From evaluation towards an agenda for quality improvement: The development and application of the Template Process

For many students and lecturers evaluation is confined to some form of questionnaire survey. Whilst these can provide useful feedback, their focus is likely to reflect the values and norms of those commissioning and undertaking the evaluation. For real improvements in quality to occur both lecturers’ and students’ perspectives of those factors that are important need to be made explicit and understood. Drawing upon literature relating to service quality measures and in particular the Service Template, this paper outlines and evaluates an alternative approach for establishing students’ and lecturers’ perspectives, obtaining feedback and developing an agenda for improvement. Using the example of dissertation supervision, it is argued that a revised Template Process operating within a process consultation framework can meet these concerns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the wider applicability of the Template Process to evaluating teaching and learning.