Teaching quality is hugely important to student decisions. That's why it needs more than just a rating.
We all know prospective students need a lot of information to help them make a decision about where and what to study. And it makes sense to provide that information in a manner that’s as useful as possible. But that means we need to make some informed decisions of our own about what information should be presented in what kind of format.
I’m thinking about this because the university sector in the UK is preparing itself for the next addition to its regulatory burdens — a new version of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). On January 20th, the Office for Students published details of its proposals for the new version of the TEF scheme, which — putting aside the politics and policy details for the moment — includes a lofty goal:
“We want to make TEF ratings accessible for prospective students alongside other information. […] TEF ratings can contribute to the wider student information landscape by giving a clear signal of a provider’s excellence.”
But here’s the problem I have with that… I don’t think anyone asked the students if this is what they’d find helpful when making that decision.
I don’t think anyone asked the students if this is what they’d find helpful when making that decision.
In the work we’ve done on student decision-making, we tend to find that although "teaching quality" as a concept is often an important factor in students' choice of university, they don't look for an award or a rating to find that out.
If students want to find out what the teaching's like at a university they're considering, they'll speak to other students or look for online testimonials. They see teaching as similar to the student experience — it’s subjective, something that depends on who you are and what you want from your time at university. It’s not something that can be easily summed up in a rating or a label. A TEF award was only ever reassurance or confirmation at best.
Showcasing teaching quality the useful way
I’m not saying that universities shouldn’t talk about the way they teach, or about how effective they believe it is — students will find that information useful. But it has to be:
Relevant to their decision (ie, related to the course they want to study)
Supported by qualitative evidence (ideally from a third party)
So while the number crunching and data collection goes on behind the scenes to generate these new awards, university content teams need to be offering ways for students to find those testimonials and independent feedback that will actually mean something to them. Being able to chat to a student in real-time, or linking them to independent review sites — options like these give students the information they need while also demonstrating you have faith that a third party will be positive about you.
And if you’re not in the UK, you might not need to worry about the regulatory side of this issue, but you’ll still need to give students that information to help in their decision.
If you want to discuss how you can tackle your teaching quality content, get in touch — that’s what we’re here for!
