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External Quality Arrangements for Scotland's Colleges

ANNEX 2

Learner engagement: an overview

Learner engagement is one of the three key principles on which the revised quality arrangements are based and is reflected in the HMIE quality framework: for reference during the external review of Scotland’s colleges, September 2008 as:

• Engagement of learners in enhancing their own learning and the work and life of the college.

and

• How well are learners engaged in enhancing their own learning and the work and life of the college?

This key principle is overarching and will inform one of the four confidence statements generated through external review by HMIE.

Across the sector, many colleges in Scotland are already engaging effectively with their learners to enable improvements to be made both at programme and whole-college level. The high priority now given to this key principle will help to ensure that learners have the potential to engage in all areas of college operations and that colleges acknowledge learners’ contributions effectively.

Policy/strategy

All colleges should have appropriate arrangements to ensure that they are enhancing their learners’ experience across a number of particular themes. These include:

• learners having a strong sense of influence and ownership of their learning experience through greater engagement;
• the learning experience should not be a product but a process in which learners participate;
• learners should be supported to engage constructively with their own learning;
• learners are involved in decision-making about their curricula, learning and teaching, and all aspects of their learning experience; and
• when learners progress from college they are as well equipped as possible with the skills, attributes and attitudes which will enable them to become effective lifelong learners.

As a result, learners can be supported to become more active participants in both their learning and in the work and life of the college. In order to have an appropriate impact, all of this should be delivered in a culture where:

• all staff are conscious of their impact on learners’ experiences and strive to provide a high quality professional service;
• learners themselves feel valued individually and collectively;
• issues raised are dealt with sensitively and appropriately;
• learners’ expectations are managed effectively by the college; and
• staff members in teaching and support teams or individually should regularly reflect self-critically on their own activities and achievements and act imaginatively to make improvements.

Through these developments real progress can be made in ensuring that learners are involved effectively in their own learning and in the work and the life of the college.

Learner representation

Colleges provide learning opportunities for many thousands of learners on a wide range of programmes at different venues and through various modes of attendance. Each college should determine which particular discussion forums – in addition to the statutory Board of Management learner representation – learners should be present at throughout the year. Cognisance should be given to ensure that all aspects of the learners’ experience are captured through this process. Consideration of the quality of learners’ experience should include all learners whatever their race, gender, sexual orientation, faith, belief, age or disability. It should include learners who attend classes on and off campus, part-time, full-time and other modes of attendance. Learners’ views and inputs on relevant issues should feature significantly in the learner engagement process, with colleges ensuring that they have effective systems for monitoring and evaluating engagement. This process should enable improvements to be made at programme, faculty/department and at whole-college level. Learner views should form an important part of college internal review and self-evaluation activities. Actions taken and enhancements made should demonstrate the impact of learner engagement across all curriculum and support areas to the college’s key stakeholders.

Learner representation does not always have to take place through a formalised process. Informal and cross-college approaches can often yield valuable input to enable improvements to be made to the learners’ college experience. It is up to each individual college in consultation with the student association and learner representatives to determine which approaches are deemed to work best to meet the diverse needs of their own learners.

It is recognised that for some learners, work or personal commitments will severely impact on their ability to engage more fully with the work and life of the college. Not all learners are sufficiently motivated and some lack spare time to contribute actively to these activities. However, colleges should ensure that flexible approaches are utilised to best effect to enable learners to be supported effectively to contribute as part of the learner engagement process.

In building upon their existing arrangements for learner engagement, colleges may wish to consider the following high-level questions:

• Are our arrangements and structures (for example: procedures, staff, committees, groups, fora, facilities) sufficient to motivate and enable learners to engage in: providing evaluation and feedback, suggesting improvements, contributing to decision-making, and generally to provide their views on all aspects of their college experience?
• Do our arrangements proactively seek the views of our diverse learner cohort, ensuring that the views of all learners are represented in terms of race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion and belief, mode of attendance, and location and duration of study?
• How do we ensure that our staff continue to work in partnership with their learners to foster engagement and bring about improvement and enhancement in learning and teaching, and support arrangements?
• How do we manage the expectations of our learners during engagement?
• Can we expect our learners to have the necessary skills for meaningful engagement? Do we need to develop those skills in them?
• How do we harness learners’ views that result from meaningful engagement?
• How do we monitor progress and enhancement?
• How do we evaluate our learner engagement arrangements?

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