Resources
This page contains links to a variety of useful professional resources and information from sites like Advance HE and QAA. This is being regularly updated.
Contents
Use these links to skip to the relevant part:
I. The Office for Students provides a comprehensive package of information about evaluating course in relation to access and participation – there is some useful information here that could be adapted about evidence collecting and self-assessment.
II. STEER is a department at Sheffield Hallam with videos and ideas on methods and developing evaluative mindsets.
III. Advance HE with a variety of projects and resources including: student engagement; making evidence work effectively; access, retention, attainment and progression; evaluating CPD; student success – what works? and student engagement.
IV. Theory of Change information and ChangeBusters Game (part of Advance HE) which utilises this theory.
V. Enhancement Themes QAA Scotland – including a basic guide to evaluation; reflection as well as other useful guides on using evidence and assessing impact.
VI. Creative Evaluation – a selection of reports, blogs, resources and ideas from a variety of sources for creative approaches to capturing evaluative data.
The Resources
Office for Students
The Office for Students provides a lot of information on how to evaluate access and participation – while this is focused on institutions providing evidence specifically this the information does have useful information about evaluative processes, evidencing impact, self-assessment and data collection that can be used at a local level.
In this link there are evaluation toolkits: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-opportunities/evaluation/. This is one of the toolkits: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-opportunities/evaluation/standards-of-evidence-and-evaluation-self-assessment-tool/
This report explores standards for providing evidence – with a useful summary of the different sorts of evidence that can be collected: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/6971cf8f-985b-4c67-8ee2-4c99e53c4ea2/access-and-participation-standards-of-evidence.pdf
STEER – Sheffield Hallam University
Student Engagement, Evaluation and Research
STEER offers a variety of useful resources, videos and guidance on evaluation including exploration of theories of change, ethics, collecting evidence for impact as well as methods for different sorts of evaluations ; the videos are particularly useful.
Of particular interest is the area exploring aspects of the evaluative mindset – link here – which explores evaluation as a social practice.
They explore a range of creative evaluative methods (link here)- as listed here – with the aim to move beyond surveys and tick boxes:
Advance HE
There is a very interesting range of reports from Advance HE (was HEA) based on detailed research projects. If you do not regularly use the site it it worth noting they do have a lot of useful resources across lots of Teaching and Learning topics. They tend to have a set of reports, research and materials developed around specific projects that last two or three years. These can provide some resources or inspiration for interactive activities to structure interventions. Most of these projects tend to involve some sort of evaluation even if they are not about evaluation specifically so are useful for frameworks and approaches.
Student Engagement and Partnership Project 2023 and Earlier 2014 Report
This links to a knowledge hub on Advance HE on a framework for student engagement through partnership. There are range of resources and they propose a framework that includes evaluation for assessment of student engagement projects.
Figure from: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/consultancy-and-enhancement/teaching-learning/enhancing-student-success
There are a variety of resources available:
2014 Research report here:
Healey M., Flint A. Harrington K. 2014 Engagement through partnership: students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education
Making evidence work effectively – exploring the evaluative mindset
This project looks at the way you can collect evidence for decision making.
Austen, L., 2020. Thinking critically about evidence use and ownership | Advance HE [WWW Document]. URL https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/Thinking-critically-about-evidence-use-and-ownership
Research report here:
As a subset of this there is specific guidance for students to collect evidence (eg for student representatives). https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/explore-the-enhancement-themes/evidence-for-enhancement/student-engagement-and-demographics/students-using-evidence
Access, Retention, Attainment, Progression
Austen, L., Hodgson, R., Heaton, C., Pickering, N., Dickinson, J., 2021. Access, retention, attainment, progression – an integrative literature review | Advance HE
Change Busters
As part of this project the team developed a game using theory of change; this is a way to explore teaching and learning design for change – and to embed evaluation as you go along.
The information is here: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/consultancy-and-enhancement/teaching-learning/exploring-theory-change-using-changebusters
With the resources for the game itself here: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/changebusters
This video outlines the basic principle:
Evaluating Teaching CPD
A detailed approach to assessing effectiveness of CPD – while it takes an institutional focus it has a set of useful tools/questionnaires etc. for constructing evaluations that can be adapted to a variety of teaching experience. It includes useful ways of thinking about evaluating and designing evaluative research
Kneale, P., Winter, J., Turner, R., Muneer, R., Hughes, J., McKenna, C., 2016a. Evaluating teaching development activities in higher education – Towards Impact Assessment –
https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/evaluating-teaching-development-higher-education
This includes a report and literature Review.
The direct link to the toolkit is here:
Supporting student success – what works?
This project looks at retention but offers a lot of advice on the process of evaluation integrated into a process of continuous development.
Thomas, L., Hill, M., O’Mahony, J., Yorke, M., 2017a. What Works? Supporting student success: strategies for institutional change Final Report | Advance HE. Higher Education Academy. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/supporting-student-success-strategies-institutional-change#:~:text=The%20final%20report%20highlights%20the,solutions%20to%20issues%20of%20concern.
Summary report here: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/hub/download/what_works_2_-_summary_report_1568037359.pdf
Evaluating Student Engagement
Also by Professor Liz Thomas is this very useful report specifically on evaluations of student engagement initiatives with lots of practical detail (eg question banks) alongside the detail of research; it is good for thinking about small scale projects.
Thomas, L., 2017. Evaluating student engagement activity.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/changemakers/sites/changemakers/files/tsep_framework.pdf
Student Engagement Case Study
Bovill, C., 2015. Student Engagement – students as active partners in shaping their learning experience: Enhanced Student engagement through collaborative evaluation of a research module. HEA Case Study. https://www.sparqs.ac.uk/ch/E3%20Enhanced%20student%20engagement%20through%20collaborative%20evaluation%20of%20a%20research%20module.pdf
Theory of Change
This report provides a summary of the basic concept.
Noble, J., 2019. Theory of change in ten steps – NPC Think NPC. URL https://www.thinknpc.org/resource-hub/ten-steps/
There are academic articles on theory of change in HE on this here. See also the ChangeBusters section above.
Enhancement Themes — QAA Scotland
This has some useful practical guides and information under their enhancement themes: https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/
Jones-Devitt, S., Austen, L., 2021. A Guide to Basic Evaluation in Higher Education (Why needed and how to do it). https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/docs/ethemes/about-us/eval-guide_qaas_pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=fff7d781_12
Austen, L., Jones Devitt, S., 2020. Staff Guide to Using Evidence in Higher Education. QAA Scotland. https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/docs/ethemes/evidence-for-enhancement/guide-to-using-evidence4e89adbe03dc611ba4caff140043ed24.pdf
Jones-Devitt, S., Austen, L., n.d. Evaluation of the Enhancement Themes. QAA Scotland Enhancement Themes. https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/about-enhancement-themes/evaluation-of-the-enhancement-themes
QAA Scotland, 2021a. Evaluating Impact summary booklet https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/explore-the-enhancement-themes/evidence-for-enhancement
QAA Scotland, 2021b. Evaluating the overall impact of interventions: a ten-point framework. https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/docs/ethemes/resilient-learning-communities/10-point-framework.pdf?sfvrsn=23f5d681_4
Reflection for evaluation
McCabe, G., Thejll-Madsen, T., n.d. Reflection Toolkit: creating and valuing reflection as evidence beyond numbers.
Creative toolkits – miscellaneous resources
Artworks Creative Communities, 2012. Creative Evaluation Toolkit. Artworks Creative, Bradford.
Austen, L., n.d. Digital Storytelling at Sheffield Hallam – STEER [WWW Document]. URL https://blog.shu.ac.uk/steer/digital-storytelling-at-sheffield-hallam/ (accessed 7.7.23a).
Austen, L,. Jones Devitt, S,. Workshop – Using Creative Methods in Evaluation, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQWoDxjn2U4
Jones-Devitt, S., Austen, L., n.d. Evaluation of the Enhancement Themes – Using Creative Methods Workshop [WWW Document]. URL https://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk//en/about-enhancement-themes/evaluation-of-the-enhancement-themes (accessed 7.7.23b).
Creative & Credible [WWW Document], n.d. . Creative & Credible. URL http://creativeandcredible.co.uk/ (accessed 7.7.23).
Daykin, N., Gray, K., McCree, M., Willis, J., 2017. Creative and credible evaluation for arts, health and well-being: opportunities and challenges of co-production. Arts & Health 9, 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/17533015.2016.1206948
Gunn, V., School, G., O’Neill, S., 2019. Tool Kit for Reflecting on Impact of Creative Disciplines Education (Representing the Creative Disciplines’ Collaborative Cluster).
University of the West of England, n.d. Creative & Credible [WWW Document]. Creative & Credible. URL http://creativeandcredible.co.uk/ (accessed 8.29.23).