Article: Model TEF rankings turn league tables upside down

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Loughborough has been named the top teaching university in the UK according to a model TEF ranking.

Oxford and Cambridge fall to 28th and 12th place respectively.

Are you surprised by the results? Have they changed your opinion about universities?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 1

Aph

22

Not sure I entirely understood the differences between benchmark and absolute scores although I'm not to suprised by this. If TEF is designed to see which unis improve the knowledge and skill of students more then surely it will be easier to take a middling student to a top student than it is to make a top student an even higher one?

Reply 2

Doones

21

Yes @Aph I'm not sure what the difference is either...

And the "Absolute" Top 10 ranking is:
1. Cambridge
2= Bath
2= Imperial
4. Oxford
5. Loughborough
6. Durham
7. Lancaster
8. Exeter
9. Newcastle
10= Keele
10= Birmingham

Reply 3

PQ

Clearing and Applications Advisor

21

Original post by jneill

Yes @Aph I'm not sure what the difference is either...

And the "Absolute" Top 10 ranking is:
1. Cambridge
2= Bath
2= Imperial
4. Oxford
5. Loughborough
6. Durham
7. Lancaster
8. Exeter
9. Newcastle
10= Keele
10= Birmingham

The benchmarks are calculated on the scores for students with the profile of subjects studied, qualifications on entry and low participation postcodes etc for each university.

So if a university admits only students with BBB for management courses and those students are less satisfied/more likely to drop out/less likely to get a job than the average for BBB management students across the entire UK then that university is scored as below the benchmarks (and vice versa if students at that university are more satisfied/stick with their courses/get jobs more than the average for BBB management students).

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/523340/bis-16-262-teaching-excellence-framework-techcon.pdf page 23 and 24 has a table showing which factors are adjusted for in each TEF measure (although the THE version is a very poor relation - they've left out universities like UAL with 14k undergraduates while including Bishop Grossesste with 1,700....and they've only looked at Q22 in the NSS and not the sections that are targeted and only looked at 1 year)

That document also explain how the whole assessment process is likely to work and the sort of qualitative and contextual information that will be used alongside the metrics to determine the overall grade.

Reply 4

Lovinlife2

17

@PuddlesTheMonkey I think you meant "league" instead of "leage" for the title :tongue:

Reply 5

Joinedup

20

well all seems pretty useless really... uni teaching takes place in departments and you can get strong departments and weak departments in the same university.
What seems to be frequently overlooked on TSR is since 1992 we've been mashing assorted educational establishments together into universities for reasons that have little to do with improving quality of research or teaching.

My eye was drawn to the bottom reaches of the chart.

It appears London Met manages to have an absolute performance but not a relative performance whereas at UEL the situation is reversed.

Does this mean London Met students are actually having their knowledge removed whereas UEL students start off knowing less than nothing but have improved by the end of their courses there?

Reply 6

Doones

21

Original post by Joinedup

It appears London Met manages to have an absolute performance but not a relative performance whereas at UEL the situation is reversed.

Does this mean London Met students are actually having their knowledge removed whereas UEL students start off knowing less than nothing but have improved by the end of their courses there?

See post above by @PQ

Article: Model TEF rankings turn league tables upside down

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