This article was downloaded by: [Dalila Vicente] On: 05 November 2013, At: 16:35 Publisher: Routledge Informa

Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Quality in Higher Education

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cqhe20

Transforming the learner versus passing the exam: Understanding the gap between academic and student definitions of quality
Ming Cheng
a a

Centre for Learning and Teaching , University of Brighton , Brighton, UK Published online: 08 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: Ming Cheng (2011) Transforming the learner versus passing the exam: Understanding the gap between academic and student definitions of quality, Quality in Higher Education, 17:1, 3-17, DOI: 10.1080/13538322.2011.554634 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2011.554634

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions

Quality in Higher Education Vol. 17, No. 1, April 2011, 317

Transforming the learner versus passing the exam: Understanding the gap between academic and student definitions of quality
MING CHENG* Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
Quality 10.1080/13538322.2011.554634 CQHE_A_554634.sgm 1353-8332 Original Taylor 2011 0 1 17 mc216@brighton.ac.uk MingCheng 00000April & and in Article Francis Higher (print)/1470-1081 Francis 2011Education (online)

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Pressures to enhance the quality of university teaching have led to increased emphasis on recognising and rewarding good teaching practice in England. Institutional awards for teaching excellence have grown in response to this agenda. This paper is based on a project that investigates the teaching experience of Teaching Excellence Award winners at a post1992 university in England. It draws predominantly on interviews with these Award winners and their students, exploring their varied conceptions of quality and quality enhancement. The research reveals that most of the Award winners associated the concept of quality with transformative learning. However, students, while recognising the concept, defined quality in more instrumental terms. They tended to relate quality to academic teaching practice and its impact on their learning outcomes, rather than their own learning experience. Keywords: quality; quality enhancement; transformative learning; teaching awards

Introduction Universities are under pressure to improve quality of teaching and learning in the UK. However, quality remains a complex and contested concept (Barnett, 1994). It is relative to stakeholders, who are the individuals or groups regarded as having a legitimate interest in the quality of higher education, such as funding bodies, students, staff and employers of graduates (Srikanthan & Dalrymple, 2003). In the context of quality enhancement in higher education, there is a growing focus on quality as transformation, which emphasises the empowerment of students. This pressure has led to attention being paid to ways of recognising and rewarding good teaching practice in the UK (DfES, 2003) and in other national contexts (for example, Australia). The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has adopted the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF) to support institutions learning and teaching strategies, since 1998, across the higher education sector
*Email: chengming9934@hotmail.com
ISSN 1353-8322 print/ISSN 1470-1081 online 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13538322.2011.554634 http://www.informaworld.com

M. Cheng

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

through support for Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLS), and the Higher Education Academy (HEA, 2008a). The HEA provides a national focus for institutional teaching and learning excellence through the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) to reward individuals or groups in teaching in England and Northern Ireland (HEA, 2008b). Higher education institutions are encouraged to recognise and reward individual teaching excellence to correspond well with this national scheme. There is an increasing amount of research on the evaluation of teaching award schemes across the UK (Skelton, 2004; Trowler et al., 2005; Warren & Plumb, 1999). However, this is mainly confined to the national award schemes, despite the fact that institutional awards for good teaching practice exist in most higher education institutions (Gibbs et al., 2000). Very few studies have focused on the institutional award schemes and few have examined the notions of quality and quality enhancement by linking them to the award winners conceptions of teaching and learning. This paper addresses this gap. It begins by reviewing some previous studies on quality and then analyses and illustrates the features of awarded good teaching practice, how it benefited students learning and the relations between quality and good teaching practice. Next, the conceptual understandings of quality and quality enhancement are discussed and compared. Finally, it analyses the implication of the gap between academic and student definitions of quality.

Review models of quality There are different understandings of quality in the university sector, such as quality is power (Morley, 2003) and quality is bureaucratisation, impression management and conformity (Newton, 2002). These interpretations provide valuable insights into how academics use quality as a pejorative term. However, the interpretations suggest that while this term has a series of negative meanings, there is a lack of a shared definition about how quality, related to teaching and learning, might be more positively defined. Harvey and Green (1993) provide five interpretations of the concept of quality as: exception, perfection, fitness for purpose, value for money and transformation. These interpretations have greatly influenced the subsequent debate about quality in higher education. Of the definitions, the concepts of fitness for purpose and value for money are perceived to be closely related to the operating assumptions of HEFCE and the UKs Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) (Ottewill & Macfarlane, 2004). In order to assure and to improve the quality of teaching and learning, there has been a shift of emphasis in England in the way that quality was defined as fitness for purpose during the 1990s, to one now focused on student transformation. This change can be understood as being a shift from quality assurance to assurance-led quality enhancement. Quality enhancement is featured with the

Quality in Higher Education

increased concern about students views and it is a process of taking deliberate steps at institutional level to improve students learning and the quality of learning opportunities (QAA, 2006). Quality as transformation is closely related to the theory of transformative learning, which is believed to have grown out of a confluence of post-1960s radicalism, critical pedagogy theories (Giroux, 2001; Shor, 1996) and a new interest in adult education as part of social welfare (Mezirow, 1990, 1991, 2000). Harvey and Knight (1996) have further developed the concept of transformative learning by arguing that it is more than student-centred pedagogy and perspective transformation. They link transformation as a process of students developing confidence and self-awareness, as well as a continuous dialectical process of deconstructing a concept and building an alternative conceptualisation (Harvey, 2009; Harvey & Knight, 1996). Based on this theory, students should not only engage with knowledge but also develop their capacity to understand and question existing ideas, assumptions and discourses that inform their experiences and commonsense understandings of society (Herod, 2002). Quality as transformation is closely linked to the standard required by the QAA Code of Practice for Postgraduate Research Programmes that students should develop independent thinking, criticality and creativity. The notion of quality, together with this standard suggests that one purpose of higher education is to encourage students to take a leading role in assuring the quality of their own education (Harvey, 2006). Lomass (2002) empirical research with 108 senior managers in English universities reveals that transformation was perceived as the most appropriate definition of quality. However, it was considered difficult to measure and apply in practice because the notion of quality has not been clarified through clearly stated purposes (Harvey & Knight, 1996). The difficulty in reaching a commonly accepted understanding of quality may be explained by reference to three reasons. First, the quality process is dominated by belief and ideology. Second, stakeholders in higher education have different experiences and perspectives, so it is difficult for them to have a shared understanding of quality. There is a need for more empirical evidence of different stakeholder perspectives in this respect. Third, although attention has increasingly been given worldwide to the quality of teaching (Biggs, 2003), the concept of quality needs to be developed by more closely linking it to conceptions of teaching and learning. In this way, it could produce a model of how to understand and measure quality in a way that relates to pedagogic practice.

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Methodology To contribute to the debate about the meaning of quality and the relations between teaching and learning, a project was established at a post-1992 university in England. It examined the teaching practice of university Teaching

M. Cheng

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Excellence Award winners, how their teaching has benefited students learning, how they understood the notions of quality and quality enhancement and how they identified the relationship between quality and their awarded teaching practice. The teaching award scheme is used to recognise and celebrate academics outstanding contributions to student learning in this university. It links to the universitys learning and teaching strategy and aims to move beyond rewards to provide academics with professional development opportunities and enable them to meet agreed UK national teaching standards. The research adopted semi-structured interviews with 17 academics and eight MA students. It explored the concepts of quality and quality enhancement, from the perspective of these academics and some of their students. This research first explored how academics interpreted their awarded teaching practice, then analysed how the practice was related to the concept of quality. Next, it investigated how academics and their students defined the terms quality and quality enhancement. Of the academics interviewed, 15 were Teaching Excellence Award winners and two were panel members of the award scheme. These academics and students were chosen from six different schools or departments. The academics differed in seniority, ranging from lecturers to professors. The interviews were structured around three key research questions: (1) What is perceived as good teaching practice? (2) How are the terms quality and quality enhancement defined? (3) Are there perceived differences and similarities between notions of good teaching practice and quality?

Awarded teaching practice The award winners were recognised as excellent teachers, mainly because their teaching was known to be beneficial to students learning within their school. Examples of this teaching included: giving students updated material, helping students identify their learning needs and encouraging students to be motivated and become engaged in the learning process. When considering the question of what was good teaching, nearly all of the award winners expressed difficulty in defining it. They shared a view that there was no recipe for good teaching practice but it was essential to make teaching entertaining and informative, so that students would show interest in their learning. Good teaching practice varied among the award winners but they shared a view that good teaching would give students skills that could be useful and appreciated in their future career, and allow students to flourish creatively and to develop enquiring minds and cognitive ability. As a result, students would see that there are lots of opportunities beyond the life they lead and lots of different ways of thinking beyond the ways they normally think.

Quality in Higher Education

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Seven factors were identified as important in achieving good teaching practice. They include: knowledge of the subject; academic approachability; good communication skills; peer learning among academics; a developed feedback system, online as well as face-to-face feedback in the classroom; different types of learning opportunities for students, for example, experiential learning; and a learning environment that sparks students interest, for example, e-learning. The first three factors are closely related to academics subject specialism, communication skills and personality. Learning from peers is concerned with academics professional development, which suggests that the award winners were aware of the importance of developing their own professional skills in order to achieve good teaching practice. The other three factors were linked with how students learn and the environment created to support teaching and learning activities. The award winners understood that this environment would be influenced by university strategies, its equipment and facilities.

Varied teaching strategies The award winners classified their teaching practice in one of three ways: learning-centred; content-centred; and student-centred. These categories are not mutually exclusive. The one focusing on students and their learning is about making sure that appropriate learning takes place. The other focusing on teacher and content emphasises teaching materials and teaching performance. This finding is similar to an argument in the literature that there are different approaches to teaching, based on the role of the teacher and the role of the learner. For example, Kember and Kwan (2000) distinguish between contentcentred and learning-centred approaches; while Trigwell et al. (1994) differentiate between student-focused and teacher-focused approaches; as well, there are other labels for student-centred and content-centred teaching styles. For example, MacNeil (1980) used the terms expository versus discovery style and Kelly (1980) made a distinction between exploratory and authoritarian teaching. There is also a view that the way academics choose their approach to teaching is related to their conception of teaching. For example, learning-centred and student-centred approaches are normally adopted by academics who understand teaching as being concerned with learning facilitation, a way to help students develop and change their understandings (Kember & Kwan, 2000). By contrast, academics who understand their teaching as being about the transmission of knowledge often use teacher-focused or contentfocused approaches. Similar findings were identified in this project. One example is that learning-centred academics conceived learning as a process in which the students constructed their own views of phenomena. The academics cared about how their students learned and perceived students as equal partners in the learning process. They were attentive to students by prioritising

M. Cheng

their work and creating an effective learning environment. In contrast, the content-centred academics understood learning as more about memorising facts or remembering the course content. They focused on teaching mainly for the purpose of subject matter acquisition and saw their role as imparting knowledge to students. The student-centred teaching style was most frequently mentioned among the interviewees. This is for two main reasons. One is because quality enhancement increases the emphasis on students learning, so academics are likely to pay more attention to students needs in their teaching. The other reason is the influence of social constructivism, which argues that knowledge can be derived from social interaction and that students interaction is important in the teaching process (Vermunt & Verloop, 1999). This influence has led to an increased expectation that teaching should become student-centred. The student-centred teaching style is similar to the learning-centred approach in that both emphasise the need to be attentive to student goals. Academics employing a student-centred approach were more likely to state that they treated their students as the most important subject of attention. They strongly supported the idea that students should construct their own understandings of the world. They described their role as facilitators, helping students achieve a deep understanding of the subjects and encouraging a good learning experience that builds on students prior knowledge. These academics stressed the importance of a participative learning environment through the use of group work processes, rather than imparting knowledge via lectures and hand-outs. This was due to their belief that in an active learning classroom, students would develop critical, analytical and evaluative skills, which could boost their confidence in learning. Despite the perceived centrality of students, and the argument that students effort is the most important element in student-centred teaching (Graham, 1981; Prosser & Trigwell, 1998; Samuelowicz & Bain, 1992), academic interviewees in this study held a slightly different view. They argued that both good teaching practice and the willingness and effort of the students were equally important in achieving good learning outcomes, as these two were closely interrelated and teaching by itself could not produce good learning outcomes. They stressed the importance of cooperation and partnership between lecturers and students in the teaching process.

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Perceived transformative learning Most of the award winners, whose teaching practice was either student- or learning-centred, understood teaching as a process of not only transferring knowledge but also stimulating the desire of students to learn and encouraging students to become engaged with problems and puzzles. They strongly emphasised the importance of developing students own learning processes. They

Quality in Higher Education

illustrated the impact of transformative learning by describing different changes in students, such as skills developed for a future profession; a higher level of achievement exhibited through increased confidence in themselves and in their knowledge; and acquired critical and cognitive skills in knowing when and how to use different learning strategies. For example, an academic from a health professions school described how confident the students felt after undertaking the course:
Students say theyre coming back with a greater confidence in themselves and in their knowledge. Er, theyre coming back with a sense that theyve done some good while theyre studying as well, which has made them feel, you know, intrinsically just, just better inside that theyve actually made a difference to peoples lives. (TEAW6)
Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

High motivation was another noticeable change among students. An award winner from the school of law highlighted the enthusiasm of his students in attending the course, although they did not receive any credits:
I think motivation is one thing that has been pressed upon me as a result of this particular project and the importance of experiential learning to motivation and one of the things that struck me the most about the law student participation, whereas the police students have to do it and they are being assessed, the law students volunteer. (TEAW7)

This award winner believed that good teaching would encourage active learning among students, which as a result makes students become independent learners, as well as equal participants in the learning process. For example, an award winner from a business background argued that treating students as equals could bring in different information and experience to the class:
In my practice, I dont ever see myself as passing on knowledge. Its about stimulating knowledge because I believe they bring with them a wealth of experience because theyve all been exposed to media of some kind, film, TV, and obviously I cant see everything thats available to see. (TEAW12)

This interviewee believed that encouraging students participation in teaching would increase the diversity of the learning environment. Views similar to this were held by a further five award winners. Nearly half of the award winners appreciated the importance of being facilitators in the transformative learning process. For example, an award winner from the business school described his experience of being a facilitator in the following way:
The value of my role has been in creating the scenario and the environment of court etiquette and maybe some help with their cases. In most of the instances where students have been involved, the bulk of the work in terms of actually going out and finding out about the criminal offences which they are going to be questioned on and actually practising, the students have done themselves. (TEAW7)

10

M. Cheng

This interviewee suggested that being a facilitator could help students to construct a view of what was being presented to them, so they could understand the relationship between knowledge and its practical application. Students, therefore, would become more motivated and initiate more work themselves. Being a facilitator was perceived by most award winners as an effective way to encourage students experiential learning:
I think thats really important, that theyre not just told dont do this, dont do that, because we know those that make the biggest impact and have the best reputations are those that break the rules and do experiment and do think outside the boundaries, so thats what I always want. Even though were training our students vocationally and we want them to go into a professional media career where they do have restrictions that theyre still allowed within the university environment to experiment and explore. (TEAW10)
Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

This interviewee implied that facilitating students learning could give them more scope for creativity and experimentation and enable them to become independent. This finding is similar to the widely held view that it is important for teachers to stimulate students to become active learners (Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Sheffield, 1974; Wrenn & Wrenn, 2009; Wurdinger & Rudolph, 2009). Good teaching practice versus quality Nearly half of the award winners understood good teaching practice to be different from quality teaching. One perception was that good teaching was a sub-set of quality, not equivalent to it. For example, an award winner from the business school depicted quality as a circle: Pedagogic quality is one circle and within that circle is good teaching practice (TEAW1). This interviewee also explained that quality teaching would not just enable student learning to reach acceptable levels, but motivate and improve their learning and that quality teaching would depend on other factors, such as the learning environment and the support provided by the school or the university. Hence, achieving good teaching practice was only one influential factor in achieving quality. The other perception among the award winners was that even if the teaching practice was good, it would not necessarily produce good results, so the quality might not be considered high. For example, an award winner from a social science background emphasised that there was a difference between the act of teaching and whether or not students changed as a result of it:
They are different, but very closely linked. If you have good working practice thats delivered it will lead to the level of quality, but not always, because you could have fantastic good working practice that doesnt lead, in my case, to behavioural change, which is the quality and there could be reasons for that For example, the delivery stage of good teaching practice is vulnerable, and theres a gap between in theory whats good at the delivery stage and then the end quality result. (TEAW2)

Quality in Higher Education

11

What this interviewee implied was that good teaching does not necessarily lead to quality outcomes in the sense that students have transformed. One reason is that teaching is an end to a means of student learning, though they are closely interrelated. The other reason is that in the current quality enhancement agenda, quality is mainly about measuring students learning results against certain national academic standards.

Academic and student perception of quality Academic interviewees held different understandings of quality. Three of them interpreted quality as relating to academic standards. According to the QAA (2006), an academic standard is a way of describing the level of achievement that a student has to reach to gain an academic award, which is at a similar level across the UK. The interviewees in this study interpreted quality as meeting standards of either subject benchmarking statements or the National Student Survey. One academic interviewee viewed quality as a political term, used for management purposes and measured by student scores, attrition rates and retention. This finding is similar to the view of Harvey and Green (1993) that quality as fitness for purpose is about fitting mission and customer requirements. Ten academic interviewees related quality to students positive learning experiences. They largely relied on student- or learning-centred approaches in their teaching and emphasised learning benefits and ways to improve student learning, in order to develop the student as a learner and as a person. This finding closely corresponds with the argument that quality is about the transformation of students (Harvey & Green, 1993). The academics interpreted quality as making students actively engaged with the learning process to fully understand the relationship between knowledge and its practical application, rather than knowledge transfer. The varied definitions of quality suggest that the concept of quality is still being interpreted in a wide range of ways within the academic community. It will take time for the academic community to reach consensus on how to define quality and how to measure it. However, it is important to note that the award winners perceived quality as being led by national academic standards, instead of being led by academics preferences. They expected it to be visible and measurable by making it relevant to the standards of either their professional body or their subject, instead of making it a political term. Despite the prevalent understanding of quality as transformation among academics, student interviewees interpreted quality differently. The eight student interviewees understood quality in an instrumental way and doubted the feasibility of developing transformative learning on a Masters-level programme. Most of them treated passing examinations as their priority. They defined quality as benefiting from a knowledgeable tutor delivering a good teaching session. For example, an MA student in business

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

12

M. Cheng

described his expectation of quality as the delivery of a good session to meet different student needs:
To me quality would be about a tutor having the knowledge and skills to be able to deliver a session as well as having prepared well for it and having all the information available to point us to different things where our interests lie. (MA1)

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

This suggests that these students saw quality as more closely related to an academics teaching practice than to their own learning experience. They understood quality in a pragmatic way, as they believed that quality depended on their tutors performances. They related quality to a practical outcome, such as passing an examination or receiving a good set of lecture notes. They emphasised the importance for academics to respond to students espoused needs. This contrasts with the view of academic interviewees that both teaching and the efforts of students were equally important in achieving quality. According to Cranton (1996) and Moore (2005), this could be the reason that students find transformative learning challenges the traditional role of the student and the teacher, as they are expected to become more active learners. In contrast, this group of student interviewees tended to judge teaching practice according to academics knowledge of the subject area, the way academics organised their lectures and the amount of hand-outs academics provided. Their desire for hand-outs to contain detailed information indicates students dependence on academics and their focus on existing knowledge in their study. This helps to explain why the notion of transformative learning was not widely accepted among these interviewees.

Comparing understandings of quality The students perceived difficulty in achieving transformative learning has two implications. One is that the dimensions and criteria of this abstract concept need to be illustrated in more explicit terms. The other is that transformation might be invisible for a student undergoing this process, so the term of transformative learning has not become fully appreciated among students. Biggs (1985) reveals that increased cognitive activity and effort of learners is more likely to produce transformative learning. If students could develop a more sophisticated conception of learning, identify their expectations and develop their confidence, then they may be more likely to develop metacognition skills and achieve transformative learning. Students focus on existing knowledge and their dependence on academics suggest that they had not fully understood the connection between teaching and learning, and they did not see it as their role to take responsibility for learning. Students perceived good teaching as leading to the achievement of concrete learning outcomes, such as a better class of degree, rather than their personal transformation. This differs from the argument of numerous research

Quality in Higher Education

13

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

studies that improved teaching will not necessarily lead to the improved quality of student learning (Biggs, 1999). The perceived importance of teaching corroborates the findings of this research that academics and students have not come to an agreement of whether teaching is an end to a means of learning. This partly explains why, in this study, there is a gap between student and academics perspectives of quality. In order to prevent transformative learning becoming nothing more than a catchphrase, academics and policy makers may need to adopt a less idealistic view and not assume that students would automatically become responsible for their own learning. The complexity of the learning process needs to be more carefully considered in teaching. For example, the psychological drive and strong emotions may often accompany students transformation, because their personal changes might be subconscious and unpredictable (Ball, 1999). Some tools to foster transformative learning, such as providing students with learning experiences that are direct, personally engaging and stimulate reflection upon experience (King, 2004) could be introduced in teaching practice.

Quality enhancement Quality enhancement is another important theme that emerged and was explored in this research. The majority of academics and students defined it as improvement, which is similar to the definition provided by the QAA (2006). From the academics perspective, the notion of improvement was about meeting national academic standards and using innovative teaching practices. This included making teaching more interactive, diverse and accessible for students. For example, an award winner in the school of pharmacy argued in favour of the following requirements of the national curriculum to improve the quality of teaching:
I think it [quality] should always be grounded on what is actually needed to be known, what subjects matter, needs to be known rather than academic preference for a particular area. So rather than being led by the academics it should be led by some type of national curriculum. (TEAW6)

Instead of putting an emphasis on the quality of learning opportunities as the QAA suggests, academics argued for increasing the profile of teaching through two main approaches. They include identifying and sharing good teaching practice and achieving the right balance between teaching and research in the university. This view was connected with a belief held by nearly two thirds of academics that teaching was not prioritised in the casestudy university. This finding suggests that there is an ongoing challenge to prioritise teaching in the university sector, despite the increased attention to ways of recognising and rewarding good teaching practice to enhance the quality of university teaching (DfES, 2003).

14

M. Cheng

Conclusion This research is based on a single case study and intends to provide a snapshot of how to understand quality from the perceptions of university Teaching Excellence Awards winners and students. Findings of this research lend support to three main conclusions that have potential implications with regard to how to understand the concept of quality and how to improve quality in the higher education sector. First, although quality remains an elusive concept, a view emerged among three academic interviewees that quality should become national academic standard related, either decided by their professional body or enacted within their subject area. Second, there is a gap between students instrumental view of quality as passing examinations and the award winners perception of quality as transformation to develop and enhance students learning. Students appear to be pragmatic in their outlook, while their lecturers appear to be more ambitious and idealistic in their goals. Academics perceptions may be influenced by the quality agenda, in that they believe the purpose of higher education is to achieve transformative learning. The gap between academic and students understanding of quality suggests that the concept of transformative learning needs to be developed in more explicit terms, so that both academics and students would understand and appreciate its dimensions in practice. Meanwhile, students need to be encouraged to develop their conceptions of learning to fully realise that good teaching practice alone will not necessarily lead to quality learning, as their own efforts are vitally important in the learning process. Third, the agenda of quality enhancement has been acknowledged in the award winners teaching practice. They and their students understood it as improvement. One perceived way to enhance the quality was to use and improve institutional quality mechanisms that encourage good teaching practice. For example, the Teaching Excellence Awards scheme was considered to be an effective way to recognise and disseminate good teaching practice within the institution. Based on the research findings, the researcher argues that a culture of good teaching practice needs to be developed and enhanced in the future. One way is to increase the status of teaching within institutions. Another way is to emphasise the importance of recognising and rewarding teaching practice that can or has benefited students learning. The third way is to establish a model of quality based on student transformative learning experience. This research reveals that there were some perceived key factors affecting quality, according to both academics and students. These are enthusiasm (of the teacher), an environment that is conducive to learning, student-centred teaching practice and keeping teaching material updated. If these factors could be considered in building up a quality model, it may produce two potential benefits. On one hand, it could help different stakeholders in higher education to understand the dimensions and criteria of quality in more practical terms. The mystery and

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Quality in Higher Education

15

obscurity of quality may diminish when this model is applied. On the other hand, if the model is closely related to the conception and practice of teaching and learning, the academic community may become more appreciative of the quality culture because it will align with their commitment toward student transformation. Instead of perceiving quality as a political term, they may start to see it as beneficial to students learning.

References
Ball, G.D.S., 1999, Building a sustainable future through transformation, Futures, 31, pp. 25170. Barnett, R., 1994, The Limits of Competence (Buckingham, Open University Press). Biggs, J.B., 1985, The role of meta-learning in the study process, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 55, pp. 185212. Biggs, J., 1999, What the student does: teaching for enhanced learning, Higher Education Research and Development, 18(1), pp. 5775. Biggs, J.B., 2003, Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the student does (2nd ed.) (Ballmoor, SRHE & Open University Press). Bonwell, C., & Eison, J., 1991, Active learning: creating excitement in the classroom, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. (Washington, DC, George Washington University). Cranton, P., 1996, Types of group learning, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 71, pp. 2532. DfES, 2003, The Future of Higher Education (London, HESO). Gibbs, G., Habeshaw, T., & Yorke, M., 2000, Institutional learning and teaching strategies in English higher education, Higher Education, 40, pp. 35172. Giroux, H., 2001, Theory and Resistance in Education: Towards a pedagogy for the opposition (Westport, CT, Bergin and Garvey). Graham, G., 1981, Teaching Students to Learn: A student-centered approach (Milton Keynes, Open University Press). Harvey, L., 2006, Impact of quality assurance: overview of a discussion between representatives of external quality assurance agencies, Quality in Higher Education, 12(3), 28790. Harvey, L. 2009, A critical analysis of quality culture, paper presented at the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) Conference, New Approaches to Quality Assurance in the Changing World of Higher Education, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 30 March2 April. Harvey, L. & Green, D., 1993, Defining quality, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education: An international journal, 18(1), pp. 934. Harvey, L. & Knight, P.T., 1996, Transforming Higher Education (Buckingham, Open University Press). Herod, L., 2002, Adult Learning from Theory to Practice. Available online at: http:// www.nald.ca/adultlearningcourse/glossary.htm (accessed 17 March 2009). Higher Education Academy (HEA), 2008a, Quality Enhancement and Assurance A changing picture. Available online at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/ York/documents/resources/publications/QualityEnhancement.pdf. (accessed 14 August 2010). Higher Education Academy (HEA), 2008b, National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) Available online at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/professional/ ntfs. (accessed 14 August 2010).

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

16

M. Cheng

Kelly, A., 1980, Exploration and authority in science learning environments: an international study, European Journal of Science Education, 2(2), pp. 16174. Kember, D. & Kwan, K., 2000, Lecturers approaches to teaching and their relationship to conceptions of good teaching, Instructional Science, 28, pp. 46990. King, K.P., 2004, Transformative learning, in Farmer, S. & Stein, S. (Eds.), Connotative Learning (Washington, DC, IACET). Lomas, L., 2002, Does the development of mass education necessarily mean the end of quality? Quality in Higher Education, 8(1), pp. 719. MacNeil, R.D., 1980, The relationship of cognitive style and instructional style to the learning performance of undergraduate students, Journal of Education Research, 73(6), pp. 35459. Mezirow, J., 1990, Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A guide to transformative and emancipatory learning (San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass). Mezirow, J., 1991, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass). Mezirow, J., 2000, Learning as Transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (1st ed.) (San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass). Moore, J., 2005, Is higher education ready for transformative learning? A question explored in the study of sustainability, Journal of Transformative Education, 3, pp. 7691. Morley, L., 2003, Quality and Power in Higher Education (Maidenhead, SRHE & Open University Press). Newton, J., 2002, Views from below: academics coping with quality, Quality in Higher Education, 8(1), pp. 3963. Ottewill, R. & Macfarlane, B., 2004, Quality and the scholarship of teaching: learning from subject review, Quality in Higher Education, 10(3), pp. 23141. Prosser, M. & Trigwell, K., 1998, Teaching for Learning in Higher Education (Buckingham, Open University Press). Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), 2006, Handbook for Institutional Audit: England and Northern Ireland. Available online at: http:// www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/institutionalAudit/handbook2006/default.asp. (accessed 14 November 2006). Samuelowicz, K., & Bain, J., 1992, Conceptions of teaching held by teachers, Higher Education, 24, pp. 93112. Sheffield, E.F., 1974, Teaching in the University: No one way (Montreal, McGillQueens University Press). Shor, I., 1996, When Students Have Power: Negotiating authority in a critical pedagogy (Chicago, IL, Chicago University Press). Skelton, A., 2004, Understanding teaching excellence in higher education: a critical evaluation of the National Teaching Fellowships Scheme, Studies in Higher Education, 29(4), pp. 45168. Srikanthan, G., & Dalrymple, J., 2003, Developing alternative perspectives for quality in higher education, The International Journal of Educational Management, 17(3), pp. 12636. Trigwell, K., Prosser, M., & Taylor, P., 1994, Qualitative differences in approaches to teaching first year university science, Higher Education, 27, pp. 7584. Trowler, P., Fanghanel, J., & Wareham, T., 2005, Freeing the chi of change: the Higher Education Academy and enhancing teaching and learning in higher education, Studies in Higher Education, 30(4), pp. 42744. Vermunt, J.D., & Verloop, N., 1999, Congruence and friction between learning and teaching, Learning and Instruction, 9, pp. 25780.

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013

Quality in Higher Education

17

Warren, R. & Plumb, E., 1999, Survey of a distinguished teacher award schemes in higher education, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 23, pp. 24555. Wrenn, J., & Wrenn, B., 2009, Enhancing learning by integrating theory and practice, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 21(2), pp. 25865. Wurdinger, S., & Rudolph, J., 2009, Teaching practices that improve student learning: five experiential approaches, Journal of Teaching and Learning, 6(1), pp. 113.

Downloaded by [Dalila Vicente] at 16:35 05 November 2013