expectations with regard to the scholarly activity that they expect from staff who teach their higher-level qualifications. A focus group scrutinised the initial research findings and offered further advice.
A wide range of colleges contributed to the online survey. Liaison with senior staff in the Association of Colleges, the 157 Group and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) enabled the research to include colleges other than those in membership of the Mixed Economy Group. Respondents included specialist art and design and land based colleges. Once duplicate or largely incomplete responses were eliminated, 60 colleges (about 23% of the 257 offering HE) provided the core data from which findings are drawn.
The questionnaire was designed to enable the collation of background information about each institution in terms of the size and nature of its higher education provision, embracing both prescribed and non-prescribed HE and both full- and part-time study modes. It set out to investigate the way in which colleges defined scholarly activity, embedded such activity within strategic planning documents or college policies and then implemented it. Impact (as opposed to follow-up) measures were of particular interest.
Twenty-five interviews were undertaken after completion of the survey, involving participants from colleges of various sizes and with a range of provision and practices. The discussions provided an opportunity for participants to share further details about their approach to scholarly activity. Representatives from six professional bodies also contributed their views on scholarly activity in terms of their expectations with regard to staff teaching their higher-level qualifications and the annual professional updating (CPD) expected of their members. This served to support the wider perspective on the nature of scholarly activity across all forms of higher education.
The data provided by the survey respondents illustrated wide variations in terms of the scope, nature and size of HE provision delivered in the FE sector. It included some colleges new to the sector as well as more established providers.
Whilst the highly-variable combinations of full- and part-time, prescribed and non-prescribed provision make absolute comparison of provision difficult, the number of full-time students at each institution appears to be a key driver for establishing the status of HE provision within the largely FE environment of most colleges. The survey records 25 colleges with more than 500 full-time higher education students (regarded as a large volume of HE provision), ten colleges with between 301 and 500 full-time students (medium volume), and 25 colleges with 200 or fewer full-time students (small volume). This illustrates the increasingly diverse nature of HE in FE in terms of size and nature of provision.
The survey results suggest an association between the number of full-time HE students and the approach taken to scholarly activity. Colleges that indicated that they provided a definition of scholarly activity were more likely to be found in the medium/large volume provider categories. The use of an HE strategy to further embed such a definition, or indeed to provide an implicit definition, was predominant only where there were larger numbers of full-time students.
However, only 35 of the 60 colleges have a definition of scholarly activity. Of these, seven use a definition provided by a partner university. Those who do not have a definition reported that they are under no pressure to develop one by partner universities. (In some cases it was suggested that the university saw scholarly activity as being the element that they brought to the partnership.) This proportion is broadly unchanged from the earlier MEG study (King & Widdowson, 2009) when half of the responding colleges had evolved a definition of scholarly activity. The remaining half reported that scholarly activity was not regarded as a necessity by either the college senior management teams or the partner universities. However, all 2013 respondents (as in 2009) considered it to be central to the delivery of high quality HE. As we will explore later, this raises the question of how, without a clear definition as a starting point, an activity perceived as a determining feature of HE can be nurtured and developed and its impact on teaching and learning assessed.
It can be inferred from the survey responses that the HEFCE-initiated HE strategies of 2009 (HEFCE, 2009a) do not appear to have survived as on going planning and delivery mechanisms beyond the first few years of their inception. The majority of colleges reported that scholarly activity is embedded in other strategies and/or other policy documents, most commonly those relating to staff development.
A range of definitions emerged from amongst the colleges that have evolved a description of scholarly activity. There is a broad expectation that scholarly activity has to involve something new, either by creating new knowledge or applying new knowledge to an existing situation. One respondent, asked to distinguish between CPD and scholarly activity, commented, “The activity must add something new, it must come out of a ‘what if…?’ moment. That’s the breakpoint from ordinary updating”.
One college was specific about what was and what was not included in their definition. Asked to define scholarly activity, it offered:
A process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared […] We exclude routine testing and routine analysis of materials, components and processes such as for the maintenance of national standards, as distinct from the development of new analytical techniques, and we also exclude the development of teaching materials that do not embody original research. However, we include the development of teaching materials where these embody original research, and where these might be applicable to HE institutions beyond the College.
More generally, a particular development has been the move away from an understanding of the term ‘scholarly activity’ as only having an emphasis on research and intellectual updating:
The college has put the emphasis back to Scholarship from Research in order to challenge assertions made by academics from HEIs, on Validation Panels, that staff at the college were not engaged in activities that underpinned their teaching. The move was a positive one towards the term scholarship (away from the excluding concept research) and was designed to embrace, include and celebrate the work that colleagues are engaged in, rather than collude with ideas that it was something of less value and worth.
Some colleges made reference to the definitions supplied by Boyer (1990) but few cited his work as the starting point in their deliberations. The approach to this matter appears to have evolved from an analysis of current circumstances and current resources rather than a deliberate move to mould a college’s HE policy to an academic construct. Publications from national agencies, such as the QAA and the HEFCE, indicate an embracing of this wider understanding of scholarly activity (QAA, 2013; HEFCE, 2009b). A significant number of colleges have reported a more strategic engagement with the nature of scholarship, in particular with activities that could be referred to as the scholarship of application. However, this is more a case of parallel evolution than the focused application of Boyer’s proposition.
All of the interview respondents were upbeat about scholarly activity, seeing it as something that was intrinsic to being an HE teacher. Despite pressures on time and budgets, at no stage did any respondent suggest that staff could not or would not make time to undertake scholarly activity.
King and Widdowson (2009) suggested three categories of scholarship:
The definitions of scholarly activity emerging from the current research suggest continued alignment with categories two and three above, as institutions continue to develop their curriculum and seek improvements in learning and teaching. There is, however, some greater emphasis on a definition of scholarly activity that accords with national guidance (QAA, 2013; QAA, 2012; HEA, 2011) as colleges prepare for reviews (IQER/HER), look to achieve FDAP/TDAP and/or work to engage with the HEA’s UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF).
There appear to be three pragmatic drivers for the continued survival of scholarly activity in the setting of an FE college – an external imperative directed by QAA, an operational reality developed by practitioners such as those working in MEG colleges and a more philosophical view which aspires to apply Boyer’s (1990) approach to an HE in FE setting.
The survey sought to establish whether the opportunities for teaching staff to undertake scholarly activity within a college differed according to their role. The researchers wanted to find out if there was a distinction that applied to those teaching on HE programmes (whether full-time or as a subset of their timetable) and those who only taught further education. The responses indicated that both FE and HE teachers have the opportunity to undertake scholarly activity, albeit that the nature and extent of that activity was variable. The only distinguishing feature to emerge was the lack of involvement by FE staff in curriculum design or publication. In 40 colleges, staff who taught non-prescribed HE are also encouraged to undertake scholarly activity, suggesting that most colleges involved in the survey adopted a whole-college approach. Engagement with journals, attendance at conferences and curating/exhibiting work were cited as examples of scholarly activity.
Whilst many were able to illustrate a definition of scholarly activity by reference to a menu of high-level activities, nearly 50% of respondents quoted a general list that ranged from current updating to action research. As we will see later, this tendency to blur the normal expectations of a teaching professional with activity that might be regarded as CPD, as opposed to higher-level work, is unhelpful to the argument for an established and, more importantly, distinctive culture of HE in FE.
Further work is needed to look at the contribution made by part-time staff to scholarly activity within their colleges. Many are still active in their original discipline and are thus continually updating subject knowledge as a matter of course. The perspective of part-time teaching staff may therefore be different from that of their full-time colleagues.
The greatest driver for strategic recognition of scholarly activity was reported as being the guidance from and engagement with the expectations of the QAA. Ten interviewees highlighted the importance of scholarly activity in relation to an application for TDAP or FDAP and/or the impact of their preparations for and experience of IQER or HER. It was clear from the responses received that the process of application for FDAP or TDAP had galvanised colleges into giving scholarly activity greater priority. Mechanisms included funding and mentoring schemes for teaching staff, as well as a review of class contact hours.
The value of institutional and individual engagement with the HEA also emerged from the interviews, with four interviewees describing the recent move to institutional membership of the Academy. Four colleges for whom FDAP was a key priority indicated a more established relationship with the work of the HEA, describing the way in which their college was working to support staff engagement with the UKPSF.
The nature of institutional support for the development of scholarly activity was explored through interviews undertaken with more than a third of the total survey respondents. Seven out of 25 college representatives referred to the value associated with the support of senior managers and three interviewees underlined the importance of support received from their governing body. In each case, a clear strategic drive from the college leadership was seen as having direct impact on staff levels of engagement with scholarly activity. Responses also suggest that where HE matters are reported separately from FE to the senior management team (SMT) and governing body, the status and hence institutional support for HE activity is much stronger and more proactive.
Research participants illustrated the implicit support of SMT through the provision of institutional enabling or directing structures, including HE policy developments. Examples of structural support were indicated in the survey, and this picture was supplemented by mechanisms reported by interviewees. These included:
Despite the positive impact reported through engagement with such institutional initiatives and structures, the majority of participants reported that most teachers undertake scholarly activity outside of formal working hours.
Participants were asked to consider the issues that prevented staff from undertaking scholarly activity or which made such activity problematic.
The lack of dedicated annualised allocations of time to support individuals undertaking scholarly activity is regarded as a key issue. The majority of respondents noted the tension between the demands of the standard FE teaching contract with its classroom focus and the expectations surrounding the development of an HE culture. This leads to a proliferation of activity being undertaken outside formal working hours that is either not recorded at all by the institution or not measured in terms of its impact on teaching and learning.
Participants employed by small or medium volume providers of HE indicated that contractual (and actual) expectations of contact time fell in the range of 800 to 850 hours, providing an average expectation of 821 annualised teaching hours. Large volume providers of higher education suggested that teaching hours fell in the range 621 to 864, recording an average expectation of 766 teaching hours per year. However, these numbers must not be taken at face value as many hide a range of institutional responses to the external and operational drivers behind scholarly activity.
Several respondents made the point that not all HE teaching staff are interested in scholarly activity. They enjoy teaching and are skilled practitioners but do not necessarily see themselves as academics. One interviewee commented, “It is a myth that good HE teachers need to be research active, it is much more important that staff are up to date with their reading in their subject area and understand the importance of teaching research skills to students”.
Several interviewees made the point that many teaching staff do not feel confident about undertaking scholarly activity. Others may lack the application needed to sustain this whilst teaching for 800 hours a year. Respondents supported the concept of a good practice guide but also referred to the need for a community that specifically supported the development of scholarly activity undertaken in an FE setting.
The impression gained from respondents was that partner universities are not seen as being closely involved in the development of scholarly activity. Whilst there has been friction in the past over the perceived lack of HE-ness of FE staff delivering partner programmes, it appears that little has been done to promote the development of these attributes by the universities who challenge HE in FE staff during annual review meetings.
The importance of a necessary minimum critical mass of HE emerged from the survey. Several respondents from colleges with low volumes of HE made the point that as this was a minor component of the overall college offer, it was difficult to make the case for scholarly activity amongst those who taught both HE and FE. This raises a number of strategic issues for colleges with small numbers of HE students and questions current national approaches to HE delivery. Colleges with medium to large volumes of HE are more able to develop an HE ethos and community amongst their teaching staff.
In both the survey and the interviews, some participants reported a lack of understanding on the part of senior managers about the nature of scholarly activity. This was perceived as a barrier in terms of staff perceptions and actions. As examples of this, respondents mentioned situations where staff did not have a clear, shared definition of scholarly activity, or where their own perception was that scholarly activity was equated to formal research. Others noted the impact of the comparatively heavy administrative burden faced by HE teaching staff in colleges as a result of their FE service conditions.
The need to submit a bid (internal or otherwise) for funding or time allocations could provide a barrier, despite being intended as a supporting mechanism. Many staff saw the time involved in preparing the bid as a call on time that they did not have. In some cases, lack of experience in writing bids may also contribute to this burden.
The recording and impact measurement of scholarly activity is mixed and emerged as the least-developed element of this survey. In this respect, little appears to have changed since the earlier 2009 survey. One participant reported, “At present activity is not formally assessed or reported on. A great deal of practitioner led activity takes place but the College has not previously categorised it as scholarly activity”.
Amongst the more novel practices reported are the use of wikis and Facebook pages. These not only document scholarly activity but also provide real interaction and reflection. Both online solutions provide a timeline so that activity can be recorded and output related directly to individual courses
All colleges which have established an HE conference describe the planning and running of these events as very worthwhile. Not only is it recognised that it secures a high profile for HE activity in the college, but it also provides a platform for external speakers and, through workshops, realistic opportunities for scholarly activity and research. The recording of this is most often through traditional media, published or otherwise, or the more innovative online methods described previously. Student involvement is underdeveloped in this context, but a few respondents describe students who are undertaking teacher training and Bachelor degree programmes being able to present their research at such conferences.
Participants reported a wide range of instruments and situations designed to enable institutional or professional evaluation of the amount of scholarly activity undertaken and its subsequent impact. This assumes a definition of scholarly activity; where no definition is reported or published, it remains unclear how any institution can form a view of the quantity or level of scholarly activity undertaken by individuals. Similar difficulties exist in recording the impact of scholarly activity where it is not clear what has been undertaken. A third issue arises where staff undertake much of their scholarly activity outside of their formal working hours and thus the activity remains unseen and/or unrecorded and unmeasured.
Managers use a number of mechanisms to reflect upon scholarly activity that is formally supported by the college. However, the existence of these mechanisms, whilst suggesting that a range of individuals at various levels in the college might be interested in scholarly activity, does not automatically mean that measures exist to analyse its impact. Nor do they differentiate between CPD and scholarly activity or take account of the scholarly activity undertaken outside the remit of the formal policies and procedures. Indeed, several respondents made the point (previously noted in the 2009 report) that it is virtually impossible to ascribe a direct link between scholarly activity, quality of curriculum and student success rates. One participant commented, “Measuring the impact of staff doing scholarly activity is almost impossible because of the subjective nature of the activities”.
Impact can be defined as the reportable, quantifiable difference, or potential difference, that a project or programme makes to people’s lives. Within CBHE, the emphasis is on the benefit to the students rather than institutional or personal gain. Any assessment of the impact of scholarly activity will therefore want to include what was undertaken, the difference that occurred as a result of the activity, the benefits to students and why this is important.
Where colleges are on the journey towards a formal process of quality review or applying for FDAP or TDAP, they acknowledged that QAA expectations not only make such a link but also expect that formal processes are in place and activities are logged. Whilst some colleges may well be taking this approach, responses from some interviewees suggested that impact was often measured in terms of a report or as a quantified description (meetings attended, presentations made, etc.). Descriptions of what has been done or of the funding sources used also provide context but not impact. What is needed – but which our survey found lacking – are references to processes which revealed:
Three broad themes emerged from the research findings. These are:
The definitions of scholarly activity provided by the majority of participants, when compared with those presented by King and Widdowson (2010), indicate an evolving recognition of the value of a range of academic and vocational practices within CBHE. However, in some areas little has changed over the past three years.
The ongoing need for greater consideration of the potential difference between the CPD long-embraced by the FE sector and an approach that could be more appropriately considered as scholarly activity was brought into significantly sharper focus by the introduction of the IQER in 2006 and FDAP in 2007. These radically altered the debate, as did the QAA guidance note of 2013.
However, not all institutions clearly demarcate CPD from scholarly activity or have a description of what scholarly activity entails for FE as opposed to HE staff. A further issue arising from the lack of a clear definition of scholarly activity is that of measurability. If scholarly activity is deemed to have an impact on the learning experience of students studying at higher level, it is not a wholly independent activity but an institutional one. This can only be achieved where there is a clear definition of scholarly activity. Impact measures are also needed, and will ideally be shared, by all HE programmes within the college.
The professional bodies that took part in the survey seek the same ideal combination in those who teach their qualifications (teaching skills and currency) as colleges. However, most also display a similar lack of clarity over where, on the continuum stretching across research, scholarship and scholarly activity, CPD ends and scholarly activity or applied research begins.
The greater tendency of larger providers of higher-level study to define scholarly activity in the context of their HE strategy suggests recognition of the strategic (and financial) importance of their status as HE and FE providers. Spelling out the principles of scholarship and the way in which the college promotes this in a high-level strategic document suggests the support of SMT, as well as a wider awareness within the college of the importance of such activity.
Where scholarly activity is defined within a college strategy for higher education and the actions supporting the strategy are also set out, colleges are able to refute the accusations of managerialism purported by Feather (2011). Effective strategic alignment of HE with other policies serves to illustrate the drivers relevant to the college and its HE provision, as well as promoting support structures and minimising barriers to high-quality HE.
The findings from the enquiry highlight the imperatives of the journey towards the attainment of awarding powers, partnerships, validation and the process of review (by QAA or professional bodies) as drivers of scholarly activity amongst HE staff.
The main barrier to engagement with scholarly activity is predominantly a lack of time. Teaching hours and administrative loads are determined by individual colleges with their own staff contracts, management guidelines and even different teaching years across the HE and FE boundaries. Where staff are given remission for teaching at a higher level, the expectation that they will meet their reduced annualised teaching load, across a shorter academic year, may mean that their weekly teaching timetable and administrative burden remains as that of a colleague teaching FE. This issue was reported by UCU (2013, p. 1) who wrote “one third of colleges expected staff to undertake scholarly activity in their own time”.
The research concluded that the nature of engagement with scholarly activity varies considerably between colleges, as does the concept of good practice. Impact measurement is a weakness and will need focused attention in an increasingly market-orientated HE landscape.
Consideration should thus be given to means of collaboration. Working with agencies such as the Education and Training Foundation, the HEA or JISC provide possible ways forward. Greater sharing of experience within membership groups such as MEG, AoC, Landex, etc. will enable more specific areas to be investigated.
Many respondents welcomed the suggestion that a practice guide might emerge from the research.
As noted earlier in this report, a separate and future piece of research is needed to look at the relationship between staff that teach HE on a part-time basis and the contribution to scholarly activity within their institutions. Similarly, scholarly activity undertaken by those teaching non-prescribed HE is also worthy of future attention, being largely delivered within the subject departments and much more closely linked to the expectations of professional bodies.
Madeleine King is the Co-ordinator for the Mixed Economy Group of colleges. She has a background in policy-making, having worked for both the FEFC and its successor organisation, the LSC. Madeleine is an independent researcher and has co-authored a number of papers concerned with HE in FE.
John Widdowson is the Principal of New College Durham and the Chair of the Mixed Economy Group. He is a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England Board and has co-authored a number of papers concerned with College-based Higher Education. He regularly addresses national and international conferences on this subject.
Until recently, Jane Davis worked at Colchester Institute, a large mixed economy college, having strategic responsibility for higher education and taking the lead in two successful QAA reviews. Jane was recently awarded her PhD by Lancaster University and now works as an independent researcher.
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/pub/jane-davis/49/838/238
Carl Flint is a qualified teacher who moved into further education, becoming the Vice Principal of Worcester College. He has a strong interest in curriculum matters and ICT and has recently returned to secondary education. Carl also undertakes web development for the Mixed Economy Group, is an author and independent researcher.