Teaching for Quality The Society for Research into Higher Education

Learning at University

Teaching for Quality Learning at University

Fourth Edition
Biggs and Tang present a unified view of university teaching
that is both grounded in research and theory and replete with

Teaching for
guidance for novice and expert instructors. The book will inspire,
challenge, unsettle, and in places annoy and even infuriate its
readers, but it will succeed in helping them think about how high
quality teaching can contribute to high quality learning.

Quality Learning
John Kirby, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
This best-selling book explains the concept of constructive
alignment used in implementing outcomes-based education.
Constructive alignment identifies the desired learning outcomes
and helps teachers design the teaching and learning activities that

at University
will help students to achieve those outcomes, and to assess how
well those outcomes have been achieved. Each chapter includes
tasks that offer a how-to manual to implement constructive
alignment in your own teaching practices.
This new edition draws on the authors experience of consulting on
the implementation of constructive alignment in Australia, Hong Fourth Edition
Kong, Ireland and Malaysia including a wider range of disciplines
and teaching contexts. There is also a new section on the evaluation
of constructive alignment, which is now used worldwide as a frame-
work for good teaching and assessment, as it has been shown to:
l Assist university teachers who wish to improve the quality of
their own teaching, their students learning and their assessment
of learning outcomes

Fourth Edition
l Aid staff developers in providing support for departments in line
with institutional policies
l Provide a framework for administrators interested in quality
assurance and enhancement of teaching across the whole
university
The authors have also included useful web links to further material.

John Biggs and Catherine Tang

John Biggs has held Chairs in Education in Canada, Australia, and
Hong Kong. He has published extensively on student learning and
the implications of his research for teaching.
Catherine Tang is the former Head of the Educational Development
Centre in the Hong Kong Institute of Education and also in the Hong
Kong Polytechnic University.

John Biggs and Catherine Tang

www.openup.co.uk
 Teaching for
Quality Learning
at University
What the Student Does
4th edition

John Biggs and Catherine Tang

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 Open University Press
McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill House
Shoppenhangers Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire
England
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email: [email protected]
world wide web: www.openup.co.uk

and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA

First edition published 1999

Second edition published 2003
Third edition published 2007
This edition published 2011

Copyright Biggs and Tang, 2011

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 1
The changing scene in university teaching

Since 2000 there have been dramatic changes in the nature of higher
education. It is not just that participation rates are higher than ever, bringing
much greater diversity in the student population, but that these and other
factors have altered the main mission of higher education and modes of
delivery. One consequence is that the major thrust in teaching is more on
professional and vocational programmes and concerns about teaching
effectiveness. The Robert and Susan problem illustrates how increased
student diversity challenges teaching. Susan is academically committed and
will learn well, virtually whatever the teaching; Robert is at university simply
to obtain a good job, he is not academically inclined, and he represents the
student who would not have been at university years ago. We argue that
teaching that requires active engagement by students decreases the gap
between Susan and Robert. Just so, todays universities need to address the
quality of teaching and learning. The Bologna Process requires member
countries of the European Union to put in place national qualification frame-
works to define learning outcomes at various degree levels, with quality assur-
ance systems. Similar concerns in universities worldwide have led increasingly
to the adoption of one form or another of outcomes-based teaching learning
(OBTL). The form of OBTL outlined and exemplified in this book is
constructive alignment. This book outlines the theory and implementation
of constructively aligned OBTL, with hands-on tasks and detailed examples.

The nature of the change worldwide

The university sector in countries worldwide continues to change at an
increasingly hectic rate. In a 2009 report to UNESCO, Altbach et al. (2009)
review trends in higher education and come to the conclusion that:
Arguably, the developments of the recent past are at least as dramatic as
those in the 19th century when the research university evolved, first in

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 4 Effective teaching and learning for todays universities

Germany and then elsewhere, and fundamentally redesigned the nature

of the university worldwide. The academic changes of the late 20th and
early 21st centuries are more extensive in that they are truly global and
affect many more institutions and populations.
(Altbach et al. 2009: 3)
The UNESCO Report deals with all aspects of higher education, but here we
are concerned only with those aspects that bear upon teaching and learning.
These would include increasing participation rates, or massification, and
inevitably with that an overall lowering of academic standards as universities
and student populations become yet more diversified (Altbach et al. 2009).
In the 1990s the participation rate was around 15%; now it is over 40% in
many countries, and some politicians are signalling a target of up to 60%.
The brightest and most committed students still go to university, as they have
in the past, but so do proportionately more students of rather different
academic bent. Thus, for financial, academic and vocational reasons, more
professionally or vocationally oriented programmes are required and more
institutions that serve different needs and constituencies from the traditional
academic ones. But even within the same university, the range of ability within
classes is now considerable, which presents teaching-related problems to staff.
As participation rates increase, institutions are relying more and more on
student fees. This means that students demand high profile programmes
that are well taught and will enhance their employment prospects. Some,
using the logic that education is a commodity to be bought, feel that having
paid for a degree they are entitled to be awarded one. The pressures on staff
are complex and in some cases have had the effect of encouraging lower
standards. Such downward pressures, in some celebrated cases, have also
emanated from administration, because of the funding implications of
failing students. A twist in this issue in universities in western countries is that
international students have become a highly significant source of funding,
thus introducing another pressure-point on the maintenance of standards
(Burke and Jopson 2005).
These pressures and the changing nature of the institution have brought
about increased concern with the quality assurance or, as we would rather
have it, the quality enhancement of teaching and learning. But first let us
look at the question of diversity within the classroom.

Student diversity
One major source of diversity is the massive worldwide movement of interna-
tional students, mostly from the Asian and African continents to universities
in the West, to provide an important source of income to those receiving
universities. While international students undoubtedly have specials needs
with regard to provision for language and social support, problems of
learning in a second language, of homesickness, of cultural isolation, these
are areas that need to be addressed by other supportive specialists and struc-

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 The changing scene in university teaching 5

tures, not necessarily by their classroom teachers. Ethnic diversity in the

classroom undoubtedly raises issues of teaching and learning but, as was
argued in previous editions of this book, teaching that engages students
learning activities appropriately minimizes differences of ethnicity between
students as far as learning itself is concerned. This problem is somewhat
related to that of the differences between Susan and Robert discussed below;
in both cases, actively engaging students in their learning becomes the issue.
Another source of diversity, then, is the academic orientation and commit-
ment of students. Maintaining standards when the commitment and range of
ability of students are so varied presents an interesting teaching challenge
that in previous editions we have called the Robert and Susan problem.
Let us look at two students attending a lecture. Susan is academically
committed; she is bright, interested in her studies and wants to do well. She
has clear academic or career plans and what she learns is important to her.
When she learns, she goes about it in an academic way. She comes to the
lecture with sound, relevant background knowledge, possibly some questions
she wants answering. In the lecture, she finds an answer to a preformed
question; it forms the keystone for a particular arch of knowledge she is
constructing. Or it may not be the answer she is looking for and she specu-
lates, wondering why it isnt. In either event, she reflects on the personal
significance of what she is learning. Students like Susan virtually teach them-
selves; they do not need much help from us. Academics like the Susans
indeed, they were once Susans themselves so they tend to assume that she
represents how most students learn, and they teach accordingly.
Now take Robert. He is at university not out of a driving curiosity about a
particular subject, or a burning ambition to excel in a particular profession, but
to obtain a qualification for a decent job. A few years ago, prior to the Bologna
Process say (see below), he would never have considered going to university.
He is less committed than Susan, possibly not as bright, academically speaking.
He has little background of relevant knowledge. He comes to lectures with no
or few questions. He wants only to put in sufficient effort to pass and obtain
that meal ticket. Robert hears the lecturer say the same words as Susan is
hearing but he doesnt see a keystone, just another brick to be recorded in his
lecture notes. He believes that if he can record enough of these bricks and can
remember them on cue, hell keep out of trouble come exam time.
Students like Robert are in higher proportions in todays classes. They
need help if they are to reach acceptable levels of achievement. To say that
Robert is unmotivated may be true, but it is unhelpful. All it means is that
he is not responding to the methods that work for Susan, the likes of whom
were sufficiently visible in most classes in the good old days to satisfy us that
our teaching did work. But, of course, it was the students who were doing the
work and getting the results, not our teaching.
The challenge we face as teachers is to teach so that Robert learns more in
the manner of Susan. Figure 1.1 suggests that the present differences between
Robert and Susan (point A) may be lessened by appropriate teaching (point
B). Three factors are operating:

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 6 Effective teaching and learning for todays universities

Figure 1.1 Student orientation, teaching method and level of engagement

the students levels of engagement in relation to the level of learning

activity required to achieve the intended learning outcomes (ranging from
describing to theorizing, as between the dashed lines in Figure 1.1;
the degree of learning-related activity that a teaching method is likely to
stimulate;
the academic orientation of the students.
Point A is towards the passive end of the teaching method continuum,
where there is a large gap between Susans and Roberts levels of engage-
ment. A lecture would be an example of such passive teaching and we get the
picture just described: Susan working at a high level of engagement within
the target range of learning activities (relating, applying and theorizing
from time to time), Robert taking notes and memorizing, activities that are
below the target range of activities. If you compare this with Figure 2.1
(on p. 29), you will see that Susan is using a deep approach, comprising
learning activities appropriate to the outcomes, while Robert is using a
surface approach, meaning that he is operating below the cognitive level
required.
At point B, towards the active end of the teaching method continuum, the
gap between Susan and Robert is not so wide. Robert is actually using many of

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 The changing scene in university teaching 7

the learning activities needed to achieve the intended learning outcomes.

Problem-based learning would be an example of an active teaching method,
because it requires students to question, to speculate, to generate solutions, so
that Robert is encouraged to use the higher order cognitive activities that Susan
uses spontaneously. The teaching has narrowed the gap between their ways of
going about learning and between their respective performances. This is
because the teaching environment requires the students to go through learning
activities that are designed to help them achieve the intended outcomes.
Of course, there are limits to what students can do that are beyond the
teachers control a students ability is one but ability after a certain level
isnt the only determinant of performance or even the major one. There are
other things that are within our control, and capitalizing on them is what
good teaching is all about. Although Figure 1.1 is a hypothetical graph, it
helps us to define good teaching, as follows:
Good teaching is getting most students to use the level of cognitive processes needed
to achieve the intended outcomes that the more academic students use spontaneously.
Good teaching is unlikely to close the gap between the Susans and the
Roberts of this world completely, but it should certainly narrow it. How that
can be done is one of the major issues we address in this book.

The Bologna Process

In the twentieth century, standards, procedures, staffing, degree structures
and academic freedom varied enormously across European universities. In
some countries, courses and even staff appointment had to be approved by
parliament. With the creation of the European Union in 1993, greatly
increased movement between countries for employment and for further
study meant that something had to be done to make transfer across educa-
tional institutions possible and equitable. Ministers of education from
27 countries met in Bologna in 1999, and given also the backdrop of globali-
zation, the Bologna Process was set in motion. The following details were
obtained from the official website (Bologna Process 2010).
Today, 47 European countries are committed to the Process, which aims to
create a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on international
cooperation and academic exchange in order to
facilitate mobility of students, graduates and higher education staff;
prepare students for their future careers and for life as active citizens in
democratic societies, and to support their personal development;
offer broad access to high-quality higher education.
Countries are currently setting up national qualifications frameworks that
are compatible with the overarching framework of qualifications for the
European Higher Education Area. The qualifications frameworks define
learning outcomes for each of bachelor, master and doctorate levels,

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 8 Effective teaching and learning for todays universities

describing what learners should know, understand and be able to do on the

basis of a given qualification. If a degree is commenced in one university and
completed in another there must be assurance as to the quality and equiva-
lence of the degrees so that credit transfers are equitable. Accordingly, there
is common agreement as to quality assurance and recognition of foreign
degrees and other higher education qualifications.
The Process also includes areas of broader societal relevance, such as the
links between higher education, research and innovation; equitable partici-
pation and lifelong learning and links to higher education systems outside
Europe. Regular meetings of European ministers of education determine
priorities and set up working groups to make recommendations. Coming
priorities include: equitable access and completion, lifelong learning,
employability, student-centred learning and the teaching mission of higher
education, research and innovation, international openness, mobility
between institutions, and others. Lifelong learning is seen as a central issue,
involving greater focus on: recognition of prior learning, including non-
formal and informal learning; student-centred flexible modes of delivery
and wider access to higher education.
To achieve these aims, each country will operate a quality assurance agency
to which are referred all the policies, ongoing review processes and actions
that are designed to ensure that institutions, programmes and qualifications
meet and maintain specified standards of education, scholarship and infra-
structure. Institutions and stakeholders in higher education are thereby
provided with some sort of assurance that quality and accountability are
being achieved. Enhancement and improvement of higher education
systems, institutions and programmes are also concerns.
The Bologna Process is clearly a major step towards improving teaching
and learning on a massive scale, across the whole of Europe no less, but there
are dangers. Benchmarking and credit transfer may threaten one of the
important characteristics of the university: the pursuit of excellence. Ideally,
departments should build on their strengths so that they become renowned
for their research and teaching in a specific area of the discipline. Credit
transfers, however, may work on the equivalence not only of standards but
also of curriculum, so the net effect is likely not to differentiate universities
but to homogenize their offerings. Care must be taken that credit transfers
do not dumb down institutions to the standards of the weakest. Many stake-
holders are aware of this problem, claiming that market forces will force
universities to continue to offer better quality, and/or different, programmes
than the opposition. Another way, implied by Altbach et al. (2009), relying
more on government deliberation than on market forces, would be to set up
sectors of universities, the equivalent perhaps of Ivy League, state and private
universities, with credit transfers permissible within, but not across, sectors.
While Bologna is essentially a transnational managerial process, it has
strong implications for teaching at the institutional and individual classroom
levels. Although Bologna does not explicitly prescribe an outcomes-based
approach to teaching and learning (a search through the Bologna docu-

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 The changing scene in university teaching 9

ments for outcomes-based did not yield any results), the emphasis on
student-centred learning, and on learning outcomes at bachelor, masters
and doctoral levels, certainly suggests one, as does the emphasis on lifelong
learning, which is a common graduate outcome. Huet et al. (2009) point out
that this will involve a paradigm shift towards a more learner-centred
approach, especially in many southern European countries where the
teaching model is teacher centred, and to achieve this an effective use of
learning outcomes requires knowledge of the pedagogy of teaching and
learning and [of] the concept of constructive alignment (p. 276). They
advocate the use of curriculum maps to facilitate alignment between
learning outcomes, learning activities and assessment tasks. The design and
implementation of constructive alignment is the theme of this book, and we
turn specifically to the use of such maps in Chapter 7.
Putting Bologna together with other developments in western and some
Asian countries, then, we may conclude that there is a strong move towards a
more student-centred approach to teaching and learning, marked especially
by designing curricula in terms of the outcomes students are meant to
achieve at different levels.
Let us spell this approach out in more detail.

Improving teaching: towards learning outcomes

In meeting these demands for improved teaching for a broader range of
students, many universities are funding staff development centres, or centres
for teaching and learning, on a larger scale than previously; they are recog-
nizing research into teaching ones content area as legitimate research. But
perhaps the most important ways of improving teaching are:
1 recognizing that good teaching is as much a function of institution-wide
infrastructure as it is a gift with which some lucky academics are born.
Thus, policies and procedures that encourage good teaching and assess-
ment across the whole institution need to be put in place.
2 shifting the focus from the teacher to the learner, and specifically, to
define what learning outcomes students are meant to achieve when teachers
address the topics they are meant to teach.
These two points are mutually supportive. The point about focusing on
learning outcomes was first made explicit on a systemic basis in the Dearing
Report (1997) in the United Kingdom. Today probably most UK universities
describe course and programme outcomes in terms of the outcomes students
are intended to attain, although how far these filter through into fully blown
outcomes-based teaching and learning varies between institutions. In other
countries, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and North
America, individual universities are moving towards outcomes-based teaching
and learning (OBTL). In Hong Kong, the move is system-wide. The then
Chairman of the University Grants Committee (UGC), Alice Lam, wrote:

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 10 Effective teaching and learning for todays universities

The UGCs goal in promoting outcome-based approaches is simple and

straightforward improvement and enhancement in student learning and
teaching quality (Letter to Hong Kong universities, May 15, 2006).
Today all eight universities in Hong Kong are moving at their own pace to
outcomes-based approaches to student learning (OBASL), as the UGC puts
it we say more about the Hong Kong situation in Chapter 14, as it is one in
which we have been directly involved. Currently, Malaysia is moving nation-
ally to implement OBTL in over 1000 post-secondary institutions (Biggs and
Tang, in press). The Bologna Process, involving 47 countries in the European
Union, is an even larger scale attempt to improve teaching, again with an
emphasis on learning outcomes.

Outcomes-based teaching and learning (OBTL)

In outcomes-based teaching and learning (OBTL) we state what we intend
the general outcomes a graduate of a university should achieve, and following
from that, we derive the content-based programme and specific course level
outcomes. Graduate outcomes recall the older notion of teaching goals, but
placing them in a more systematic context. In a wide ranging survey of nearly
3000 university teachers, Angelo and Cross (1993) identified six goal clusters
that teachers might address:
1 higher order thinking skills
2 basic academic success skills
3 discipline-specific knowledge and skills
4 liberal arts and academic values
5 work and career development
6 personal development.
This work was done nearly twenty years ago when institutions did not spell out
mission statements to the extent that most do today. Graduate outcomes, also
called graduate attributes, are outcomes of the total university experience, such
as creativity, independent problem solving, professional skills, critical thinking,
communication skills, teamwork, as well as lifelong learning. Graduate outcomes
are conceived in mainly two different ways: as generic, comprising context-free
qualities or attributes of individuals, as if graduates would be creative whatever
they do; or as embedded, that is, as abilities or ways of handling issues that are
context dependent, so that creativity is only intended to apply in a graduates
content area. We take the embedded view here, as developed in Chapter 7. The
generic view of graduate attributes claims that graduates would be creative, or
think critically, whatever content they were dealing with. This is not the way it
works. These context-free claims reify the attribute, making it a personality char-
acteristic so that its acquisition becomes a matter of personality change. Such
claims are exaggerated to serve a different agenda, justifying the criticism by
Hussey and Smith (2002) that outcomes have been misappropriated and
adopted widely . . . to facilitate the managerial process. We see the purpose of

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 The changing scene in university teaching 11

OBTL not to serve a managerial agenda, but as stated by Hong Kongs UGC:
the improvement and enhancement in student learning and teaching quality.
Graduate outcomes guide the design of the intended learning outcomes
for the programme and its constituent courses. In this way, both higher order
thinking and basic academic skills are written into the intended learning
outcomes of the programme, and then of the courses making up the
programme, rather than leaving it to the individual teacher to decide. The
question of designing outcomes at university, programme and course levels
is explained in Chapter 7.
A course outcome statement tells us how we would recognize if or how well
students have learned what it is intended they should learn and be able to do.
This is different from the usual teacher-based curriculum, which simply lists
the topics for teachers to cover. That is, an outcome statement tells us what
students should be able to do after teaching, and how well they should do it,
when they were unable, or only partially able, to do it before teaching. Good
teachers have always had some idea of that that is one reason why they are
good teachers. In outcomes-based teaching and learning, we are simply
making that as explicit as we can always allowing for unintended but
desirable outcomes. Teachers and critics often overlook that students may
also learn outcomes that hadnt been foreseen but which are eminently
desirable. Our assessment strategies should allow for these unexpected or
unintended outcomes, as discussed in Chapter 10.
In OBTL, assessment is carried out by seeing how well a students perform-
ance compares to the criteria in the outcome statement; that is, assessment is
criterion referenced. Students are not assessed according to how their perform-
ances compare with each other and then graded according to a predeter-
mined distribution such as the bell curve (these issues are discussed in Chapter
10). Ideally, in OBTL an assessment task requires the student to perform the
intended outcome itself which is often not easily achieved by giving students
questions to which they write answers in an invigilated exam room.
Constructive alignment, the theme of this book and its previous editions,
differs from other forms of outcomes-based teaching and learning in that
teaching is also addressed, in order to increase the likelihood of most students
achieving those outcomes. In constructive alignment we systematically align the
teaching/learning activities, as well as the assessment tasks, to the intended
learning outcomes. This is done by requiring the students to engage the learning
activities required in the outcomes. Talking about the topic, as in traditional
teaching, rarely does that directly as lecturing requires the students minimally to
listen and to take notes. Only the really academic students, the Susans, go further
and question, interpret or reflect. It is getting Robert to engage these learning
activities that brings him closer to Susans way of learning (see Figure 1.1)
All this might sound difficult, time consuming and way too idealistic. That
is not what an increasingly large number of university teachers are finding.
This book will explain the background and lead you through all the stages of
implementing constructive alignment, but using the outcomes-based termi-
nology that is now current.

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 12 Effective teaching and learning for todays universities

Task 1.1 The changing scene at your own institution

Reflect on your own institution, identify any changes that you are aware
of which have affected your decision made or actions taken related to
teaching and learning as a teacher/staff developer/administrator.
Changes at your institution:
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Your decisions/actions related to teaching and learning based on the
changes:
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
When you have finished this book, revisit these decision/actions and
see if you would have acted differently.

Summary and conclusions

The nature of the change worldwide
Since 2000 there has been a dramatic change in the nature of higher educa-
tion. Participation rates have greatly increased, which has created much
diversity both among the nature of programmes offered and in the student
population. Classrooms must cater for a diverse range of students, all
demanding the quality teaching they believe they have paid for and should be
receiving. As a result, universities are much more concerned with improving
teaching and maintaining quality assurance of teaching than hitherto. It is
inevitable that universities will specialize, as one way of coping with diversity,
but the real problem of diversity lies within universities and within classrooms.

Student diversity
Ethnic diversity is greatly expanded especially in western universities with
increasing numbers of international students studying abroad. While this
calls for much non-academic support in terms of learning in a second

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 The changing scene in university teaching 13

language, social adjustment and counselling, the pedagogical issues are

somewhat similar to those met when dealing with diversity of academic
commitment. Academic Susan hardly needs teaching: she is motivated,
knowledgeable and actively learning even while sitting quietly in a lecture.
Non-academic Robert, who previously would not be at university, is unsure
of his goals, is doing subjects that dont really interest him and sits passively
in class. There is a large gap between Susans performance and Roberts.
However, if teaching actively engages Robert in appropriate learning activi-
ties, the gap between him and Susan will decrease. Coping with academic
diversity in the universities of the twenty-first century becomes largely a
matter of improving teaching and learning.

The Bologna Process

The Bologna Process is an ambitious attempt to improve teaching across
47 countries Europe-wide. It requires member countries to define learning
outcomes for all degrees, to establish national degree frameworks and quality
assurance mechanisms, and to address wider social issues such as promoting
lifelong learning as a university outcome. While the Bologna Process was
originally intended to facilitate credit transfers between institutions in
different countries equitably, it has become a reflection of what is happening
worldwide or some might argue that what is happening worldwide is a
reflection of Bologna. All these changes point to an increasing use of
outcomes-based teaching and learning.

Improving teaching: towards learning outcomes

A major feature of the change in universities is a fresh orientation to the
responsibility of teaching, so that teaching is seen not so much as the respon-
sibility of individual teachers as of the entire institution, with policies,
staff development and quality assurance of teaching being put in place.
In line with this, there has been a concern with anchoring performance in
learning outcomes. Outcomes-based teaching and learning is in place in
many universities in several countries, with some whole countries requiring
teaching to become outcomes based.

Outcomes-based teaching and learning (OBTL)

Graduate outcomes, also called graduate attributes, are outcomes of
the total university experience. They include such things as creativity,
problem solving, professional skills, communication skills, teamwork,
and lifelong learning, which should be contextualized in the programmes
and courses students undertake. Graduate outcomes thus guide the

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 14 Effective teaching and learning for todays universities

design of programmes and courses. In OBTL, the concern is not so

much a matter of what topics to teach, but what outcomes students
are supposed to have achieved after having been taught. Defining those
intended learning outcomes becomes the important issue, and assessment is
criterion-referenced to see how well the outcomes have been attained.
Constructive alignment goes one step further than most outcomes-based
approaches in that, as well as assessment tasks, teaching and learning activi-
ties are also aligned to the outcomes, in order that students are helped to
achieve those outcomes more effectively. How all this is achieved is the
subject of this book.

Further reading
On trends in higher education
Altbach, P.G., Reisberg, L. and Rumbley, L.E. (2009) Trends in Global Higher Education:
Tracking an Academic Revolution. Report for the UNESCO 2009 World Conference
on Higher Education.
The UNESCO Report deals with all aspects of higher education apart from teaching
and learning: globalization, access and equity, quality assurance and accountability,
finance, the academic profession, the student experience, information and commu-
nication technology, distance education, research, links to industry and future trends.
It is a comprehensive and up-to-date survey that provides excellent background for
putting this chapter in context.
Dearing, R. (1997) Higher Education in the Learning Society, Report of the National
Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (Dearing Report). Norwich:
HMSO.
The first major thrust towards outcomes-based education in the UK.
Bologna Process (2010) http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/
(accessed 2 February 2011).
This is the official website of the Bologna Process and it gives the history of the
project, current developments, priorities and meetings and associated documents.
Gonzalez, J. and Wagenaar, R. (eds) (2008) Universities Contribution to the Bologna
Process: An Introduction, 2nd edn. Bilbao, Spain: Universidad Deusto.
http://www.tuning.unideusto.org/tuningeu/index.php?option=com_frontpage&
Itemid=1 (accessed 2 February 2011).
A publication of the Tuning Project, which was set up to allow credit transfers
between universities in the Bologna Process. However, as they explain, The name
Tuning was chosen for the project to reflect the idea that universities do not look for
uniformity in their degree programmes or any sort of unified, prescriptive or defini-
tive European curricula but simply for points of reference, convergence and common
understanding. The Project distinguishes between generic competences and subject-
specific competences and is producing booklets for major subject areas.

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 The changing scene in university teaching 15

Dealing with diversity

Buckridge, M. and Guest, R. (2007) A conversation about pedagogical responses to
increased diversity in university classrooms, Higher Education Research and
Development, 26: 13346.
Margaret, a staff developer, and Ross, an economics teacher, hold a dialogue about
dealing with the increasingly large number of Roberts sitting alongside the Susans in
our classes. Is it fair to Susan to divert resources from her in order to deal with Robert?
Is it fair to Robert if you dont? Is it really possible to obtain the optimum from each
student in the same overcrowded class? Read, and draw your own conclusions.
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itl/pd/tl-modules/teaching-approach/diversity/ (accessed
2 February 2011).
Dealing with diversity at Deakin is an interactive module given by the Institute for
Teaching and Learning at Deakin University. This website presents eight topics on
diversity among university students.
Shaw, G. (ed) (2005) Tertiary Teaching: Dealing with Diversity. Darwin, Australia: Charles
Darwin University Press and The Centre for Learning Research, Charles Darwin
University.

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