Only By Moving Their Bodies

Physical education can achieve a stronger place in higher education, but to do so it will have to confront at least three important alternatives. These are strengthening its mission versus improving its accountability, limiting versus expanding this mission, and educating liberally versus schooling more narrowly. It is argued that redefining and limiting its mission, in addition to choosing some brand of liberal education, will best strengthen physical education in the arena of higher education. Alternately it is suggested that attempts to gain support by proving that physical education accomplishes traditional objectives (i.e., that it is maximally accountable), by expanding its goals to cover yet more educational turf, or by holding on to health and recreational “schooling” objectives will prove ineffectual if not also harmful for any attempt by physical education to seek a more central place in higher education.     

An outcome-based assessment process for accrediting computing programmes

The calls for accountability in higher education have made outcome-based assessment a key accreditation component. Accreditation remains a well-regarded seal of approval on college quality, and requires the programme to set clear, appropriate, and measurable goals and courses to attain them. Furthermore, programmes must demonstrate that responsibilities associated with the goals are being carried out. Assessment leaders face various challenges including process design and implementation, faculty buy-in, and resources availability. This paper presents an outcome-based assessment approach that facilitates faculty participation while simplifying the assessment and reporting processes through effective and meaningful visualisation. The proposed approach has been implemented and used for the successful ABET accreditation of a computer science programme, and can be easily adapted to any higher education programme.     

Bureaucracy and its limits: accountability and rationality in higher education

Alongside debates concerning managerialism, marketisation and performativity, the question of accountability in higher education has come to the fore in recent commentary. Discussion of the subject has tended to be divided into two distinct camps. On the one hand, there are strong calls for more accountability to the public purse – a desire to witness more productive returns and efficiency on investment in higher education. On the other, there are academics who rail against the oppressive, panoptican‐like nature of the audit culture, emphasising the debilitating effects of quality assurance mechanisms on academic life. The paper suggests that one way out of this impasse is to place the current accountability agenda – what Travers refers to as the ‘new bureaucracy’ – in the context of Max Weber's account of bureaucracy and rationality. Habermas' reconstructed version of Weber's work is identified as a possible means of delineating the reaches and limits of modern bureaucratic accountability.     

Accountability and professionalism: a contradiction in terms?

Declining trust in public services has led to increasing calls for higher education to be ‘accountable’ for the quality of its teaching and learning provision. However, increasing levels of quality evaluation have led academics to feel that their professionalism is under attack. Reflecting on this history and various dimensions of accountability, this paper seeks to interpret accountability by addressing two questions: What is accountability in higher education? How can it be related to academic professionalism? The paper argues that professionalism and accountability appear to be contradictory terms, but can exist simultaneously. If academics' moral and social responsibility becomes requisite to an enhanced social accounting for the quality of university teaching and learning, there could be less perceived tension between academic professionalism and accountability.     

A. F. Leach: A reply

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on accountability in school-based education in England. It explores notions of accountability and proposes a new framework for its analysis. It then identifies a number of types of accountability which are present in school-based education, and discusses each in terms of who is accountable to whom and for what. It goes on to examine the sanctions associated with each type of accountability and some possible effects of each type. School performance cross-cuts virtually all facets of accountability, but is fundamental to hierarchical and market accountability where it is associated with a high likelihood of severe sanctions. This, it is argued, means that schools are likely to focus on these forms of accountability as opposed to participative or network accountabilities that involve collaboration with others. The final section proposes that there is a case for accountability systems to focus more broadly on a variety of processes and outcomes related to the overall goals of education. The existing regime in England is heavily focused on hierarchical and market accountability: a greater focus on participative and network accountability may foster a less individualistic approach to education and greater social cohesion.     

Bringing universities to account? Exploring some global and local policy tensions

Increased accountability is at the centre of widespread educational reforms which feature the rhetoric of deregulation in many countries across the globe. Not only have educational systems, institutions and practitioners been required to be more accountable, but arguably the nature of accountability has also changed from professional and democratic to managerial and market forms. In particular, within the hegemonic discourses of the market ideology associated with globalization, market accountability to paying customers (both within a nation-state and internationally) has been foregrounded. However, the hegemony is not complete. Governments have often positioned themselves as ‘market managers’, creating a complex and often contradictory relationship between new forms of market and managerial accountability, layered on top of more traditional notions of professional and democratic accountability. This paper explores the changing nature of accountability in Australian and English higher education, and makes comparisons between them. As we enter the twenty-first century, central higher education authorities in both countries are conducting major reviews and revisionings of mechanisms to enhance the accountability of universities in the new global knowledge-based economy. While the analysis finds convergence of policy objectives and discourses, it also finds divergences in the particular structures and processes employed. Further, it finds a disjunction between macro-level policy intent and institutional-level reactions and practices in both countries. We argue that with globalization ‘talk’, it is important not to gloss over policy differences between individual nation-states, and to problematize potentially globalizing concepts such as accountability within policy debates at both national and global levels.     

Financing special needs and inclusive education – from Salamanca to the present

ABSTRACT

The focus of this paper is upon an examination of the ‘direction of travel’ in European countries from special needs education to inclusive education – a development influenced by the Salamanca Statement. The 1994 Salamanca Statement argued that inclusive schools provide ‘an effective education for the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system’ (ix). Underpinning this assertion are issues around special needs and inclusive education are financed. The paper will examine the degree to which the critical issue of financing has – or has not – changed across European countries since Salamanca. This examination takes retrospective look at key issues identified in the European Agency 1999 study of funding models for special education in 17 European countries, compared and contrasted with those identified in a 2016 study of approaches to funding inclusive education in 18 European countries. This paper argues that the essential issues underpinning their financing mechanisms have changed very little. For many European countries, changing systems of financing of inclusive education can still be seen as a key lever for achieving the goal of more widespread inclusion of learners with special educational needs, as outlined in the 1994 Salamanca Statement.     

Finding creativity and flow in a high-stakes assessment context

Remarks by the Minister for Education and Skills underscore the accountability that public institutions and the teaching profession carry for assuring the success of the nation's education enterprise. This article challenges assumptions about the nature of education that are critical to the accountability and testing regimens currently in favor internationally. While supportive of the goals of accountability systems, it argues that higher order pedagogies that reconcile competing historical trends between ‘progressive’ and ‘back to basics’ themes are very promising in an era of important new tools. These approaches include designing classroom ecosystems in ways that routinely elicit high performance and flow-like experiences in learning. Such designs, when successful, alter the terms of accountability and testing dialogues.     

The Paradox of Education in Industry

To some, the fact of engineering education in industry may represent a paradox. It has been introduced in order to make it practical for the engineer to find a satisfying division of effort between pursuing immediate job goals and longer-term knowledge objectives. When one considers the economic objectives of industry, the objectives and responsibilities of engineers, and the effects of scientific and technological progress, the continued broad education of engineers seems a necessity. The discussion is intended to be helpful to individual engineers in determining their own knowledge objectives in connection with "engineering" their own personal development.     

Learning challenges in higher education: an analysis of contradictions within Open Educational Practice

Open education, including the use of open educational resources (OER) and the adoption of open education practice, has the potential to challenge educators to change their practice in fundamental ways. This paper forms part of a larger study focusing on higher education educators’ learning from and through their engagement with OER. The first part of the study was a quantitative survey investigating educators’ learning behaviour when they learned to use OER in their practice. The second part of the study explored qualitatively how educators engaged with OER and how they conceptualised their learning. Data were gathered through interviews with 30 higher education educators. This paper reports the analysis of these interviews. The analysis draws on the theory of self-regulated learning and cultural–historical activity theory to explore the challenges adult education practitioners encounter when changing their practice. The study tests the application of a framework that traces the discursive manifestations of contradictions, exploring how this framework can be used to examine different aspects of self-regulated learning as educators learn how to use OER. We have identified three distinct tensions in higher education educators’ practice: tensions between the emerging needs of the individual (as he or she adopts new forms of practice) and organisational policies; between the transfer of responsibilities from educators to students as new practice is embedded and institutional accountability; and between cost efficiency and learning objectives. The framework for the discursive manifestations of contradictions was a useful tool used to surface these apparent tensions.     

Diversity and progress in school accountability systems in Australia

School education in Australia is a complex interplay between federal and state governments, and between government and non-government schools. This article explores the supervision of schools in Australia through school accountability systems. Utilising publicly available documents a systematic analysis of the state and territory systems for government schools is provided. It is a paper that attempts to document rather than critique school accountability, although a conceptual framework utilising contractual, moral and professional accountability is used to analyse the different accountability processes reported upon. Contractual and moral accountability is supported by most systems, whilst there is potential to foster professional accountability in only two systems. Fostering professional accountability is important because this is where the internal motivation of teachers helps to drive school improvement. When compared to leading-edge systems, Australian accountability systems are lacking in judgements on teaching practice in individual classrooms, and the use of sophisticated measures of learning and value-added analysis.     

A special teacher for a special child? (Re)considering the role of the special education teacher within the context of an inclusive education reform agenda

Notwithstanding the recent signing and ratification by Cyprus of another International Convention on the rights of students designated as having special educational needs and/or disabilities to attend mainstream schools on an equal basis with their peers, local policy and practice promote an ‘exclusionary inclusion’ that draws a discernible line between general and special education. This paper concentrates on exploring the role of special education teachers in Cyprus in the light of policy concerns about providing the ‘least restrictive’ learning environment for this group of students and enabling them ‘to reach their full potential’. It is suggested that the role of special education teachers embodies and reflects reductionist forms of inclusion informed by deficit-oriented and assimilationist special education perspectives, while there is also evidence of a lack of professionalism and accountability. The paper draws on head teachers’ and special education teachers’ interviews in order to portray the ways in which they view and experience the role of special education teachers in mainstream schools in Cyprus. New objectives and future directions are identified and discussed.     

Assessment of research quality

The assessment of research quality and accountability for research funding are major issues in higher education. This paper describes the British experience of nationwide research quality assessment exercises, and newly introduced measures intended to improve accountability. The consequences are examined, including those for the higher education system as a whole and for individual institutions, using the University of Glasgow as an example. Comprehensive peer review of research quality has demonstrated the usefulness of certain performance indicators. Their relevance for U.S. institutional researchers is discussed, and similarities with the measures used by the National Academy of Sciences in its assessment of researchdoctorate programs are identified. The requirements of the U.S. Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) are noted.     

Developing a System of Program Assessment Within Teacher Education: Lessons Learned

Our intention in this article is to present one institution's efforts to take on program assessment and respond to calls for accountability. To do so, the teacher education program simultaneously sought to address the narrowly defined measures called for by policy makers and politicians, while at the same time broadening and expanding outcomes (such as student learning) and the missions, themes, and values of the teacher education program. The following describes the accountability movement in teacher education and then offers the lessons learned within one program developing a system of assessment within teacher education.     

Toward a Practical Approach to Evaluating Adult Education Programs: An Application of Scriven's Methodology

Abstract

The adult education evaluation model presented here provides a comprehensive yet efficient procedure with which administrators can evaluate adult education programs in a variety of settings. The need for such evaluation is receiving impetus from the accountability movement, the growth of adult education as a field of professional practice, and demands by professional groups of adult educators. The framework of the model is based on Scriven's approach to evaluation, which incorporates many of the strengths of other evaluation prototypes not yet applied to adult education. The adult education evaluation model consists of a series of steps, divided among four stages: (a) predevelopment, (b) establishing objectives, (c) data generation, and (d) evaluation. The steps within the stages are: (a) assess needs, (b) rank needs, (c) define objectives within goals, (d) rank objectives, (e) develop instrumentation and procedures, (f) apply instrumentation, (g) analyze data, (h) compare data to judgment criteria, and (i) determine course of action.     

This Issue

Abstract

The tools and techniques associated with distance education can be used to meet a number of social, political, or business goals and their accompanying educational or training objectives. Strategic planning is a means for developing and verifying the fit between distance education and its sponsoring goals. This paper reviews a number of strategic plans and the goals and objectives normally assigned to distance education and distinguishes the terms used in strategic thinking about distance education. This essay examines assumptions about adopting distance delivery of education and training by looking at distance education, not as an objective, but as a strategy that can potentially serve many educational objectives.     

Academics Hard at Work: the place of teaching and professional development related to teaching

Abstract

Recent studies of academic work have identified increasing pressures on universities and academics throughout the world. These pressures relate to such factors as diminishing resources available to the higher education sector, widening diversity of the student clientele, moves for increased accountability and tensions between the research and teaching goals of academic work. Among the pressures being placed on the teaching component of academic work are the need for increased accountability of teaching performance and the need to update professional competence related to teaching. This paper reports a study of a selected group of academics — relatively junior staff who have participated in significant professional development activities related to their teaching. The data provided by the interviews with these academics allow a glimpse at their academic lives and how they fit teaching and professional development related to teaching into their working lives. The study highlights how these academics structure their work around their teaching commitments and how, although they make time available for professional development related to their teaching, this is done in response to the activities offered rather than as a proactive component of their career planning.     

从信任视角考量高校信息公开问责制

教育公平是社会公平的重要基础,信息公开是实现教育公平的一个重要起点,而公平的基础又源于信任。信任危机频发催生了高校信息公开问责制,信任重建则需要高校信息公开问责制,问责制的落实与实施,对于提升社会对高校的信任,促进高校与社会之间的联系和互动,建立适合中国国情的现代大学制度具有积极意义。     

Higher education institutions in the Arab States: A study of objectives and their achievement

Throughout the world, pressure on resources and emphasis on greater accountability has resulted in higher education institutions' making efforts to define their objectives and to measure their success in achieving them. This paper describes research carried out into this subject in a number of Middle Eastern universities. The methodology employed was based on previous U.S. studies but modified to fit the Middle Eastern context. The results showed that there were significant differences in the ranking of objectives between different universities although not between different academic constituencies. Another important result of the study was the apparently poor performance on highly rated objectives of student intellectual development and progress in research.