Understanding, recognising and rewarding teaching quality in higher education: an exploration of the impact and implications of the Teaching Excellence Framework

1. The TEF has proven to be an unpopular policy with the vast majority of the project’s
participants, with only one in ten welcoming its introduction. Overall, participants
reported limited evidence that the TEF recognised, promoted and/or rewarded teaching
excellence. A strong criticism of the TEF to emerge from the project is its failure to
appreciate the extent to which teaching, its development and delivery, is a collective rather
than an individual activity. This is embodied in the TEF’s ranking system which
participants considered divisive and resulting in unhealthy and counterproductive
competition between providers. In this sense, many participants considered the TEF as a
further example of the marketisation of HE.

2. Despite its significance as a key driver in recent HE policy reform and the high profile
attention given to it since its introduction, HE providers and the government have
failed to engage the vast majority of the staff working in HE with the TEF. Overall,
engagement remains clearly marginalised for the vast majority of staff. Varied levels
of awareness, involvement, consultation and impact of the TEF were reported across
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with English institutions recording the
highest levels. Staff from college-based HE providers also showed low levels of awareness
of and involvement in the TEF. Most participants in management positions reported
involvement and/or awareness, whereas more than seven in ten of those in teaching-focused/teaching-only positions reported no involvement and/or awareness of TEF-related
work in their institutions. Reasons for low levels of engagement were twofold. Firstly, they
reflected the way in which HE providers had managed and communicated their
institutional responses to the TEF to their staff. Secondly, there was evidence in the project
data of disaffection and a lack of willingness to want to engage with a policy of which
many disapproved.

3. Over 80% of participants reported no level of consultation and/or involvement in
their institution's TEF-related activities and/or TEF submissions. Much TEF-related
activity is management-led and is usually coordinated by professional services at an
institutional level. The extent to which TEF activities are communicated to all staff across
an institution was limited for over half of the project’s participants. While TEF-related
activity is purportedly meant to capture the teaching excellence of an institution, the data
clearly revealed that in many providers, very small groups of staff (often those in
management and professional services roles) are responsible for managing such work.
More participants in non-permanent and/or non-full time positions reported much lower
levels of awareness, involvement and consultation overall, suggesting that they were on
the periphery of any TEF-related activity. Additionally, those in research focused/research-only and teaching-focused/teaching-only positions consistently reported low levels of awareness and a lack of involvement. Levels of awareness, involvement and
consultation were greater in post-92 compared to pre-92 universities.

4. There were mixed responses across participants regarding their awareness of
changes in policies and/or procedures in their workplaces since the introduction of
the TEF in 2016. Twice as many participants reported not being aware of any change as
those who did report change. More participants from post-92s compared to pre-92s
reported changes. A significant number of participants reported the ratcheting up of
monitoring mechanisms and accountability procedures involving both staff and students,
driven principally by the student experience and student outcomes. Among some of the
most frequently cited changes were: 1) a steep rise in the reliance on learning analytics; 2)
increased programme evaluations; 3) increased student evaluations; 4) performance management led observations; 5) standardisation of templates for student assessments and
student evaluations across programmes; 6) requirement for academic staff (new and
existing) to gain teaching qualifications such as the PG Cert in HE Learning and Teaching
and/or other accreditation such as HEA fellowship.

5. The implementation of the TEF has had a negative impact on the workloads of
academic and support staff. The TEF has resulted in the creation of another layer of
administrative bureaucracy, which in turn has given rise to additional work streams for
staff, often with no additional resources to support this extra workload. The project data
revealed evidence of this extra workload having a detrimental impact on the health and
well-being of participants.

6. The TEF was reported as having a greater impact on institutional policies of teaching
and learning than the actual teaching of academic staff. However, there was an
increased preoccupation on teaching and learning from management across some
institutions. In addition, there was evidence of greater investment in small-scale research
into teaching and learning, along with more opportunities to gain promotion/career
progression via a teaching route.

7. There were significant criticisms and concerns raised about the legitimacy and
credibility of the TEF as an instrument of measurement of teaching excellence.
Repeatedly across data sets, participants called into question the fitness for purpose of the
TEF as a method of evaluating teaching excellence, with an overwhelming consensus that
the assessment framework requires a fundamental review