A missed opportunity? How the UK’s teaching excellence framework fails to capture the voice of university staff.

Cui, Vanessa and French, Amanda and O'Leary, Matt (2019) A missed opportunity? How the UK’s teaching excellence framework fails to capture the voice of university staff. Studies in Higher Education. ISSN 0307-5079

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Abstract

Drawing on recent research involving approximately 6,000 higher education staff, this paper examines the impact of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) on their professional lives since its launch in 2016. Our findings raise fundamental concerns, methodologically and conceptually, about the fitness for purpose of the TEF and its failure to take into account the views and experiences of higher education staff. With a reliance on proxy metrics that emphasise the economic value of higher education over the quality of teaching, we explore how the TEF lacks legitimacy and credibility as an instrument of measurement of teaching excellence across all levels of the workforce. We also argue that the processes informing the TEF fail to take into account the experiences and perceptions of staff directly involved in teaching, which given their centrality to the quality and development of higher education, seems a lamentable exclusion.

Item Type: Article
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1704721
Dates:
DateEvent
7 December 2019Accepted
20 December 2019Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords: Teaching excellence, the TEF, education policy, teaching and learning, quality improvement
Subjects: CAH22 - education and teaching > CAH22-01 - education and teaching > CAH22-01-01 - education
Divisions: Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences > School of Education and Social Work
Depositing User: Vanessa Cui
Date Deposited: 07 Jan 2020 12:02
Last Modified: 03 Mar 2022 15:54
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/8680

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