Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY 2009
PROFESSOR RICK
TRAINOR, PROFESSOR
MALCOLM GRANT,
PROFESSOR LES
EBDON CBE AND
PROFESSOR GEOFFREY
CROSSICK
Q40 Dr Iddon: I want to turn now
to some questions on quality and standards. I have to tell you,
gentlemen, that we have had some critical comments made about
the Quality Assurance Agency. I think we could summarise it by
saying that the comments point to the fact that the QAA is only
interested in process and that it lacks independence and teeth.
Indeed, the QAA itself says that it does not judge standards.
How on earth are we to get consistency in quality and standards
across the university sector, all of it, when we are getting comments
like we have had in this inquiry? Is it not time that we review
the QAA itself and ask the question: is it doing its job and should
we be replacing it with a new body that does have teeth and does
measure consistency across the sector?
Professor Trainor: This is a very
important subject and one that all universities in the UK are
very concerned about. We have a really strong stake in maintaining
our standards, our good processes, and our reputation for having
them. That matters to a significant degree, of course, in terms
of our ability to retain interest from students applying from
around the world, but it is also a crucial bit of our responsibility
to our home students. I would query the assumption that the QAA
lacks teeth. Any institution coming up to a periodic institutional
audit—mine happens to be preparing for one and we will be
putting in our self-assessment in two or three months' time and
be having the visits in the autumn—I can assure you does
not think that the QAA lacks teeth. We also see it as having a
great deal of independence. Whatever the intricacies of the funding
mechanism, it is a body that is, and quite rightly so, above any
ability of an individual institution to influence what is going
on. Also, I think that we need to keep in mind that it is not
just the QAA which is looking after the question of standards
and processes in UK higher education. In a sense, they are policing
the whole system but each institution also is policing itself;
so it is a combination of the two. An individual institution,
just like the system as a whole, has a really strong interest
in upholding its standards. We therefore have systems of periodic
review of our programmes and, crucially, we have the external
examiner system. I know that there has been a lot of criticism
of that over the last six months or so. I think that it is unjustified.
The external examiner system is a jewel in the crown of UK quality
maintenance. It is something that in my native country, the USA,
is unknown, except in the rarefied reaches of PhD examinations.
We have a double system, double insurance, in the UK of internal
scrutiny and external scrutiny, and the two join together in the
external examiner system. I agree with you that we need to be
looking at this in a critical way. That is one reason why Universities
UK took an initiative last summer to tighten its input, or rather
its receiving information from the QAA, about any general problems
detected in the system; and of course the QAA, as I understand
it, is looking critically at the way it is organised itself.
Q41 Dr Iddon: Can I stay with Professor
Trainor and pose another question to you? In your evidence you
say that "the level of understanding required between different
universities is broadly equivalent". What evidence do you
have to back up that statement so that everybody involved in the
sector—from students and potential students, the taxpayer
of course, across to the employer—knows that when they are
getting a First from one university it is equivalent to a First
from another university? Anecdotally, I have to tell you that
people come to me all the time and say, "A First from that
university is certainly not equivalent to a First from the other
university". I do not want to name any, obviously. Why are
we getting those comments?
Professor Trainor: I think the
statement that you quoted, Dr Iddon, was "broadly equivalent".
Universities differ in all kinds of ways, as you know. It is not
simply a question of levels of perceived excellence; there is
a tremendous difference in the balance of kinds of courses and
the kinds of learning objectives that different universities—
Q42 Chairman: Can you concentrate
on Dr Iddon's question? You have said that it was "broadly
equivalent" and we are questioning the validity of that statement.
Professor Trainor: Yes, I was
coming to that. I agree; that is a very important point. There
has been a lot of talk and publicity on this in the last six months
or so, about degree classification, and so on. It is important
to note that the patterns of degree classification have not changed
all that much over the last ten years—only a six per cent
rise in the percentage of Firsts and 2.1s. However, getting to
your point of comparison among universities, there is a significant
difference among universities in the extent to which they give
Firsts and 2.1s.[3]
We are not saying that a First in ancient history from Poppleton
is exactly the same thing as a First in tourism management from
Poppleton Metropolitan; what we are saying is that, roughly, both
are upholding the standards that fulfil the purposes of their
courses.[4]
Q43 Dr Iddon: Perhaps I could come
back to the criticisms of the QAA and ask the other three panel
members to comment on the first question that I posed to you,
Professor Trainor.
Professor Grant: The issue of
the QAA is that this is an organisation that primarily looks at
processes and institutional structures, to try to ensure that
these are well-run institutions, to try to ensure that what they
do is dedicated to improving and enhancing the quality of teaching
and that there is consistency in examining. However, we should
not confuse that mission with providing us with a basis for an
accurate comparison of a First from Uttoxeter and a First from
Oxford. That is not its job. It does not do that; it cannot secure
that. It is absolutely fundamental to understanding the diversity
of the nature of our institutions to realise that that comparison
is too simplistic. The only way you will ever get there, as far
as I can see, is by prescribing a national curriculum and having
national examinations—which can kiss goodbye to the diversity
and the dynamism of British higher education.
Q44 Dr Iddon: Or we could abandon
the classification system altogether and measure the students'
ability in some other way, like a percentage mark.
Professor Crossick: I agree entirely
with what Professor Grant has said and I do not think that the
QAA is the answer to this. However, Dr Iddon's point is a very
important one. It may be that we are pursuing the wrong target
in trying to unravel precisely what a First means here and what
a First means there, as if, if we got that right, that would provide
all the information that those who want the answers to the question
would need. I think—this is a personal view, not the position
of the 1994 Group but I know that a lot of the 1994 Group institutions
agree with this—we ought to be moving to something like
the higher education achievement report, which Professor Burgess's
group is working on, in which we actually provide as the outcome
of a student's time at university a much broader picture of their
achievement in a whole range of ways while at university. Not
least how they did on different courses and different programmes
but also lots of other activities, so that employers and other
public interests, potential users of that student's skills, can
see the breadth of it. A First or a 2.1 does not really tell us
very much. Some would like to keep that; some would like to see
that replaced; but I think that most of us agree that something
much broader, of the kind you have described, is what is needed.
Professor Ebdon: To underline
that, I think that you are quite right in suggesting that the
classification system is outmoded. It always used to strike me
as a chemist that I would be telling my students not to average
the unaverageable, and then I would walk into an examination board
and do exactly that! As a chemist, I know very well that some
people have very strong practical skills; others are stronger
theoretically. I would like to be able to identify that, and I
think that the higher education achievement record will enable
us to do that. I am therefore strongly in favour of that. Can
I also say about the QAA that the key thing about UK universities
is that they are self-regulating, and I do not think that this
Committee should have concerns that that self-regulation has broken
down. The role of the QAA is to make sure that self-regulation
is working properly. Self-regulating systems are always better
than policed systems, particularly when you are dealing with highly
intelligent people, because they will find a way round any policed
system; but ask people to self-regulate and you will get a much
better form of regulation.
Q45 Dr Gibson: Would it concentrate
the mind if we looked every ten years or so at a university's
right to award degrees? They are given the right to award degrees
and it is a job for life, as it were. Is that something that you
might welcome? Yes or no would do.
Professor Trainor: No.
Professor Grant: No.
Professor Ebdon: No.
Professor Crossick: No.
Q46 Chairman: The speed at which
you answered that has been noted!
Professor Trainor: There are such
systems, as Dr Gibson will know, in use elsewhere in the world.
I do not think that they have any more teeth than the institutional
audit system that we have here because de facto, periodically,
getting a good result from the institutional audit is prerequisite
for the university carrying on with its reputation in good order.
Even if it were allowed to continue in some form, without the
confidence of the QAA's institutional audit it would be gravely
weakened.
Q47 Dr Gibson: When it comes to the
student time that is spent, HEPI, a very august body of whom you
will have heard, have done a very fulsome study of the time that
students spend. I come from a background where scientists spent
more time doing a piece of work than the art students, who were
in the Students' Union passing resolutions and becoming politicos,
and all that kind of stuff. Thank goodness! We could never get
the scientists interested. When you look at biological sciences,
I can give you quotes from HEPI that show you that in one place
a student will do 18 hours a week and in another they will do
35 hours a week. Does that worry you at all? You kind of answered
it earlier, but does it worry you that students can see or hear
from the grapevine that you can get a degree for less time spent
on it and that you can do other things? Nowadays you have to get
a job, of course. You can do a real job as well as be a student.
Professor Ebdon: The key thing
that a lecturer does is to motivate students, and to motivate
students to work. Therefore, the broad figures do not worry me
because they do not actually go down to the complexity of how
we do things. You will be pleased to know, Ian, that at the University
of Bedfordshire we have recently completely restyled the way in
which we teach business. I have told them that they have discovered
practical work, which scientists knew years ago. We teach them
in a simulated business environment.
Q48 Dr Gibson: At least they have
to spend a certain amount of time. If you are a football coach
you know you have to take people for a certain number of hours.
Why not with students? That there is a set number of hours that
you can agree with each other that they need to do?
Professor Ebdon: Footballers volunteer
for extra training when they think they need it as well. The point
I am making is that if you are motivated to break into the first
team, then you will be motivated to work hard.
Professor Crossick: There is an
assumption that the learning goes on only when a student is in
the presence of an academic, and the ways in which university
education has been transformed in recent years has meant that
is not the case. In all our institutions, students do an awful
lot of learning, not on their own but in groups together, doing
group projects and working together. I think that contact hours,
while it has some relevance and importance, actually is a chimera.
Chairman: Can I stop you here, Professor
Crossick, because the question that Dr Gibson asked was about
the HEPI study, which did not just look at contact hours but it
looked at everything involved.
Q49 Dr Gibson: Are you saying it
is a bunch of bilge?
Professor Crossick: I would never
dream of saying that what Bahram Bekhradnia has done is a bunch
of bilge. Of course not. What I would say about it is that it
takes contact hours as a proxy for the quality of an education
in a way that I do not think is correct.
Q50 Dr Gibson: So it is not a measure
that you would consider at all?
Professor Crossick: On its own,
no.
Q51 Dr Gibson: Others would agree
with that, presumably?
Professor Grant: Yes, I think
you also have to distinguish between disciplines. Amongst contact
hours will be some of the physical sciences, medicine and veterinary
sciences, where you would have laboratory sessions, which would
of course increase the volume of contact hours; whereas in arts
and humanities the tradition has been much more one of lone scholarship.
Q52 Dr Harris: This study was for
the same subject, like for like, and they were two similar universities.
The figures we have are 18 hours and 26 hours.
Professor Crossick: What one has
to ask then, as I said, is to look at the totality of the ways
in which those students are learning in that subject at that university.
We can impose the same structure of learning, the same curriculum,
in every university—
Q53 Dr Gibson: Each university is
happy with that situation. Who is going to compare them and say,
"At the University of Bedfordshire you have to do 36 hours
but at King's College you only have to do 18"? Not because
you are brighter or whatever but because of less hours—
Professor Crossick: Why does that
comparison need to be ... ? No, not done in less hours of contact.
I have tried to suggest that there is so much more than just contact.
Q54 Dr Gibson: So they are writing
essays, all the other time?
Professor Crossick: No. Mr Marsden
is a passionate supporter of history in universities; he knows
how much time history students spend in libraries, doing work.
Chairman: Could you use the actual figures
that we have in a particular subject?
Q55 Dr Gibson: Yes. In biological
sciences, students at Goldsmiths get 18.7 hours per week, while
those at UCL do 26.1.
Professor Crossick: I have to
say that we do not have a degree in biological sciences or a department
of biological sciences at Goldsmiths[5].
This is referring to something else.
Q56 Dr Harris: But apart from that?
Professor Crossick: Apart from
that, this sounds like—
Q57 Dr Gibson: They have got it wrong
again, have they?
Professor Crossick: I do not know
what was being referred to there, but we do not do biological
sciences at Goldsmiths.
Q58 Dr Harris: Is there any data
that would worry you on any of the questions we are asking? Because
every time we have asked a question you have said, "Everything
is fine. Universities are doing their best. Each university is
doing its own thing in its own way and we don't see anything we
are doing is wrong".
Professor Ebdon: The data that
worries me most is not the data that you expressed earlier about
the 2,000 to 3,000 students with good A-level results who may
end up with a different university than the one they first aspired
to go to, but the 100,000 students a year who come into the UCAS
system, who are qualified to go to university and do not go to
university. That worries me. I think that we have presented ourselves
in a complex way. People find it difficult to penetrate into universities;
we are not sufficiently open and welcoming to them. I think that
we have recognised that and we are trying to do a number of things;
in particular, the extra energy that we are now putting into links
with schools and colleges is important and overdue.
Q59 Dr Gibson: Do you think academics
are trained sufficiently in how to mark a final exam paper?
Professor Trainor: There is a
lot more training of academics in all the skills of the teaching
role than there was a generation ago.
3 Note from the witness: What it was regarding
to here is that, overall, universities which admit undergraduates
with relatively high average entry credentials tend to give a
higher proportion of firsts and 2.1's than do those institutions
which admit undergraduates with relatively lower average entry
credentials. Although this is a complex topic, the pattern provides
indirect supporting evidence for my contention that there is a
broad equivalence of degree standards across the diverse universities
of the UK. Back
4
Note from the witness: I would like to clarify that this
last sentence was in response to Dr Iddon's earlier question [Q41]
regarding my written evidence that "The level of understanding
required between different universities is broadly equivalent".
The context-a discussion about quality and the evidence for there
being broad equivalence of standards across the sector-has become
unclear. Confusion became apparent in the subsequent media reportage
of my oral evidence. Back
5
Note from the Witness: Although Goldsmiths has no department
of biological sciences nor degree programmes in the biological
sciences, which was the basis of my response, it turned out subsequently
that Dr Gibson was citing the Higher Education Statistics Agency
subject category of that title, in which psychology is included.
Goldsmiths does have a department of psychology, which explains
the misunderstanding. Psychology is funded at a significantly
lower level than the other subjects in the biological sciences
category, in recognition of the lower teaching needs to a subject
that is only partially laboratory based. Back
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