The October 1998 issue of Higher Quality outlined some of the ways in which the agency intended to take development work on Programme Specification forward. The agency has sought to continue working with HE practitioners in evaluating templates and the way in which the information they contain might be used. It has also sought to connect policy on Programme Specifications to the development work on HE Progress Files because it is the combined products of these policies that will provide additional information on the outcomes of higher education. The QAA thanks all HE colleagues who contributed to this development work.
The agency was also grateful to the National Union of Students, the Association of Graduate Recruiters and the Institute of Personnel and Development for creating and facilitating focus groups to enable examples of Programme Specifications, transcripts and other related materials to be appraised from a users perspective. The focus groups provided a rich, and generally favourable commentary on the materials and support for the effort higher education is making to create such materials for student and employer use. The agency is anticipating that it will continue to work closely with small groups of students and employers to ensure that their views help shape policy, and understand how such information will be used.
The agency has also sought to engage Professional Bodies and Statutory Regulatory Bodies (PSRBs) in its development work. A discussion paper, containing example Programme Specifications, transcripts and related materials has been prepared jointly by QAA and colleagues in the Faculty of Health Care Sciences at St George's Hospital Medical School to help PSRBs in these fields understand the implications and opportunities of these policies for their own quality assurance processes. The paper has also been circulated widely to other PSRBs and the feedback received will be used to guide QAA policy in this area.
QAA Policy on Programme Specifications
As a result of the insights gained from the many example Programme Specifications produced and the feedback received from academic staff, students and employers, the agency is convinced that Programme Specifications are an essential part of the strategy for helping higher education to make the outcomes of learning more explicit and for promoting discussion within the HE teaching community about outcome standards in different educational contexts. These concise descriptions, and the processes they are intended to promote, provide a foundation for the public assurance of academic standards and permit HE programmes and awards to be related to the Qualifications Framework.
Information content and use
The agency believes that policy on Programme Specification should be based on a minimum data set (core information) which institutions may supplement with additional information (Table 1). The information can be presented in an open text format or within a template.
The information contained in a Programme Specification (Table 1) reflects its purpose ie to encourage teaching teams to set out clearly and concisely:
- the intended learning outcomes of programmes;
- the teaching and learning methods that enable learners to achieve these outcomes and the assessment methods used to demonstrate their achievement;
- the relationship of the programme and its study elements to the Qualifications Framework.
The minimum expectation is that the information contained in Programme Specifications will be used to inform intending students and their advisors, students who are already studying and potentially employers, about the learning outcomes from a programme and the means by which these outcomes will be achieved.
People intending to enter HE, students and employers have a right of access to the information contained in the Programme Specification but institutions may provide the information in ways that are more meaningful to such audiences eg through prospectuses and promotional materials, on-line guides, student or course handbooks, supplementary statements attached to transcripts.
The main concern of policy is to encourage institutions and subjects to make explicit what they believe are their own outcomes. In terms of 1) knowledge and understanding 2) skills and other attributes. Policy does not set out to define lists of potential outcomes but tries to promote discussion within subject communities and programme teams about the nature and balance of particular qualities and skills and the way that these might be promoted within different curricula, teaching, learning and assessment contexts. The adoption of this principle has led to a simplification of the four-fold characterisation of learning outcomes identified in the Dearing recommendation. The revised framework for specification:
- provides greater opportunity for institutions to represent their outcomes in ways that they feel are most appropriate (institutions can still use the four-fold catagorisation of outcomes if they feel that it is appropriate to do so);
- can accommodate better the variety of approaches to the specification of outcomes in subject benchmark statements;
- enable HEIs to represent skills in a holistic way and avoid the criticism of fragmentation and artificial compartmentalisation that results from over catagorisation;
- facilitates the inclusion of other valued educational outcomes like attitudes and behaviours, if deemed appropriate;
- provides a better match with the variety of approaches used to the specification of learning outcomes in subject benchmark statements;
Programme Specifications may be provided in open text or template format. This approach reinforces institutional responsibilities for Programme Specification by enabling them to determine how they present such information. It also optimises the potential for individual and collective creativity and is more likely to secure a greater sense of ownership for the product. QAA will provide example templates and tools to facilitate the construction of Programme Specifications but institutions are encouraged to customise these if they choose to adopt them.
Current limitations of policy
The Dearing conceptualisation of the Programme Specification is based on an assumption that all HE programmes can be defined prospectively in terms of knowledge and understanding and a set of generic learning outcomes and study units that enable such outcomes to be achieved and demonstrated. Many curriculum structures enable students to create their own programme by combining different subjects in a variety of unpredictable ways. This makes it difficult to create prospective Programme Specifications. Policy must accept that for more flexible curricula arrangements the specification of outcomes and content can only be indicative and illustrative at best. It might however be expected that such programmes will be created within a set of organising or design principles that provide both a guidance and regulatory framework. Further consideration will be given to Programme Specification in this type of curricula context during the intensive work with HEIs in the autumn.
Responsibility
The Awarding institution will be responsible for overseeing the Programme Specifications that relate to its awards, although responsibility for their preparation and maintenance may be delegated to another institution that delivers the programme. Policy is designed to ensure that institutions satisfy themselves that the designers of programmes are clear about the intended learning outcomes and that the programme enables these outcomes to be achieved and demonstrated. In the first instance the Programme Specification is directed primarily to the academic audience (eg. teaching staff, those involved in quality assurance, external examiners, professional bodies and statutory regulatory bodies).
In designing programmes and creating Programme Specifications institutions will be expected to use the information produced by Subject Benchmarking Groups but it is not expected that the outcomes defined by SBGs will totally supplant the institutionally determined outcomes in a Programme Specification. Rather, it is intended that the benchmarking information acts as a general check point against which the institution's own outcomes and processes can be referenced. The intention is that benchmark information promotes a professional dialogue about the educational outcomes of programmes between those responsible for designing, delivering, assessing and assuring programmes.
Ultimately it is the responsibility of institutions and teaching teams to decide and justify which outcomes will be fostered and determine how such outcomes will be realised. The purpose of the Programme Specification is to make clear these decisions in a publicly accessible way. In areas where there is no relevant benchmarking information the outcomes in a Programme Specification will be determined by the institution.
QAA will monitor, through its review processes, the effectiveness of policy across the system as a whole and:
- identify and promote good practice in the creation and use of Programme Specifications and the information they contain;
- gain feedback from the users of the information contained in Programme Specifications;
- and provide illustrative materials, mapping and design tools, templates etc to support the policy objectives.
Future work
A revised set of guidelines with example Programme Specifications and related information and draft code of practice has been prepared. These will be posted on the QAA web site together with the Programme Specification templates. The materials will be tested in the intensive work with five HEIs in the autumn and the issue of Programme Specification in flexible multidisciplinary programme contexts will be addressed with HE practitioners. The agency will continue to maintain a dialogue with Professional Bodies and Statutory Regulatory Bodies to encourage the integration of the products of Programme Specifications and Progress Files into the quality assurance processes of PSRBs, thus optimising the use of the same documentation for different regulatory processes. The next phase of the work will also consider in detail the relationship between Programme Specification and information derived from Subject Benchmarking information.
Table 1 Information content of the Programme Specification
| Learning outcomes determined by teaching team |
Outcomes determined by learners through negotiation |
|
|---|---|---|
| TYPE A |
TYPE B |
TYPE C |
Core Information |
Core Information pathway/route specific |
Core information |
| 1. Awarding Institution / Body
2. Teaching Institution 3. Programme Accredited by: 4. Final Award 5. Programme Title 6. UCAS Code 7. QAA Benchmarking Group 8. Aims of Programme
A. Knowledge and understanding B. Skills and other attributes 10. Programme structures and requirements, levels, modules, credits and awards |
1. Awarding Institution / Body 2. Teaching Institution 3. Programme Accredited by: 4. Final Award 5. Route/Pathway Title 6. UCAS Code 7. QAA Benchmarking Group 8. General aims of scheme / specific aims of pathway/route 9. Intended Learning Outcomes and the means by which they are achieved and demonstrated. A. Knowledge and understanding B. Skills and other attributes
|
1. Awarding Institution(s) /Body(ies) 2. Supervising institution 3. Final Award 4. Field of Learning 5. Location of work-based learning 6. Intended learning outcomes 7. Type of learning activity 8. Type of evidence that will be provided to demonstrate achievement of outcomes 9. Programme structure, HE and work-based units, experientiallearning, levels, credits and qualifications
|
| Optional information | Optional information | Optional information- generic to scheme |
| 11. Support for learning
12. Criteria for admission 13. Evaluation and improvement of quality and standards 14. Regulation of assessment 15. Indicators of programme quality
|
11. Support for learning 12. Criteria for admission 13. Evaluation and improvement of quality and standards 14. Regulation of assessment Indicators of programme quality |
10. Support for learning 11. Criteria for admission 12. Evaluation and improvement of quality & standards 13. Regulation of assessment 14. Indicators of programme quality
|
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