Course enhancement conversations: A holistic and collaborative evaluation approach to quality improvement in higher education
| Author | Melissa Forbes,Angela Murphy,Lyn Alderman |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X221120295 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Practice Articles |
Practice Article
Evaluation Journal of Australasia
2022, Vol. 22(4) 221–236
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/1035719X221120295
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Course enhancement
conversations: A holistic and
collaborative evaluation
approach to quality
improvement in higher
education
Melissa Forbes, Angela Murphy and Lyn Alderman
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
Abstract
This practice article describes the use of collaborative evaluation for institutional
improvement leading to continuous learning at a regional university in Australia. The
University of Southern Queensland’sAcademic Quality Framework (2019–2022) was
developed in response to external drivers to improve practices relating to the
comprehensive and systematic analysis of academic data. One aspect of the response
was to introduce ‘course enhancement conversations’, which were a collaboration
between the central Academic Quality Unit and academic staff, including course teams
and learning and teaching leaders within schools and faculties. A feature of these
conversations was the use of sentinel rather than performance indicators of course
(not teaching) quality to prompt the holding of conversations. Conversations were
conducted in a spirit of constructive collaboration, where the shared goal was to
support course teams to deliver an outstanding student experience. Through adopting
a collaborative approach to evaluation, Academic Quality Unit staff were evaluation
champions who gradually acculturated academic staff and learning and teaching leaders
to evaluative thinking and data-informed decision-making. Issues brought to light during
these conversations have informed changes in practice at the university level, including
Corresponding author:
Melissa Forbes, Academic Transofrmation Portfolio, University of Southern Queensland, West St,
Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia.
Email: melissa.forbes@usq.edu.au
the development of a new evaluation procedure to embed best-practice monitoring
and evaluation across all levels of curriculum delivery.
Keywords
internal evaluation, academic quality, student evaluations, capacity building,
collaborative evaluation
Introduction
This practice article describes a case of using collaborative evaluation for institutional
improvement leading to continuous learning at the University of Southern Queensland,
a regional university located in Toowoomba, Australia.
Australian universities are required by law to monitor and evaluate their academic
activities based on student feedback (see Higher Education Standards Framework
(Threshold Standards), 2015 (Cth), s. 5.3.5). For the sake of both students and aca-
demic staff, however, it is incumbent on universities to use any student feedback in an
ethical and appropriate manner. As Kitto et al. (2019) note, ‘it is essential that decision
makers and evaluators make use of best-practice methods to analyse the data that
[student evaluations of teaching] generate’(p. 339). At the University of Southern
Queensland, student evaluations are used as a sentinel indicator to stimulate an im-
provement conversation at the mid-semester point with key academic stakeholders. The
concept of the sentinel indicator is borrowed from ecology in which certain species are
considered ‘sentinel’species because they provide an early warning of issues within the
ecosystem. The university views learning and teaching as a complex ecosystem in
which student evaluations data are but one feature. This approach is supported by the
widespread agreement in the literature that universities should ensure student evalu-
ations are simply one facet of a comprehensive evaluation framework (e.g. Abrami
et al., 2007;Alderman et al., 2012;Marsh, 2007). ‘Course enhancement conversa-
tions’
1
are held at the university for courses displaying the sentinel indicator and
provide the impetus for an in-depth examination of the learning and teaching eco-
system. Conversations are an opportunity for collaborative learning and capacity
building for academic staff stakeholders through the adoption of a holistic view of
student evaluations, which are considered within the full ecosystem of extensive
quantitative and qualitative course and survey data.
Before describing the development and implementation of the course enhancement
conversation process in detail, we first contextualise the process by briefly discussing
broader improvements at the institution which were required by the Australian higher
education regulator. Within this context, the course enhancement conversations can be
understood as an intervention to improve both curriculum and evaluation practice. We
then discuss collaborative approaches to evaluation, and why adopting such an ap-
proach was appropriate in the context of the institution’s broader improvement agenda.
222 Evaluation Journal of Australasia 22(4)
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