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A recent
Boston Consulting Group report suggests that, to remain relevant, universities
need to tap in to the "evolving educational behaviors and
preferences" of the Millennial generation. What appears to be driving this
is "the shift in the definition of an expert from only those who have
professional or academic credentials to also include peers or close friends
[coupled with] this generation’s overall tech savviness”.
But does student choice lead to an improvement in graduates’
skills?
It’s time we put student choice to the test.
Anecdotes abound
Endless anecdotes about student expectations dominate the higher
education sector. These are then used to determine the strategic direction of
universities.
The expectations materialise in TV advertisements where
professors individually call their students to provide feedback or where students
are told they can determine their own learning priorities simply by using tablets,
apps and other gadgets.
Some common anecdotes include:
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) will force universities to either “adapt or die”
- Lecturers must be “Edutainers” in order to be good educators
- The lecturer-as-expert is an outdated, elitist mode of education
- Learners can be teachers and teachers can be learners as we learn from each other
- Many of these anecdotes reflect current trends yet none of them are supported by credible evidence.
But most of these ideas originated with the rise of
communications technologies and the desire to increase student choice in an
increasingly consumer-driven economy.
What is the impact of
technology on quality?
Many suggest that modern communications technologies mean
that the shortcomings of the traditional university education can be overcome
by providing technologically savvy students with greater choices about where
and how they obtain a qualification.
On the flip side, technology and being technologically savvy
play their part in reducing the quality of university education through the
increase in academic
crimes such as plagiarism. Some YouTube-style “edutainers”
even suggest that plagiarism is an outdated way of thinking about individual skills’
development as opposed to how we actually operate in the economy.
Yet most educators would agree that if you cheat by copying
the work of others, you are simply “cheating
yourself out of your education”. Further, the formal, face-to-face exam is
a sure-fire way to prove that the person sitting the exam is the person who
will be receiving the qualification. Hardly high technology yet very effective.
Providing greater student choice and flexibility through
technology is one thing, ensuring the student has the skills expected of a
certain level of education is quite another.
Some evidence that student
choice doesn’t work
A recent report on the training
and assessment for gaining a “White Card” – the safety qualification
required for construction workers to enter building sites – found some
disturbing trends driven by student choice:
- Online training meant that it was difficult to ensure that the person undertaking the assessment was actually the person issued with the White Card
- Most online courses were too short to allow for adequate training and assessment
- Most courses assessed knowledge and not skills
- Many traditional ‘face-to-face’ training providers where leaving the market as they could not compete with those delivering online
In this case, student choice led to less expensive options
dominating the market place. Regrettably, this has also resulted in a lowering in the
level of skills attainment by these same students. Where safety is concerned,
there is general agreement that expert opinion has more substance than student
choice.
Student choice
Labor’s “Education Revolution” led to one of the biggest
changes in higher education in years: the provision of university education
based on student
choice. From a consumers’ perspective, this is a sure thing.
Not surprisingly, student choice drives efficiencies in
universities. Consequently, courses or fields that are no longer cost-effective
have been routinely
removed from universities. Efficiencies mean more students can become
“customers” of universities.
Yet if the growth in numbers of university students
increases, students can expect to see “increasing
class sizes, more sessional staff, small enrolment classes closing, ageing
facilities”. This will make it more difficult for universities to meet
students’ expectations.
What is most disturbing is that student choice appears
likely to lead to a lowering in the standard of skills development in university
graduates.
And to top it off, if lecturers are reduced to the same
status as their students, it is hard to see how any of this can be good for the
nation. Indeed, if students are increasingly in charge of their own learning,
how could we know if they have developed the skills expected of graduates?
How could we know?
Research
suggests that low levels of adult numeracy and literacy “hurt Australians
and our economy”. Despite its unpopularity with many commentators, NAPLAN has gone a long
way to focusing the foundational years of education on these important skills.
At the very least, it continues to highlight the shortcomings of the education
system.
Indeed, a recent NAPLAN
report has led to suggestions that teachers (who also happen to be
university graduates) do not have adequate skills to raise numeracy and
literary standards. Much like NAPLAN, addressing the shortcomings of the
consumer-driven model by assessing graduates’ skills through a national
approach makes a lot of sense. It would provide the evidence to either confirm
or invalidate the anecdotes.
A university-level NAPLAN or similar designed to test the
general skills expected of university graduates would provide greater assurance
to the real consumers of university courses – the communities and industries
those graduates serve.
Only then could we be sure that students did not choose to
take the easy course.