How to Use Surveys to Measure and Track Crucial Educational Gains

Educational gains go beyond traditional measures of continuation, completion, and progression. Areas like knowledge, skills, personal development, and workplace readiness are also critical metrics when gauging successful teaching and learning experiences. 

But how do you evidence those gains or improvement areas? How can you demonstrate progress through data and use those insights to optimize elements of the student journey?  

One methodology is attached to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), a national scheme run by the Office for Students (OfS) in England. The initiative encourages higher education institutions to strive for excellence in areas students care about, such as teaching, learning, and achieving positive outcomes from their studies. 

Universities and colleges that take part in the TEF receive an overall rating as well as two underpinning ratings: one for the student experience, and one for student outcomes. 

In the 2023 TEF exercise, the OfS asked universities and colleges to outline: 

• What educational gains they aim for their students to achieve 

• How they support students in achieving these gains 

• What evidence they have that students are succeeding 

This blog will dive into how measuring educational gains go beyond the TEF’s continuation, completion and progression. Keep reading to discover how efficiently tracking educational gains can impact the student experience by enhancing knowledge, skills, personal development, and work readiness.  

Understand How Leading Providers Approach Educational Gains 

Professor Dilly Fung, a TEF 2023 panel member and formerly Pro-Director (Vice President) for Education at the London School of Economics, was commissioned to analyse providers’ approaches to identifying and measuring educational gains as described in their TEF submissions.  

The final report, Educational gains explored, is based on analysis of the submissions of the 51 providers that received a Gold rating for student outcomes in TEF 2023. 

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), whose mission is to safeguard and improve the quality standards of UK higher education wherever it is delivered, has also investigated the approaches providers take to identify educational gains. The organization has researched learning gains and student engagement measures over the past decade, building on extensive work across the sector. 

Explore How to Measure Educational Gains 

The project lead for Accounting for student success: Measuring educational gain, was Dr Camille Kandiko Howson, Associate Professor of Education in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship at Imperial College London, who spoke at our Student Voices in Higher Education Conference 2024. The work explored the concept of educational gain and how it is articulated, supported and evidenced by 66 providers who were awarded Gold overall or Gold for Student Outcomes in TEF 2023. 

The final report was supplemented by practical case studies detailing how data was captured, embedded in wider quality assurance processes and utilised by staff and students, including at Explorance customers Bath Spa University, Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Manchester, which will support other providers to identify their approaches to educational gain and address areas for improvement. 

Utilize Explorance to Track Educational Gains 

Practically, there are several ways that Explorance can help universities to evidence educational gains. The main platform is Explorance’s 360-degree feedback in Blue.  

At a high level, students can complete a competency assessment where they rate themselves and others rate them (tutor, employer, peers, family, etc.) Blue will then report on this. At a later date, perhaps at the end of a course, they can complete another assessment to see if they have ‘gained’ in competency during their time at university.  

360 degree feedback is standard functionality in Blue, often used for leadership development in HR (for example, in our work with the International Committee of the Red Cross, KLAR Partners and St James’s Place), but underused in higher education (though our work with INCAE Business School is a good reference point).  

We are currently speaking to a number of universities in England to discuss how they might be able to use Blue as part of their existing packages to work towards measuring educational gains. 

Get Ready for TEF 2027: Steps to Take Now 

As the clock begins to tick down to the TEF 2027 and the next assessment, providers will review their commitments and promises from TEF 2023 and look to ensure their educational gains approach is clearly articulated, delivering in practice, and being measured. 

Six Key Areas to Consider for Educational Gains 

Going back to the QAA project (published in June 2024), a schema presents six areas for providers to consider in their educational gain descriptions. This tool offers a helpful framing device for providers who are continuing to develop their approaches to educational gain:  

1. Approaches to Educational Gain:  

The sort of provider the institution is in relation to size and shape, programmes delivered, students recruited, and the challenges faced. 

2. Definitions of Educational Gain 

The institution’s mission and values, as well as how this frames, or does not, their approach to educational gain.  

3. Purpose of Educational Gain 

What they consider the purpose of educational gain to be and the ambitions they have for their students (and for themselves).   

 4. Educational Gain Activities 

What educational gains they consider their students should achieve and the relative importance of each of these, what activities they are putting in place to enable students to make educational gains, and how they are supporting students to achieve them.  

Four domains of educational gain, knowledge, work readiness, skills and personal development, are covered in most submissions. However, there is significant variation in how these domains are prioritised and integrated into strategies and approaches.   

5. Measuring Educational Gain 

What providers think can be measured, what measures they have available to them, how they are actually measuring gain, and the sorts of measurements they are using to do so.   

6. Evaluating Educational Gain 

What, if anything, do they do with the data they collect, and how do they measure the effectiveness of their approach and assess the impact of the institution’s efforts? 

Drive Institutional Success with Explorance’s Support for Educational Gains  

Through Explorance’s Consulting Services, universities can plan their strategy development around evidencing educational gains. This includes using 360-degree feedback in Blue to measure changes in student competency around knowledge, skills, personal development and work readiness. 

Explorance aims to establish a related community of practice where your institution can collaborate with other partners and customers, share resources, and learn from peers in the lead-up to TEF 2027. 

John Atherton is VP Sales – EMEA at Explorance.