Seeking an Educational Utopia: An Alternative Model for Evaluating Student Learning Gain

With the on-going marketisation of Higher Education, universities need to evolve and respond to the highly fluid landscape of funding, opportunity and demand. In particular, there are concerns regarding the value for money of a university education. In response to this, Higher Education systems across the world are considering how to evaluate the perceived learning of students. However, there is currently no agreed method for evaluating the actual Learning Gain achieved by any particular student or course. This paper details why attention should be given to how we assess student Learning Gain, and in a world of students being treated as consumers, it theorises that understanding how students perceive their own learning has become of great importance. The paper discusses a new and alternative model that can be used for evaluating such student perceptions. The model itself considers both the Distance Travelled (explicit knowledge) and the Journey Travelled (tacit understanding) reported by students. The model employs a self-certified reflective survey method. A study, using a cohort of level six (final year) undergraduate dissertation students is undertaken to evaluate the use of the model. The primary results obtained from this study provide an interesting perspective on student learning, which has significant implications for our understanding of how we teach, and also of how students think that they learn