Awards Aims and Learning Outcomes

Once course teams have undertaken their market research and discussed the proposed programme with employers, the next stage is to agree the overall aims of the award and the learning outcomes that students should be able to demonstrate at the end of the programme.

We had several discussions with the stakeholders. Kathryn McFarlane (Curriculum Dev Advisor -Centre for Professional Development) said that she found the Staffordshire University Learning Outcome Statements very helpful starting point. However there were two problems that she and the other members came across:

1 - On one validation they were criticised for sticking too closely to the learning outcomes statements and not customising them to the focus of the Award.

2 - On another recent validation, their outcomes were criticised in terms of appropriateness to level, despite using the same verbs and indicators as in the outcome statement. While there could have been deficiencies in their own practice, this also suggests that possibly the outcomes should be revisited, or panels could be more fully informed of them.

It is advised by QIS that when writing outcomes, course teams must ensure that they map on to the University's eight plus two, whilst also encapsulating the needs and flavour of the subject. The wording of learning outcomes will be seen as too generic if they could be achieved by students studying a range of subjects.

Award leaders need to ensure that the aims and programme learning outcomes are clear and appropriate to the articulation of the core features of the award, so learning outcomes provide a sound basis for student achievement on the award. This would involve a judgement concerning the Aims of the award as registering a distinctive identity for the qualification.
Sue Lee (Module leader - Learning Development & Innovation) pointed out that she had difficulty in writing outcomes at masters level, she has been asked to incorporate progression from certificate to diploma to masters when they are all supposed to be masters level. She argued that it was very difficult when a lot of the modules can standalone as university accredited modules as well as being part of a wider programme.

However, this issue was clarified by QIS member as he explained that each stage of a Masters programme does not have to address all eight University outcomes.. Given that each of the three stages of a masters award is at the same level, it is not possible to show progression in the same way that you can for an undergraduate programme. You may therefore decide to assess particular University outcomes at each stage. In contrast to the undergraduate awards, teams often write their own outcome statements and then link them to one or more University statements in the same way that you would for module learning outcomes.

John Erskine ( Senior Tutor - Health Faculty) described the process he undertook in writing the aims and outcomes for his awards "The process is to get hold of any support materials I can regards writing learning outcomes (e.g. materials from the HEA, materials from QAA etc and get hold of some good examples of learning outcomes from other awards. Have a clear view of the overall aims of the award....Start writing!"He advises novice award leaders to understand the level that they are writing for- Ug Pg levels are very different for example. He recommends that they should have a look at as many examples as they can both from inside their faculty, within the university and other higher education institutions especially in the subject area.

7 November 2008 at 10:34am

Validation Administration

We set up a discussion forum for the administration staff who are involved in organising the validation events(e.g. collating validation documentation, organising validation panels, writing validation reports or tracking the completion of amended documentation) within the faculty/school or at a University Level.

This forum aims to highlight the issues the administrators face when they arrange or support validation events, offer them appropriate solutions by QIS staff to make the validation process easier and allow administrators across the university to interact with each other, exchange ideas and best practice.

Jackie Campbell (Quality Officer – Faculty of Science) raised the issue with wording of the standard condition which says that “' definitive course documentation be lodged with QIS by ...”with regard to tracking the completion of amended validation documentation, she suggested that award team should send their amended documents to QIS via the appropriate staff within their Faculty (eg Quality Officer / Manager, FD Learning & Teaching). This would make tracking of amendment much easier for Faculty Quality team. Later Chris Gray (QIS) agreed to amend the report to include a statement that the amended documentation must be signed off within the Faculty/School before it is sent to QIS.

Kathy Wood (Senior Administrator Quality- FCET) had difficulty in finding panel members, she suggested that it would be more helpful if the University has a central ‘register’ of University staff and their subject area, experienced in attending validations. This could also include a register of interest from academics who have not attended a validation before. This could feed into validation training for staff at a University and / or Faculty level.

7 November 2008 at 11:00am