Guide to using Evidence in Higher Education

This Guide to Using Evidence has been designed to, to support and encourage students and students’ association and union staff to actively engage with data and evidence. It offers an accessible introduction to a range of key ideas and concepts and a range of activities which allow readers to develop their own thinking and confidence in key areas. The ambition of its authors, QAA Scotland and the students who reviewed early drafts, is that students and students’ association and union staff will reach for this resource as they prepare for committees, devise new campaigns, deliver services, and do all of the other things they do to enhance students’ experiences and outcomes. Underpinning all of this is a belief that students themselves, the institutions they are working with, and the sector as a whole, are better served when students are, and are seen to be, agents in the ‘data landscape’, not just subjects of it. Engaging with this Guide will help students and students’ association and union staff to develop that sense of agency in themselves and foster it in others. This Guide is a product of a student-led project coordinated by QAA Scotland as part of the Evidence for Enhancement Theme (2017-20)

Practitioner enquiry and professional development: 'action research' re-visited and re-viewed in the context of outcomes-based education

[From the abstract]: In the past five years there has been considerable change in curriculum design and delivery in universities in the UK, as the sector moves towards an outcomes-based approach. This is having a marked effect on teaching and learning, and particularly on assessment strategies and methods. Accompanying the curriculum change we have seen an increased emphasis on the role of teaching in HE, with central funding to support staff through 'subject networks', key publications and resources. At the same time there has been high-profile recognition for 'teaching excellence' and a move towards the 'accreditation' of HE academic staff with mandatory continuous professional development (CPD) as part of quality enhancement ..