Memorandum 40
Submission from the Institution of Engineering
and Technology
STUDENTS AND
UNIVERSITIES
Summary
— The changing nature of school education
is putting new pressures on the traditional teaching methods of
universities.— The result of focusing the majority of university
funding on the Research Assessment Exercise has diverted attention
away from teaching. — The levels of funding allocated by
the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) fall
significantly short of the cost of teaching many engineering disciplines.—
There is little or no standardisation across universities regarding
degree classification methodology.
— The current degree classification system
is in need of review.
— Universities must take responsibility
for eradicating plagiarism.
— There is a concern within higher education
that the "teach to test" regime in schools is leading
to an increase in students with problems of poor motivation and
attitude to learning.
ADMISSIONS
1. As a result of the widening participation
initiatives, many universities are admitting students with a range
of different learning styles. Traditionally, universities tend
to teach engineering as an academic subject. It is likely that
the universities will be increasingly challenged to provide "practical"
based study, particularly when faced with the expectations of
fee paying students who have come through the "practical"
diploma route.
THE BALANCE
BETWEEN TEACHING
AND RESEARCH
Research and Teaching.
2. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
has had a major impact on the balance between teaching and research
because of the importance attached to it by everyone employed
in universities from Vice-Chancellors downwards. Quite apart from
the impact that the outcome of the RAE will have on a university's
reputation, the fact that significant amounts of baseline funding
are linked directly to performance in the RAE means that in general
universities cannot afford to neglect optimising RAE scores across
all departments. This means that any department which performs
badly in the RAE runs the risk of closure, regardless of the quality
of the teaching delivered by its staff. The inevitable consequence
is that heads of department place a very high priority on maximising
the research performance of their staff, particularly in universities
that regard themselves as research-intensive. From the point of
view of individual staff members, exclusion from the RAE spells
disaster in terms of career progression and it is therefore not
surprising that they should devote a disproportionately large
amount of their time to the development of a strong research portfolio.
3. The requirement that academics should
both teach and carry out research does allow one activity to fertilise
the other. As professionals, academic staff do not generally neglect
their teaching duties, although the pressures imposed by the RAE
can mean that an academic who is intent on furthering his or her
career through research is unlikely to devote a significant proportion
of their time and energy to the development of innovative teaching
and learning methods. Evidence to support this view comes from
the extent to which staff engage in continuing professional development
(CPD) activities related to teaching and learning. Most universities
lay on a comprehensive programme of in-house CPD activities in
the form of seminars and workshops on matters relating to teaching
quality enhancement. However, many staff in the research-intensive
universities do not see engagement with these activities as a
priority for their career development and so will tend to avoid
them as far as possible. The result is that teaching-related CPD
activities are invariably populated by a minority of staff comprising
the few who are not prepared to compromise teaching quality in
order to further their research and those who have become disaffected
by the dominant research ethos that has gripped universities.
Funding Shortfall.
4. There is evidence to show that the levels
of funding allocated by the Higher Education Funding Council for
England (HEFCE) fall significantly short of the cost of teaching
provision in some disciplines. In the case of engineering, for
example, a detailed study of the costs associated with engineering
degrees was commissioned from J M Consulting by the Engineering
Technology Board (ETB) and the Engineering Professors' Council
(EPC).[119]
On the basis of four case studies using TRAC (Transparent Approach
to Costing for Teaching) data it was found that engineering departments
were operating with shortfalls in funding for teaching of between
15% and 41%.
DEGREE CLASSIFICATION
Classification.
5. For degrees to be truly valued, it is
important that the needs of the "user" (eg an employer)
are taken into account during any review of the classification
system.
6. The conclusion reached by the Burgess
Group[120]
was that the present UK honours degree classification system is
no longer fit for purpose. The arguments put forward in the Burgess
Group report are highly persuasive and lead to the conclusion
that a more comprehensive record of student achievement should
be introduced in the shape of the Higher Education Academic Record
(HEAR). To quote from the Executive Summary of the Burgess Group
report:
"The HEAR will be a single document,
based on, and developed from, the current academic transcript,
and incorporating the European Diploma Supplement. It will contain
a wider range of information than the current academic transcript
and will capture more fully than now the strengths and weaknesses
of the student's performance."
7. This is very timely and a welcome step
in the right direction, however steps will need to be taken to
ensure that there is no bias in the achievements recorded.
Standardisation.
8. At present there is little or no standardisation
across universities in the UK when it comes to the methodologies
used for determining degree classifications. Most institutions
use a weighted average of the marks achieved in assessments carried
out at various stages in the programme of study with the final
year normally being given the highest weight. Marks achieved in
earlier years may be incorporated with lower weight or in some
cases may be excluded from the degree classification calculation
altogether.
9. In recent years a number of universities have
modified their regulations relating to degree classification by
discounting (ie excluding from consideration) a proportion of
the assessed modules in which students have achieved the lowest
marks. This can result in some students gaining a higher overall
mark which may take them across a degree classification boundary.
The net effect is that these students will graduate with a better
class of degree than they would have gained had all of their module
results been taken into consideration. The IUSS Committee may
wish to investigate the academic justification for doing this.
10. The exclusion of certain modules from
the methodology used for determining degree classification also
calls into question whether students graduating from one of these
programmes can reasonably claim to have demonstrated that they
have met all of the intended learning outcomes. From an external
viewpoint, manipulation of the degree classification system in
this way is likely to be interpreted as a lowering of standards
and can only serve to weaken the reputation of the UK higher education
system. For this reason alone the abolition of the degree classification
system and its replacement with a system based on academic transcripts
is to be wholeheartedly welcomed.
Plagiarism.
11. Plagiarism is a growing problem and
there is a suspicion that much of it is going undetected or is
simply being ignored. That is not to say that the universities
do not take a hard line if it is discovered. The ICT revolution
has made the copying of text through cutting and pasting from
one document to another an enticingly simple and straightforward
process. This enables students to copy material from online resources
(most notably Wikipedia) and also from one another with remarkably
little effort. Fortunately the same technology that has facilitated
the surge in plagiarism also provides the means for its detection.
Some of the measures that have been introduced recently to combat
plagiarism can be quite effective (for example, plagiarism detection
software using web-based search engines such as Turnitin), although
universities will only succeed in eradicating the problem if these
measures are applied rigorously and consistently.
12. When students arrive at university, they
are not always aware that simply copying information without attribution
is wrong. It is therefore important that schools help in the fight
against plagiarism by encouraging an ethos of original work.
13. Experience suggests that there are cultural
differences in attitude to plagiarism which is something that
needs to be handled sensitively when it comes to clamping down
on poor practice. This is often dealt with on induction but it
takes more than a chat to change deep rooted attitudes.
14. The current take up of tools like Turnitin
can at best be described as patchy and in general universities
are a long way short of being able to claim that student work
is routinely and consistently being screened for plagiarism. If
they are to make progress towards this goal, they will need to
ensure that teaching staff are willing to accept the submission
of student work in electronic form and are properly trained in
the use of plagiarism detection tools. They must also create a
culture in which all teaching staff routinely and consistently
use anti-plagiarism software to scrutinise any work handed in
by students for assessment. Currently a student who indulges in
plagiarism may only stand a 10 or 20% chance of being found out
(although this figure will vary widely depending on the teaching
staff involved) and this may lead some students to think that
the risks involved are worth taking. We need to move quickly to
a position where the probability of detection increases to 80
or 90%, at which point one would hope that the vast majority of
students will recognise that the risks involved are unacceptably
high.
STUDENT SUPPORT
AND ENGAGEMENT
Motivation and attitude.
15. Students that are highly motivated to
study their chosen subject are more likely to complete the course
and graduate with a degree than those that are not. This sounds
fairly obvious, but a sizeable proportion of today's students
appear to have problems of poor motivation and a less than ideal
approach to learning. Whereas students with a deep-rooted desire
to learn and understand the subtleties of a subject will probably
succeed regardless of the environment they are studying in, those
that are poorly motivated will tend to adopt a far more superficial
approach to learning. Students in this latter category may view
the learning process as little more than the accumulation of disconnected
items of factual information that are to be stored only for as
long as necessary to regurgitated them in response to an examination
question. In this situation there is a severe mismatch between
the expectations of the lecturer (who is really trying to cater
for the deep learners who are keen to develop their understanding
of the subject) and the expectations of the student (who would
really just like to be told the answers to the examination questions
so that they can be remembered and reproduced in the exam room).
16. Students who adopt a superficial approach
to learning are unlikely to become skilled practitioners in their
chosen subject. They almost invariably perform badly in examinations,
although this is not always the case—some examination questions
almost encourage a superficial learning style. Turning a poorly-motivated
superficial learner into a highly-motivated deep learner is by
no means straightforward and is very demanding in terms of the
time and effort required from tutors. In terms of motivation and
overcoming learning difficulties students would undoubtedly benefit
from more personal contact with their tutors ("personalised
learning") and this could be the single greatest factor that
would help to improve student retention and lower non-completion
rates. In a higher education system that has seen massive reductions
in the unit of resource over the last twenty to thirty years and
in which many staff are distracted from teaching by the RAE (see
comments above) such intensive levels of student support are unlikely
to be forthcoming.
17. Many lecturers in universities believe that
the teaching experienced by students in secondary schools is at
least partially responsible for the current attitude taken by
students to the learning process. They point to evidence of schools
"teaching-to-the-test", where students are drilled to
remember key facts that are likely to feature in assessments so
that they will be able to regurgitate them when they sit the test.
Schools have been accused of resorting to these tactics because
they are faced with the need to optimise their pass rates and
grade rankings in order to enhance their performance in national
league tables.
Further Action
18. We believe that student fees for degree
programmes in the UK can discourage students from pursuing the
longer programmes that lead to professional qualification. In
the UK, Chartered Engineers need to have an accredited Masters
level (MEng or MSc) degree which entails four years of study;
this is consistent with EU Directive 2005/36 on professional recognition
within the EU, which specifies a minimum time of HE study of four
years for Level E Professionals. Financial support for the extra
year of study beyond the standard three years would mitigate the
disincentive of the extra cost, and provide an opportunity to
promote subject selection.
December 2008
119 "The Costs of Engineering Degrees", ETB/EPC
Report commissioned from J M Consulting, November 2007 (available
from http://www.epc.ac.uk/uploads/presentations/EPC-ETBreportfinalversion.doc). Back
120
"Beyond the Honours Degree Classification: Burgess Group
Final Report", Universities UK, October 2007. Back
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