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Quality Process Review.Annex C
Individual Unit Observations*
This visit impressed us that the University's whole person education philosophy has an impact on the teaching and learning of the staff members of this Department. We also found much collegiality among the staff members, who exhibit a collective responsibility in educating groups of students who are not particularly considered to be of wider ability range. Staff display a positive attitude and effort in educating these students, thus contributing to the value- added in their students' learning.
A culture of quality seems well internalised among the staff we saw. However, more formal review processes would be desirable. Staff development is very ad hoc and informal. Respondents did not know if staff had used the CED or even if new staff had attended the induction programme. Here also university or faculty policies would be helpful.
Research and teaching were conceived as having a synergetic relationship. As the subject concerned is going through rapid changes, research was crucial to up-date materials for quality teaching. A faculty member pointed out that "research" was rather narrowly defined, in terms of "published papers", he hoped that a broader definition with a wider scope could be adopted by the University.
The staff did not seem to exhibit much tension between research and teaching activities though they did experience a heavy workload. They found the two areas inter-related. In fact, they cleverly weave parts of the staff members' research projects with the final year students' honours projects. In so doing, students also took pride in having an opportunity to participate in their mentors' research projects.
The unit has a strong reputation, it is aware of quality issues, and it is seeking to maintain and enhance its reputation. Quality assurance processes are in place and are used. However, attention should be given to more systematic collection of feedback—from students, from external examiners and course advisory committees, and from employers. The unit is aware of various issues which impact on quality which need to be addressed. These include student communications, departmental boundaries and course overlap, teaching evaluation, the potential for better use of the Centre for Educational Development.
The department evidenced much serious concern about the quality of teaching and appears to be making an effort to balance departmental and course priorities. This is especially significant given that this is a research intensive field. Indeed, the most experienced and senior academics, those with substantial research credentials, also taught students at all levels. Furthermore, one third to one half of subjects are team taught.
The department seems to be coherent and to work well as a team. The department has good morale, places importance on quality assurance and seems to use most of the relevant tools to achieve this. They believe that research is counted more than teaching: "Teaching helps but research is needed to get somewhere."
Informal processes are more important than formal ones. This appears to be a function of the unit's small size and cohesiveness/coherence. However, there is a possibility this could be lost over time if all the processes remain purely informal.
The department appeared strong with a good reputation locally and with students. Issues of curriculum and pedagogical development were debated widely and there was strong identity with the needs of employers as well as the need to provide a broader intellectual development for the students. The communication with students was good although mainly informal. More attention could be given to obtaining systematic feedback from employers, alumni and students and the use of external advice including external examiners could be re-examined to ensure greater consistency and value. The value of course questionnaires was questioned by students who received no feedback as to their use or outcome.
The students are proud to be associated with the unit and proud of its reputation. However they felt that more effective and systematic ways of obtaining student opinion could be devised.
The meeting with the students disclosed a fairly satisfied group. The general view was that students do have the necessary informal and formal mechanisms for providing the department with relevant feedback. Summing up the subgroup met a department with a committed and considered approach to quality in teaching and learning. But while the department has several relevant quality mechanisms in place, it evidently is pursuing its own quality approach. It does not really perceive itself as part of or guided by an overall university quality culture.
Pedagogical and particularly curricular design seem to be getting serious ongoing attention from the department. The department is interested in new teaching techniques and has developed some using a server and the internet. They expect self-learning in some appropriate subjects.
The department pays attention to the recommendations of the school Advisory Committee. Some students criticised the design of parts of the curriculum when it was first launched. The department showed us an excellent example of how they revised an advanced topics course as a result of feedback for their students. However, while staff favour bottom-up attention to the curriculum, their perception was that it is difficult to make changes in courses as the changes have to be sent "up the pyramid" for approvals.
Courses are initiated by teaching faculty. Inputs to the structure and contents of the course come from the faculty, as well as past graduates and employers. The University has a very elaborate and well established structure in place to approve and maintain active courses to make sure that inter- departmental or inter-faculty issues could be adequately attended to. The subgroup felt that it is a good structure, but that if not implemented carefully it could involve an excessive amount of paperwork and consume more time than necessary. The department related to us a case involving a minor change of one subject in a course that took lots of paperwork and a year's time to resolve. We feel that careful and regular review of the structure by the University to reduce bureaucracy is needed, and opinions should be widely sought from teaching staff in the "field" (users of the system).
Feedback from employers, students and graduates were sought during the review of the course curriculum. The accreditation of this course, like any other course in the Baptist University, would go through the well established and organized quality assurance system for scrutiny, endorsement and approval. (We found later that the responsibility of accreditation has begun to be devolved to the faculty level by phases, clear steps have been worked out to guide course leaders in the devolution process.)
Curricular design was conceived as a balance between the perception of, on the one hand, which academic standards to meet and, on the other hand, the needs of students and society. The department benefits from the feedback obtained through instruments like the Faculty Advisory Committee and from visiting panels of experts. Feedback from external examiners seemed to figure much less strongly.
Changes made to course structure and curricula are apparently well- reasoned and soundly based, and they are supported by staff and students. But apart from formal re-accreditation by peer review, the review and improvement processes are largely informal.
The staff capitalize on the students' strong motivation to learn. They were of the opinion that their students must attain a good foundation in the subject area they enrolled in during the first and second years. The students did complain of heavy workload but began to appreciate the efforts of their teachers when they were in the third year. One staff member described teaching as "a personalized process" whereby a bond was built between the staff and students in the teaching/learning process.
Respondents described examples of new teaching materials based on video tapes and interactive multimedia technology, as well as industrial site visits where applicable. Both students and faculty spoke positively about the value of the honours programme in preparing the students for further studies and jobs.
Students admitted that they had a low self image when they were first admitted into the University, but it was the teaching staff of the department who had helped them to regain confidence in learning. They thought that this was possible because of the positive attitude of their teachers, the joy was to find such attitude in not just a few but the whole group of staff members.
Students thought that Baptist University graduates were generally less competitive with the graduates of the two older universities. Staff were aware of the recent decline in the students' performance and thought they would need to look into this further.
Both staff and students were aware of the University's commitment to the "whole person education" approach. They demonstrated conscious efforts in bringing this mission to fruition. Both groups saw this much more than just the dissemination of knowledge, but also attempts to develop students' thinking capacity. The first year's general studies subjects were perceived as one of the ways to realize this, however Year I students felt confused with the number of credits they had to take in this area as against the area they had enrolled themselves. However, their queries began to ease when they reached their second year, and they really appreciated the richness of the curriculum when they reach their third year.
The unit has adopted a variety of teaching strategies, including individual and group work, seminars, and team teaching. Teaching methods are discussed informally among staff and, to a certain extent, with students. The Centre for Educational Development is not perceived as having much of a role. Students confirmed that staff are supportive, accessible, eager to help if they have queries or face learning difficulties.
Students felt that complementary studies were good but would rather not be graded in them. They also would like more choices. Some did not understand "whole person education" and would rather just take more of the specialized courses.
Mechanisms for quality assurance in the University have been clearly laid down and followed by the staff members. While the teaching evaluation is conducted as a University requirement, student feedback relies much more on informal interaction between staff and students.
The department is interested in staff development but has no processes established. Staff appraisal is conducted by the Head, partly based on teaching evaluations, but the outcome is kept confidential. Therefore the course leaders may not have a good idea of the teaching in their programmes. In the past the Head was not informed of the results of the teaching evaluations for substantiated staff but we were told that this has already changed from first semester 1995/96. The structure's processes have both strengths and weaknesses. Contact with students rests with the 'option' or stream coordinator. As there is no formal staff-student consultative committee in the school or department it relies on the initiative and devotion of the option coordinator.
The staff help each other through peer review mechanisms. This includes: visiting classes taught by new staff members, using team teaching mechanism to work together on class presentations, commenting on one another's examination scripts or demonstrating certain teaching strategies. Staff seem to perceive the Centre for Educational Development as helpful in providing technical support, but it was not seen as a facilitating unit for the improvement of teaching.
One member stated that her department held alternate weekly meetings to discuss issues reported by staff members sitting on different course boards. Such meetings could become weekly ones when there were too many issues raised.
Staff seemed unable to grasp the direction of questioning when asked about monitoring of teaching quality—they focused instead on either curriculum or outcomes. Both students and staff cited a loss of confidence in the teaching evaluation questionnaires, perhaps as a result of the recent changes (including loss of the open-ended question due to a clerical error).
As regarding staff's perception of the teaching evaluation questionnaire, some staff members apparently still view this "as punitive" since the results of the questionnaire seemed to play a crucial role in the promotion and substantiation exercises.
In a case when poor teaching was identified, one department experimented with the mentoring system in which a more experienced colleague was paired with the staff member concerned so as to help him/her to improve in his/her teaching. The case quoted, verified by one student at a later session, was a successful one and did improve the staff member's teaching.
Staff jointly design examinations and pay attention to teaching. Some staff were not renewed because of weak teaching. They noted that their active researchers were good teachers too. They take reaccreditation input and past graduates' advice seriously and have initiated curricular changes as a result of this feedback.
The unit visited claimed that a "continuous assessment" system is used to measure student performance. In reality, the system was only partially implemented. While midterms and quizzes were used in addition to final examination, homework was assigned but not collected or graded because of the lack of teaching assistants to help with the grading. Students commented that the 70-80% weighting given to final examination is too heavy. One department is trying to divert resources to provide TAs for some required courses.
Student feedback was collected through the teaching evaluation questionnaire. In addition, staff members relied on informal channels for feedback. Students found channels of feedback adequate.
Students did not identify with the teaching evaluation questionnaires. They would like to see the results and know what changes were made as a result. They said that students did not bother to fill them in accurately as a result, just routinely checking the "average" boxes. They also wanted the space for comments restored.
Student evaluation of teaching and courses has been implemented for over 10 years. However, in addition to the individual being assessed, only selected people (heads and deans) are routinely provided the results. Students mentioned that many were not serious about filling in the forms because they don't feel that they own the system and don't know how the results are being used to improve the course. Faculty complained that they were not well informed with regard to how the results are used in their merit review. However, one dean personally interviews each newly recruited demonstrator/tutor and explains the significant contribution he/she could make to students' learning process.
Except for the annual staff-student consultations, feedback from students is mostly based on informal mechanisms. Negative feedback on teaching from students is seemingly acted upon and the teachers in question are urged to give teaching a higher priority. However, it appeared that recourse to training and courses by the CED is not included in departmental strategies.
The external examiner's role was seen as monitoring the standard of a course by reading and commenting on the examination scripts.
The CED first presented the subgroup with an impressive tour of the technical facilities and the equipment. During the following discussion the CED outlined its role in two dimensions: (a) services in educational media, materials, equipment and facilities; and (b) in development of teaching and learning through training and research, and assistance with curricular development. The function of the CED is thus that of a support unit in three overlapping sectors :
The education technology to be found at the CED is of high quality and sophistication. There is no doubt that the CED provides excellent service and support, even though it is handicapped to some extent by the need to serve two campuses. We met considerable enthusiasm from CED staff. However, given current staff strength of the CED (the director and assistant director, four executive officers and eight technicians), the resources available for providing teaching and learning support are severely constrained. Consequently, promotion and dissemination around the university are far from optimal. One indication is that the various TLQPR subgroups, during their visits to faculties and departments, got a rather mixed impression of the use and even knowledge of CED support in teaching and learning. The students interviewed by the subgroups generally expressed limited or no knowledge of learning support services such as Learners' Club and Mentoring Support. Teaching staff were more aware of activities like "The Practice of Higher Education" a two-year programme designed primarily for new faculty. However, even this noteworthy programme reportedly suffers from class sizes of upwards of fifty people?which makes it hard to link the training of new faculty to individual needs.
There is no reason to doubt the enthusiasm and professionalism of the CED staff nor to question CED commitment to act as an agent for change. But a very broad range of initiatives and services are presented in the CED self- assessment, along with the observation that "the most lacking commodity is perhaps time." It appears that Baptist University and the CED must consider the trade-offs inherent in constrained resources. Priorities must be set if the potential impact and relevance of the CED for teaching and learning quality is to be optimally achieved. For example, clear decisions need to be made about what the CED should do directly and what it should do indirectly by stimulating and facilitating departmental activities, and the CED should be funded accordingly.
However the above question is decided, the CED is not sufficiently visible across the University. The availability and importance of the CED's service repertoire must be promoted and disseminated with vigour—not only to heads of departments and course leaders, but to faculty at all levels. A well functioning teaching support centre must be able to reach faculty that may not naturally be inclined to enroll in seminars and workshops, regardless of whether their priority is on research or they do not believe they can learn to teach better. Along the same lines the learning support services must also be known and familiar to weaker and less motivated students who in a relative sense may be most in need of services. Finally the CED should be encouraged to give even higher priority to registering user profiles and to secure a more formal framework of feedback from users instead of the current informal links.
* Paragraphs in this Annex generally relate to different units.
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