UKAT's Evaluation Special interest Group

UKAT’s Evaluation Special Interest Group.

Overview

AdvanceHE define evaluation as “the means by which a course or a curriculum change can be monitored to see if, in fact, it is what it claims to be and if it achieves, in students, the intended outcomes. For an evaluation to take place in any measured way, the purposes of a teaching innovation and the expected outcomes in terms of student learning and attitude changes must be specified.”

There is not currently a clear indicator of personal tutoring effectiveness at a national level for undergraduate or postgraduate taught programmes as provided by sector-wide student voice measures. National surveys (NSS; PTES) explore student perceptions and experiences of personal tutoring indirectly through questions linked to ‘Academic Support’. Individual institutions may include questions on student experience in end programme or module evaluation survey, continuous module dialogue, bespoke focus groups, or student reviewer schemes. It can be hard to understand how students interpret and respond to broad survey questions and if their responses are based on personal tutoring experiences or something else.

At present, there is also no clear model that sets out how we might evaluate the effectiveness of personal tutoring in relation to learning outcomes and other learning gain measures. These measures are also defined differently in varying institutional contexts. 

At the 2023 UKAT Annual Conference we ran a problem-solving session to explore ’how can we evaluate the effectiveness of personal tutoring at a national cross-institutional level?’.

This new UKAT Special Interest Group aims to continue the dialogue and exploration of how we can evaluate our work in personal tutoring and advising.

Evaluation SIG aims:

To develop a framework for the evaluation of personal tutoring and advising in the UK, by

• Defining a set of principles and transferable learning outcomes for personal tutoring and advising.
• Investigating novel approaches to measuring impact and effectiveness against these learning outcomes.
• Supporting UKAT’s strategic goal of Professionalism and work around individual and institutional recognition for personal tutoring and advising.

Current projects in progress:

Project 1: Exploring how UKAT members measure and evidence the impact of their practice.

This project is examining personal tutors’ professional opinions as to the best practices for evaluating the impact of personal tutoring on student experience and outcomes. We are currently preparing to conduct a pilot interview study of personal tutoring experts across the UK. This will be followed by a wider, mixed methods study to gain the expertise of personal tutors of a range of experiences and institutions with evaluating the impact of personal tutoring.

Project 2: Exploring how institutions & the OfS measure and evidence the impact of personal tutoring & advising.

This project is exploring how institutions and the OfS measure and evidence the impact of personal tutoring and advising in TEF statements (for England’s institutions only at this time). We are developing a rubric for group members to help us in recording observations from a range of institutions with Gold and Bronze Student Experience metrics and plan for this review to be completed across November 2025 – January 2026, with an aim to report back findings at the UKAT Annual conference and May 2026 SIG meeting.