Dr Rebecca Turner and Prof David Gosling
(University of Plymouth)
In this blog posting Dr Rebecca Turner and Prof. David Gosling examine how a national policy initiative attempted to promote the agenda for rewarding excellent teaching within the UK.? It considers the interplay between national policy and local agenda and the implications for achieving change in higher education
This entry is based on the article: ?Rewarding Excellent Teaching: the translation of a policy initiative in the United Kingdom. Higher Education Quarterly, 44 (4) 415-430.
There is a well-rehearsed argument that systems of reward for teaching and learning and for research should be more equitable. Since the 1970?s policymakers have been calling for increased recognition to be given to those who are excellent teachers because of the role they play in educating future generations. However, despite the prevalence of awards for teaching, and the growth of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning movement, recognition for teaching still appears to be falling behind that of research, with increasing fears of the implications of this for teaching quality ? as highlighted in a recent article by Vassiliou & McAleese (2012).
In the UK, under the New Labour government, considerable attention was paid to the issues of teaching quality from the late 1990?s.? There were several national initiatives with the dual purpose of promoting and rewarding high quality teaching and learning. ??The largest of these was the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) initiative, introduced by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in 2004.? The declared purpose of the initiative was to reward excellent teaching and to invest in the identified excellent practice in order to increase and deepen its impact.? The CETLs were awarded after a two-stage competitive bidding process in which a case was made for self-identified excellence within or across a network of institutions.? In 2005, 74 CETLs were awarded, each receiving up to ?500,000 annually with an initial capital investment of up to ?2 million. This in itself marked the CETL initiative out as significant because it was the most generously funded initiative targeted at improving teaching there had ever been.
Over the course of the CETL initiative we have undertaken a longitudinal study that has tracked a sample of centres through key stages of their funding ? bid writing, formation, implementation, and planning for sustainability.? This has provided a unique insight into how nationally conceived policies for HE are translated and implemented across a diverse sector.
Mismatching agendas?
Our research has shown how local interests, particularly those of the CETL Directors, and institutional agendas mediated HEFCE?s vision for the reward and recognition of teaching.? Rather than seeing the CETL initiative as an opportunity to enhance the status of university teaching, HEFCE?s agenda was seen as reinforcing rather than ameliorating the divide between research and teaching.? Because the CETLs were typically established as separate entities within departments or central units, many Directors did not perceive their role to include instigation of wholesale change in established institutional practices relating to reward and recognition of teaching.
Furthermore, the UK government was committed to performance-based systems of reward which would require individuals to demonstrate achievement of desired behaviours. But, this approach runs counter to ideologies of professionalism and collegiate values that continue to be dominant among university staff ? if not among managers.?? This conflict of belief-systems was evident in the reactions of CETL Directors to collective versus individual rewards associated with their centres.
Public versus private rewards
The dedicated spaces for teaching created using the capital funding were seen as a collective reward that could be shared and enjoyed.? In contrast, individual rewards were less visible and commonly seen as addressing particular self-serving agendas.
Contrary to the intentions of the funding body, many CETLs made only limited use of individual rewards. Instead, the funding was used to sponsor a plethora of short-term projects that certainly increased the volume of teaching-related activity, but with variable longer term impact.
Individual rewards also represent an interesting paradox. For many academics, the work undertaken with the CETL teams to address issues of professional interest represented an additional commitment.? But because the CETL funding allowed them to focus on their own areas of interest, it became perceived, at an individual level, as a way to get things done, rather than as a reward.? ?So while these projects may have lead to an enhancement in teaching quality, it contributed little to the sense of reward individuals experience for their teaching.
Enhanced teaching quality? but what about reward?
These responses raise interesting issues regarding mechanisms for change and conceptions of reward.? The CETL initiative made a significant contribution to HEFCE?s aim of investing in areas chosen for their excellent practice ? though the process of identifying ?excellence? was controversial ? but the evidence for ?deepening the impact? on the sector is limited. There is even less evidence that the initiative has advanced the agenda for improving reward and recognition for teaching.? However, as a result of the activities undertaken with the short-term CETL funding, Directors of CETLs and their teams, and some of those affiliated with wider CETL activities, were able to gain reward and recognition through existing institutional processes.?? But, the CETLs seemed relatively powerless to challenge established systems of reward, which remained resolutely grounded in the preferences and values of local academic identities.
In most cases, the resources of the CETLs investigated in our research had a limited impact in motivating behaviour change at institutional level; rather they were used to reinforce an existing divide between a minority with an interest in teaching and learning from the majority who pursued more traditional academic careers.? On this basis providing funding to create a new (and temporary) professional context for a minority of staff in a minority of institutions was never likely to erode well-established discipline identities and career progression routes linked to research output rather than to teaching competence?.
There are significant lessons to be learned from this example of a top-down government-funded initiative seeking to address perceived policy issues in higher education. Firstly, in order to achieve change, policymakers need to ensure greater alignment between the aims of the policy and the daily practice and values of universities and academics.? ?Secondly, those expected to take responsibility for enacting policy goals need to be in a position to lead change.? Limited consideration of these factors means that the overarching aims of policymakers become diluted and translated into worthy, but local-level goals defined by those on the ground who were awarded the funding.
Reference: Vassiliou, A. & McAleese, M. (2012). European Commission ? brining teaching in from the cold.? University World News, 241 (accessed 24th October 2012).
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