nce you accept all of the problems, contradictions and inconsistencies inherent in giving every higher education provider one of four grades as both a signalling and enhancement tool, it makes perfect sense to want some of the evidence that you base that grade on to come from students.
In its last major iteration, the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) achieved that in two ways – it used some of a provider’s National Student Survey (NSS) scores, and providers were “encouraged” to involve students in the production of their narrative submission, and to show how they had done so.
That represented a significant downgrade from that seen in Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) led institutional review processes – which as far back as 2002 had included the opportunity for students to develop their own, independent Student Written Submission into the process – with plenty of evidence of impact.
So when Shirley Pearce’s review of the TEF kicked off in 2018, it was pretty much inevitable that we would end up with a call for students to be able to input in a way that was both more independent, and more current than the satisfaction and outcomes metrics driving at least part of the process.
