Supporting the evaluation of academic practices
Reflections for institutional change and professional development.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v9i2.470Keywords:
evaluation, evaluative thinking, academic practice, institutional change, professional developmentAbstract
In this paper, ten principles for evaluating blended teaching and learning in an age of Covid-19 (Austen 2020) are discussed with specific suggestions for academic practice/practitioners; Evaluation Strategy, Student Involvement, Rationale for Change, Comparisons, Data Types, Standards of Evidence, Indicators of Success, Evaluation Research, Review, Resource and Capacity. The initial reflections (July 2020) focused on supporting the higher education sector with institution-wide evaluations, as this was the strategic and regulatory pressure at that time. However, institutional evaluations are only possible if they are fed by a local evidence base. In this opinion piece, the ten evaluative principles are reframed to encourage evaluative thinking by academic practitioners, and particularly those defined as early adopters. This piece encourages institutions and practitioners to reframe an emphasis on evaluation methods into a critical space of evaluative thinking whilst appreciating the contingent factors of their institution and its stakeholders.
References
Austen, L., (2020). How to evaluate changes to teaching and learning in an age of Covid-19, wonkhe, 14th July 2020, retrieved from https://wonkhe.com/blogs/how-to-evaluate-changes-to-teaching-and-learning-in-an-age-of-covid-19/
Crockford, J. (2020). Unknown knowns: implicit epistemological hierarchies in the evaluation of widening participation activities. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 22(2), 15-43.
Dawson, P. & Dawson, S. L., (2018). Sharing successes and hiding failures: ‘reporting bias’ in learning and teaching research, Studies in Higher Education, 43:8, 1405-1416, DOI:
Dickinson, J., Fowler, A., & Griffiths, T. L. (2020). Pracademics? Exploring transitions and professional identities in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 1-15.
Harrison, N. & Waller, R., (2017). Evaluating outreach activities: overcoming challenges through a realist ‘small steps’ approach, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 21, 2-3, 81-87, DOI: 10.1080/13603108.2016.1256353
Jones-Devitt, S., Austen, L. and Parkin, H. (2017). Integrative Reviewing for exploring complex phenomena. Social Research Update (66). http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU66.pdf
Kara, H. (2015). Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide. Policy Press.
Macfarlane, B. (2011). The morphing of academic practice: Unbundling and the rise of the para‐academic. Higher Education Quarterly, 65(1), 59-73.
Parsons, D (2017). Demystifying Evaluation, Bristol: Policy Press.
Torrisi-Steele, G. & Drew, S., (2013). The literature landscape of blended learning in higher education: the need for better understanding of academic blended practice, International Journal for Academic Development, 18:4, 371-383,
Wardrop, A., & Withers, D. (2014). The para-academic handbook: A toolkit for making-learning-creating-acting. Intellect.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice has made best effort to ensure accuracy of the contents of this journal, however makes no claims to the authenticity and completeness of the articles published. Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables etc which are supplied from an outside source.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
