Beyond feedback to impact: Moving from “what students said” to “what they gained”
In June we led an interactive workshop for colleagues at the Academic Registrars’ Council (ARC) Quality Practitioners Group’s summer meeting. Our session explored how we can move from simply collecting satisfaction scores to systematically demonstrating what students have truly gained from their education. The aim was to facilitate a discussion with our professional peers that deepened our understanding of the role student feedback can play in evidencing the progress of cohorts through their academic experience. The central idea is that we can develop from a transactional exchange, embedded within traditional approaches to student engagement, to a more productive means of improving the educational experience.
The shifting strategic landscape
As quality practitioners, our roles are evolving. We’re moving away from being compliance checkers predominantly focused on application of process towards a new imperative: demonstrating the tangible value and impact of the education our institutions provide. Regulatory frameworks are rightly expecting institutions to have a much clearer sense of the educational benefit of the core academic experiences. Previous Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) exercises challenged institutions to offer a view on what educational gain could mean. Evaluation of impact is inherent to the current sector approach to access and participation. The recent TEF consultation from the Office for Students (OfS) may have downplayed educational gain as a specific idea within it, but we still believe it is a useful concept in being able to frame enhancement activity.
The Department for Education appears to agree, stating in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper that it will work with the OfS to develop options for how progress can be measured, citing the example of the Progress 8 measure in the schools sector. The jury is certainly out on whether a single accountability measure like that is achievable (or even desirable) but it shows the continued interest from policymakers in demonstrating the value of a higher education.
As OfS’s regime for quality assurance continues to mature we operate with a high degree of ambiguity over external expectations. As Helena put it during the session, we need to think like a chef preparing for a contest. We may not know exactly what the judges want, but we must have a well-stocked store-cupboard of data and evidence ready to create whatever is required.
The QAA’s Educational Gain Collaborative Enhancement Project analysed 66 gold-rated TEF submissions, finding a common lack of a baseline from which to measure progress. For our session, we used a broad definition: “The improvement in knowledge, skills, work-readiness, and personal development gained by students.” This is closely linked to graduate attributes and programme learning outcomes.
To bring this to life, we shared examples from our own institutions. At the University of Warwick, the focus for the TEF was on employability and skills development, evidencing this through student self-definition and reflection against our Core Skills framework. Since the TEF we have continued to build our flagship Warwick Award, enabling students to demonstrate their broader experiences. The high levels of engagement with this programme show that students themselves value the opportunity to articulate what they gained from co- and extra-curricular activity. At Bournemouth University, a past approach used student self-evaluation of educational gain through reflective surveys at each level of study. The survey questions were designed using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking Skills for a more personalised and self-reflective style of feedback, with the aim of helping the University to better understand the issues and challenges in the student’s learning journey which may impact on their educational gain.
What’s clear is that a simple comparison of entry and exit grades fails to capture the development of critical thinking, personal growth, and the wider skills that are the hallmark of a university education.
Evolving our strategy: insights from the room
The core of our session was an interactive discussion, where we tasked attendees with a challenge: how can you evolve your survey strategy to capture more than just ‘satisfaction’? Proposed methods included pre/post assessments and designing questions for structured reflection. The real insight, however, came from the rich and challenging discussions that followed. Several key themes emerged:
A practical example: The University of Hertfordshire
To show how these ideas can work in practice, we presented a case study from the University of Hertfordshire. For their TEF submission, they designed a survey asking final-year students to rate their abilities “when they started the course” compared to their “current ability” on a four-point scale. This simple but effective method directly measures perceived development.
By leveraging the evasys survey platform, they were able to:
This approach shows how a platform can become a strategic data asset, moving beyond compliance into something staff find valuable and engaging. Our session reinforced that while there is no single answer to measuring gain, the direction of travel is clear. We must shift the conversation away from using module evaluations as a “dress rehearsal for the NSS” and towards a more intentional strategy that evidences the profound impact of our students’ educational journeys.
Looking ahead: new regulatory landscape
Following our morning workshop, we were pleased to hear directly from Graeme Rosenberg, Head of Student Outcomes at the OfS, about the future of TEF. A Public Bodies Review has prompted a shift from refining the 2023 TEF to developing a new, integrated quality system. The OfS has since opened its consultation on their future approach to quality regulation. This will have significant implications for all of us.
A shift to continuous preparation
The TEF is set to be expanded to all providers and will eventually include postgraduate taught provision. Combined with the move to a rolling four-year cycle, this transforms TEF from a periodic project into a constant institutional activity. Institutions will need to embed TEF readiness and ongoing evidence gathering into their permanent quality assurance and planning cycles.
Renewed emphasis on complex evidence
The OfS has now confirmed educational gain will not feature as a compulsory element of the next TEF, but recognised the investment institutions had made in developing capabilities and will support use of this evidence as part of TEF submissions. As our morning session showed, evidencing any form of educational gain is a complex challenge. Furthermore, the new framework will have a “distinct focus on partnership arrangements”, meaning institutions will face increased scrutiny of their oversight of sub-contractual and other partnerships.
A period of transitional uncertainty
The first assessments under the new system are planned for 2027-28. Until then, existing TEF awards will be extended for regulatory purposes, but the OfS may ask institutions to stop promoting them as they become outdated. This creates a potential communications challenge where an institution holds a rating but cannot use it for recruitment. Following the White Paper, we must also be mindful of the reemergence of ‘value added’ or some other similarly named concept challenging higher education to find ways of evaluating educational progress over time.
The fading prominence of the previous TEF awards creates space for new thinking around what students value about their experience, what educational outcomes we seek and how we wish to measure them. Quality practitioners are well placed to play a leading role in these discussions and to establish mechanisms through which we can demonstrate the enduring value of a higher education. In an era where public discourse challenges the value of a higher education, we need to prepare our case with compelling evidence on what students have learned and how they have grown academically or personally over that time.