Reconceptualising Evaluation in Higher Education: The Practice Turn

"I congratulate the authors on what I believe will be a very interesting and useful book. The language is accessible and the structure of the argument is coherent and consistent... This is a very interesting and significant contribution to the field of higher education in general and scholarship in evaluative practices in particular." Judyth Sachs, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.A considerable amount of time and effort is invested in attempts tocontrol, change and improve the higher education sector. Theseattempts involve evaluative practice, but we have not yetconceptualised the evaluations that take place so therefore theopportunity to understand the value and nature of different typesof intervention is frequently missed. This book seeks to dismantle traditional boundaries in approachesto evaluation, assessing how value and worth is attributed toactivities in higher education. It looks at evaluative practice inHigher Education rather than the evaluation of Higher Education.Reconceptualising Evaluative Practices in HE: The Practice Turn aims to aid understanding, drawing on a set of evaluative practices from the UK and internationally. The book will be of value and relevance to higher education providers and policy makers within higher education.Contributors Veronica Bamber, Margo Blythman, Val Chapman, Bernadette Charlier, Rob Cuthbert, Harry Hubball, Kerri-Lee Krause, Neil Lent, Alan McCluskey, Ian McNay, Joan Machell, John M. Owen, Marion L. Pearson, Michael Prosser, Christoph Rosenbusch, Murray Saunders, Uwe Schmidt, Alison Shreeve, Paul Trowler, Massimiliano Vaira, Christine Winberg.

Table of Contents:
List of figures List of tables List of contributorsSetting the scene: The four domains of evaluative practice in Higher Education The Higher Education policy context of evaluative practices Part one: National systemic evaluative practice: power and regulation National systemic evaluative practices: power and regulation Evaluation as ceremony in the Italian university system Student 'satisfaction' or student 'experience': interpreting and acting on evaluation results Research assessment: work in progress, or la 'lutta continua' The elephant in the room: evaluating postgraduate education in South Africa Evaluative practices and outcomes: Issues at the national level Part two: Programmatic evaluative practice Programmatic evaluative practice in Higher Education: design diversity and degrees of programme alignment The national programme of Centres for Excellence for Teaching and Learning (CETLS) in England and Northern Ireland: a theory-driven evaluation of change Foregrounding social interaction in programme evaluation: an evaluation of an innovative pre-service teacher education initiative in Australia Evaluation as deep learning: a holistic perspective on evaluation in the PALETTE project A social practice approach to the evaluation of enhancement strategies in the Quality Enhancement Framework for Scottish Universities Insights into programmatic evaluative practice in HE: A commentary Part three: Institutional evaluative practice Institutional evaluative practices: quality, enhancement and regulation Failing the challenge of institutional evaluation: how and why managerialism flourishes Whole-of-university strategies for evaluating the student experience Emphasizing the social dimension of scientific organizations: institutional evaluation at Mainz University Tensions between professional and organizational development: towards meaningful evaluative practices for all Evaluative practices and outcomes: issues at the institutional level Part four: Self-evaluative practice Self-evaluative practice: diversity and power Appreciative inquiry as evaluation: enhancing and developing academic practice Evaluating a UK centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: bottom-up evaluation in a top-down setting 'Tell us about it!' Evaluating what helps students from diverse backgrounds to succeed at the University of the Arts London Scholarly approaches to curriculum evaluation: critical contributions for undergraduate degree programme reform in a Canadian context Evaluative practices and outcomes: issues at the self-evaluative level Part five: Overview The practice turn: reconceptualising evaluation in Higher Education References Index

About the Author :
Murray Saunders is Co Director of HERE@LANCASTER and Professor of Evaluation in Education and Work in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, UK. Paul Trowler is Co Director of HERE@LANCASTER and Professor of Higher Education, in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, UK. Veronica Bamber is Director of the Centre for Academic Practice at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. She has worked as an educational developer for nine years and previously was a lecturer in Spanish for 18 years, teaching at four different universities around the UK. Her current research is in the evaluation and analysis of learning and teaching development through the development of staff.