Reputation and elitism has dominated higher education rankings for a very long time. Attempts to challenge this approach have emerged in the U.S. through the work of Alexander Astin at UCLA's Higher Education Institute and more recently through the National Survey of Student Engagement housed at Indiana University. These other measures take into account the nature of students and the different kinds of institutions throughout the U.S., leveling the playing field from the hierarchy of resources that can only be won by institutions with lots of resources.
The U.K. rolls out its Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) findings in the coming days, which is another way to measure institutional impact outside of the hierarchy of reputation/elitism/resources. The TEF takes into account the differences in the types of students attending U.K. universities and the results are different than the conventional repetitional rankings. Some of the elite institutions emerge in the rankings but others do not while lesser known institutions are recognized for the good teaching they support in their faculty.
While the outcomes of the new TEF rankings are yet to be determined, including how students and families might change their priorities in university applications, the effort to measure institutional impact outside of the hierarch of reputation is laudable. The article on TEF questioned if the U.S. might not benefit from such a ranking as well. Jamienne Studley, former deputy under secretary of education for the Obama administration, opined that the critical issues to assess in institutional rankings are not only teaching quality and student experience but, "Is your employer satisfied, do you report five years later that you feel prepared for the things you're called on to do in the workplace, did you pass the licensing test in your field that tests practical knowledge of nursing or engineering? It's very hard to get at that fundamental [question of] where do people learn important things and where do they learn them in ways that have the most effect and significance."
The U.K. rolls out its Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) findings in the coming days, which is another way to measure institutional impact outside of the hierarchy of reputation/elitism/resources. The TEF takes into account the differences in the types of students attending U.K. universities and the results are different than the conventional repetitional rankings. Some of the elite institutions emerge in the rankings but others do not while lesser known institutions are recognized for the good teaching they support in their faculty.
While the outcomes of the new TEF rankings are yet to be determined, including how students and families might change their priorities in university applications, the effort to measure institutional impact outside of the hierarch of reputation is laudable. The article on TEF questioned if the U.S. might not benefit from such a ranking as well. Jamienne Studley, former deputy under secretary of education for the Obama administration, opined that the critical issues to assess in institutional rankings are not only teaching quality and student experience but, "Is your employer satisfied, do you report five years later that you feel prepared for the things you're called on to do in the workplace, did you pass the licensing test in your field that tests practical knowledge of nursing or engineering? It's very hard to get at that fundamental [question of] where do people learn important things and where do they learn them in ways that have the most effect and significance."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.