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USING LEARNING OUTCOMES
4 ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Learning outcomes can be seen potentially to have an important impact on the educational world and more particularly the tools used to describe it, and the nature of the architecture of the new European Higher Education Area. Their widespread adoption raises a number of questions.
4.2 AREAS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION AND DEVELOPMENT:
4.2.1 General questions:
- What is the appropriate role of learning outcomes in the European Higher Education Area - do they have a positive contribution?
- Can learning outcomes contribute to all three Bologna cycles?
- What are the implications of learning outcomes for governments, ministries and national authorities - how do they relate to quality assurance frameworks and qualifications frameworks?
- What contribution do learning outcomes make to the development of ECTS, lifelong learning and the linking of VET and HE - and what are the national and international implications of this? Can national parallel frameworks for vocational and academic education be linked by the common use of learning outcomes?
- How might learning outcomes contribute to the development of quality assurance at the European level? How can national and internationally accepted threshold standards (and descriptions of learning) be developed?
- What are the implications of learning outcomes for higher education institutions (at module and programme level)?
- How can good practice and experience associated with the development and implementation of learning outcomes be shared, and is a top-down or bottom-up or a mixed approach more effective?
4.2.2 Technical questions:
- Do we need to develop common definitions and understandings about learning outcomes and their expression, and if so, how?
- Is it useful to distinguish between subject specific and generic learning outcomes?
- What are the implications of learning outcomes for the normative versus criterion reference assessment debate - if credits or any learning is expressed in terms of learning outcomes does this dictate the adoption of a criterion-led approach to assessment?
- Does the widespread adoption of learning outcomes necessitate any updating of existing recognition tools e.g. recognition conventions, good practice guidelines, EUROPASS, ECTS, etc?
- Should we seek some practical agreement about the role of learning outcomes in terms of cycle descriptors, levels, level indicators, qualification descriptors and subject benchmark statements?
- Should learning outcomes at module level be written as threshold statements?
- Are credits vacuous without learning outcomes?
- What are the local, national and international implications of adopting an outcomes-based definition of ECTS credits?
- How does workload relate to learning outcomes and how can workload most effectively be expressed?
4.3 CONCLUDING COMMENT
The traditional input-related curriculum has proved to be too focused on the teacher instead of the learner. Consequently there is what has been described as a paradigm shift underway, moving the emphasis from teaching to learning and to embrace student-centred learning. This change has been associated with a need for more precision in curriculum design, and an acknowledgement that more effective and varied learning styles can benefit the learner. This has strengthened the need to express, through the medium of learning outcomes, the knowledge, understanding, competences and other attributes within courses and their components. This pedagogical trend has also coincided with the multi-faceted Bologna agenda that emphasises the need for dramatic reform to modernise European education in terms of its structures and processes.
In particular, learning outcomes have the potential to contribute to every aspect of the Bologna agenda (every action line) as they play an underpinning role (a common currency) in the clear expression of the teaching-learning-assessment relationship, as well as the transparent expression of qualifications, qualification frameworks, quality, and their associated tools - cycle descriptors, levels, level indicators, qualification descriptors, subject benchmarks statements, etc.
Modules can be regarded and expressed as collections of learning outcomes, as can level descriptors, subject benchmark statements and individual qualification descriptors. Qualification frameworks built upon these foundations are more transparent and can be more easily accommodated into the proposed European overarching qualifications framework. Learning outcomes can also provide a common currency between vocational education and training and higher education, thereby helping to promote lifelong learning.
Learning outcomes are not the universal panacea for all educational problems facing higher education and they certainly come with some distinct problems that should not be underestimated. However, it is arguable that it might not be possible to have a meaningful European Higher Education Area without the widespread adoption of learning outcome approaches.
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