Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo

Ancora Imparo

24 August 2005

Many of you will have read of the rankings of the learning and teaching performance of Australia's universities in the media. These were compiled from data released to universities by the Department of Education, Science and Training.

The data are to be used as the quantitative component of university assessments to determine how much, if any, the universities will receive of the $250 million set aside over the next three years in Stage 2 of the Learning and Training Performance Fund.

Fifty-five per cent of the quantitative ranking was based on performance in three components of the Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ), which is administered annually to students who graduated the year before. Roughly equal weighting was assigned to the ranking in the CEQ scales assessing generic skills, good teaching and overall satisfaction.

Twenty-two per cent was assigned to the rankings in the graduate outcomes, as assessed by the Graduate Destination Survey findings for the proportion of students in full-time employment and further full-time study. The final 23 per cent was assigned to the rankings for commencing student success, as assessed by the inverse of the attrition rate and by the student progress in each unit. For the purpose of determining which universities receive funding and the extent of that funding, the quantitative data will be modulated by an expert panel to take into account statements by each university relating to 'context'.

When all the data were aggregated, Monash University ranked 14th out of the 38 universities evaluated. There are three ways in which we could respond to this process and the resultant ranking. I think the third is the appropriate response.

The first response is to say the methodology is so flawed that the results are random and meaningless. It is true assigning universities an ordinal rank as the basis for quantitation gives a degree of separation that would not appear justified by the marginal real numerical differences. The results were based on old data as the most recent CEQ recorded the response of students who graduated in 2003. Success in obtaining full-time employment would more likely relate to the geographic location and consequent employment environment and on the course of study rather than on the quality of teaching and learning. And student progression rates could reflect soft marking and low standards rather than high-quality learning and teaching.

The second response is to say that 14th out of 38 is pretty good and given how hard Monash University is striving to improve its research performance, we should be satisfied with that until we achieve optimal outcomes in research. However, several other Group of Eight universities did very well in the rankings, confirming that good research and good learning and teaching are not mutually exclusive. Ideally, they reinforce and strengthen each other.

The third response, and the one which we must follow, is to do everything we can to improve our performance in learning and teaching. Although student evaluation is only one measure of this, it is one we must take seriously. The outstanding performance by several of our Group of Eight companion universities in the rankings reflects sustained efforts by many of them to improve learning and teaching and was based very much around the use of feedback from student evaluations. Our introduction of routine student evaluations of every unit will provide an immediate 'short-loop' indicator of the need to take steps to improve performance in learning and teaching and will provide an indicator of our progress. This will eventually translate into better outcomes in the CEQ.

Our determination to improve the educational experience for our students is integral to our objective to become one of the great universities of the world. We would be just as determined to do this whether or not the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund existed. But we should leverage off the indicators used in the evaluation process to ensure that we do everything we can to optimise our performance and the outcomes for our students.