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In this project, an understanding of student learning, what facilitates and what can inhibit it, provided the foundation of a method for evaluation of placement learning opportunities that is largely student-centred, evidence-based and theoretically informed. Guidelines for evaluation were drawn up in collaboration with the
University’s Placement Managers. These incorporate good practice currently in use within the University, along with good practice identified externally, and tools for evaluation derived from socio-cultural and activity theories of learning. The guidelines, frameworks and models were introduced at workshops that focused on
(1) understanding student learning and (2) in-depth analysis of those few placements that may be problematic. Both the documentation and the workshops were well received by the majority of placement staff who attended. Workshop opportunities to focus on and to discuss placement learning were also seen as valuable. An internal version of the guidelines will sit alongside the University’s Quality Assurance document for work placements from 2012/13. Note that some staff confused
‘evaluation’ of placement learning opportunities (in terms of their potential to facilitate student learning) that was the focus of this project and ‘assessment’ of students’ placement learning outcomes that was not.
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Guidelines for the Evaluation of Placement Learning Opportunities, include: o Consideration of placement learning, its significance within degree programmes, its promoters & inhibitors and a definition of high quality placements
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South West Spoke o Evaluation pre-, during and post-placement o The roles of university staff, employers and students in evaluation of placement provision o Placement learning outcomes, both generic for the placement unit within a degree programme and specific to each individual placement o Processes involved in placement evaluation o Frameworks and models for in-depth evaluation of any placements that may be problematic.
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Materials from workshops (available through http://www.hestemsw.org.uk/news-and-events/events/effectively-evaluating-placement/): o Agendas o Presentations o Major handouts o Selected images and quotes
Workshops were suitable for academic and non-academic staff interested in placement learning opportunities.
1. Working in collaboration with Placement Managers and representatives from each Faculty to develop Guidelines for Evaluation of Placement Learning
Opportunities.
2. Development of materials for two workshops.
3. Delivery of staff workshops to 16 individuals from across STEM and other disciplines.
Employers favour (and some employers recruit only) those graduates who have undertaken a placement as part of their degree programme. Students commonly report that their placement was a significant element of their undergraduate learning.
It is the quality of the placement situation that influences students’ learning outcomes. The current QAA Code of Practice Section 9 precept 8 (2007) 1 refers to the monitoring and review of placement learning opportunities. This Code of
Practice is being restructured into the UK Quality Code for Higher Education and placement learning is being incorporated within a wider chapter on learning and teaching. In external institutional reviews, the review team would be interested in whether evaluation of placement learning had been effective (in terms of leading to changes which had improved the student experience).
Placements form a major part of the University of Bath’s employer engagement agenda. A recent internal review of placement learning (by the Learning and
Teaching Enhancement Office, LTEO) revealed that, although there was much good practice in the management of placements, there was some inconsistency in the
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South West Spoke evaluation of placement learning opportunities. Earlier research (Turner 2005) had suggested that some placements could be improved in terms of their potential to promote learning.
In addition, the University is currently undertaking a Placement Business Process
Review (concurrent but separate to this project), which is an indication of this project occurring at a key time to impact placements and work-based learning at the
University.
The recent change to a faculty-focused structure at the University allowed for easy access to faculty-level placement staff with a wide-knowledge of their respective departmental-based placements.
This project began with meetings between the Project Lead (PL) and
University’s
Placement Managers and faculty representatives to discuss current internal placement evaluation practices and briefly to review internal resources. The PL also carried out a brief review of external good practices (e.g. NCWE and ASET). The
Guidance document was then drafted by the PL, discussed in detail and agreed with the Placement Managers then forwarded to the LTEO. The PL then drafted a document containing frameworks and models for analytical evaluation of placement information that was also discussed and agreed with Placement Managers before that too was sent to LTEO. Together the Guidance and Frameworks documents incorporate current good practice but place greater emphasis on the collection of student feedback periodically throughout placements and introduce methods for analysis of qualitative student data that are especially useful for evaluating and illustrating any problematic placement situations and for highlighting specific areas where improvements might be recommended.
Towards the end of the project, it became apparent that two versions of the
Guidance documents would be available, one for internal use that will evolve over time and another for external publication, available immediately. The internal
(evolving) Guidance and Frameworks documents will sit alongside the University’s
QA Code for placements, available through the LTEO from 2012/13. The reason for having separate guidance and frameworks documents was that this fitted best with the planned workshops (see below). It was felt more appropriate to combine these into a single Guidelines document (with two sections) for external publication on HE
STEM website after the workshops had run.
Materials, consisting of slides, handouts and activities, were developed by the PL and two half-day workshops were held for staff within the University with an interest in placements and placement learning. Many of the activities made use of feedback, both positive and negative from University of Bath students 1994-2005 provided by the PL; these are not available on the website because they may not reflect students’ current experiences.
Workshop 1,
‘Understanding Placement Learning’, involved activities aimed at deepening staff understanding of placement learning from the perspectives of
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South West Spoke employers and placement students, and also from a brief examination of learning theories, before introducing the Guidance document. This workshop was attended by 16 delegates plus the Director and Assistant Director of SW HE STEM and the
PL/presenter. Three of the delegates were from the Careers service and had assumed that the workshop would be about assessment of students ’ learning outcomes and on work-based learning more widely. Other delegates were from
Humanities (5), Management (1, who is also Chair of the P lacements Tutors’ Forum,
‘PTF’), Science (2), Engineering (3) and Pharmacy & Pharmacology (2). All except one of these delegates were non-academic placement staff; apart from the SW HE
STEM Director, there was just one lecturer. Quotations from feedback are given in the Evaluation section (below).
Workshop 2 focused on detailed evaluation of placement learning opportunities, especially those that student feedback suggested might be problematic. It introduced frameworks, i.e. those questions that need to be answered for effective evaluation of placement learning opportunities, and models for simplifying and illustrating placement situations.
There were just 8 delegates plus the Director and
Assistant Director of SW HE STEM and the PL/presenter. Attendance at both workshops was booked in advance and was always lower for the second workshop.
In addition, two Careers staff chose not to attend and the only academic at the first workshop apologized that he had unexpected childcare duties. Delegates were from
Humanities (3), Careers (1, Head of Careers), Management (1, also Chair of ‘PTF’),
Science (1) and Engineering (2). The second half of this workshop did not go to plan. It was intended to provide an opportunity for attendees to use recent student feedback, both positive and especially negative, from their students in different disciplines to trial the frameworks and models as tools for evaluation of placement learning opportunities however, none of the delegates provided feedback suitable for use in this way. Instead of the planned activity, delegates spent time in 2 separate groups discussing, in fairly general terms, their experiences of problematic placements. Conversations appeared to be animated and constructive. It felt, to the
PL/presenter, that this workshop provided a useful forum for placement staff to exchange ideas on how to manage difficult placement situations.
Post-workshop feedback suggests that some staff have altered their ways of thinking about placement learning and about the evaluation of placement learning opportunities and that there is a willingness to adopt the additional evaluation methods outlined in the documents. Implementation of the good practice advocated is due to begin in 2012/13.
Evaluation was integrated into each aspect of the project. Spontaneous feedback was collected and feedback was sought at each stage, either through informal emails or through evaluation sheets seeking feedback on the Guidance and
Framework documents and on the two workshops. With the small numbers of individuals involved, qualitative data has been more valuable than quantitative:
After an initial meeting, the Chair of the PTF wrote ‘I found the meeting yesterday very helpful … thanks for all the hard work that you have obviously put into this!
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More than happy to meet again’.
Placement Managers received the two draft documents favourably. Quotations included:
 ‘Fantastic job of bringing everything together’ and ‘Summarises very well the different ways in which placement should be evaluated’
 ‘This document will be so useful for all staff involved in placements on campus’
 ‘Works well with the Guidance document and in particular will help old and new staff to deal with situations where students … have a placement with a low learning potential’
 ‘It provides firm structure on which to base our evaluations. It will be especially helpful for new plac ement officers’
 ‘It is great that [we] have been able to input into Poppy’s documents and to truly feel part of the process’.
Evaluation of Workshop 1 on Understanding Placement Learning
Feedback sheets were received from 11 delegates (response rate = 69%); feedback was almost unanimous that the level of information provided in the first workshop was about right. Parts of this workshop seen as valuable or interesting were:

Exercises
‘evaluating feedback from students’, including ‘negative feedback as way of evaluating placements’
 ‘Discussions with others … useful to understand from others’ perspectives’; some staff wanted more time for this and this was realised in the second workshop.
 ‘Sharing knowledge on what makes a placement successful or not’
 ‘Learning theory v.good’
 ‘How to define good and bad placements and setting categories’ accordingly
Altered thinking or behaviors as a result of the workshop were given as:
 ‘Clearer idea of how students learn in the work situation of placements’
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Better understanding of differing criteria used across campus
 ‘Putting evaluation criteria into placement visits more effectively’
 ‘Will discuss with my team’
 ‘Setting up both generic and specific learning objectives for each student’
 ‘Think more about individual student’s placement learning but worried this won’t be possible due to the number of students I am supporting
’
 ‘Furthered my knowledge and provided “structure”’
 ‘More understanding – clearer too!’
How might similar events be improved in future?
 ‘Would have appreciated more input from academics as this relates to all involved’.
There was, however, one dissonant view; someone with long placement experience
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South West Spoke hoped the first workshop would provide guidance on assessment of learning outcomes. He or she felt they already knew a great deal about placement learning and evaluation, found the level of information too basic and “slightly patronizing. For example, ages putting feedback into cat egories which were obvious”; this person found no value in the workshop.
Evaluation of Workshop 2 on detailed Evaluation of Placement Learning
Opportunities
Delegates were asked to provide feedback on the internal Guidance document and to make suggestions for its improvement:
 ‘A good document for induction of someone new to the University’
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The Head of Careers made suggestions for strengthening the career-related learning outcomes
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Within the workshop, one delegate mentioned that they had used the framework and found it useful to evaluate a placement that had received some negative feedback from the student
Working collaboratively with the Placement Managers contributed towards the success of this project. The collaborative approach was a highlight of the project; it was well received and generated much positive feedback. The fact that the PL had previously been a placements tutor facilitated understanding and enabled positive relationships to develop quickly. The approach adopted to evaluation of placement learning opportunities was evidence-based, student-centred and theoretically informed (derived from the PL’s earlier research).
Guidance documents were written in plain English and the tone was intended to be helpful and supportive, rather than prescriptive (e.g. ‘should’ and ‘must’ were avoided as far as possible). They were well received by Placement Managers and only minor alterations suggested; these were implemented in every case before the documents were sent to LTEO.
It became evident that staff often assumed that the term ‘evaluation of placements’ referred to student assessment rather than, as intended, to the systematic evaluation of the quality of placement learning provision. Greater clarity was needed on this point and the original title of the project ‘Evaluation of Work Placements’ was therefore changed to
‘Evaluation of Placement Learning Opportunities’.
Towards the end of the project, it became apparent that there would be two versions of the guidelines for placement evaluation, one for internal and one for external use.
The LTEO, in association with the Director of SW HE STEM, revised the internal version; it will continue to evolve and will sit alongsi de the University’s QA document for placements from 2012-13, in support of the QA document. This means that the document will be easily accessible to its intended audience.
An understanding of student learning is essential to effective evaluation of learning opportunities and therefore the first workshop ‘ Understanding Placement Learning’ was central to the success or otherwise of the project as a whole; with one notable
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South West Spoke exception, this workshop seemed to be well received and to have achieved its aim.
The second workshop had fewer delegates and lacked appropriate written current student feedback from faculties, especially negative feedback, with which to trial the tools for evaluation. Two delegates had prepared student feedback and the other delegates were happy to discuss their experience, including anecdotal evidence in smaller groups. Although the participants did note that they rarely receive negative feedback.
Feedback from students on their placement experiences is vital to effective evaluation of placement learning opportunities - because positive feedback provides reassurance that the learning opportunities are as good as expected/as required.
Negative feedback, if analysed, elucidates any problematic situations, enabling recommendations for improvement. In workshop 2, both positive and negative feedback quotes from delegates were lacking. There are a number of possible reasons for this:
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Such feedback in the required format may not exist
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Such feedback exists but is not readily accessible
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Feedback is accessible but placement staff did not have time to collate it (a weeks notice was given)
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Feedback is available but there may be sensitivities, particularly associated with written negative feedback, that acted as a barrier to sharing feedback internally with staff from other disciplines.
Since negative, as well as positive feedback is essential for the proper evaluation of placement learning provision, it is important to make clear to delegates and all staff involved in placements that negative student feedback should be embraced as a valuable resource when it is analysed to provide a deeper understanding of learning situations and how to enhance them.
It is too early to have evidence of the effectiveness of this project because the guidance documents are not due to be implemented until 2012/13. However, there is already recognition of the need for more effective evaluation and evidence of goodwill towards this initiative among placement personnel. Simply providing opportunities to focus on learning, rather than on the more usual administration aspects of placements, appears to have caused staff to think about and to discuss placements in a different way. It is notable that awareness of the project and documents has been raised through different channels involving a wide range of staff
(cross-discipline and over all levels) e.g. explicitly through: PTF meeting
(practitioners); Careers and Employability subcommittee of the University Learning and Teaching Quality Committee (‘ULTQC’, involving key staff and feeding into the
University’s governance structure); influencing discussions at the Placements
Business Review Process (all placement-involved staff); and has been presented within the context of the whole HE STEM Legacy project at a Vice Chancellor’s
Group meeting (senior members of staff).
There are, of course, potential barriers to successful implementation of this new approach to placement evaluation; the barriers have not been investigated as this was not within the remit of the project. One concerns the resource implications of additional collection and time-consuming analysis of student feedback, when placement staff report having heavy workloads. The second concerns any future
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South West Spoke changes to placement business processes following the current review. The third relates to the delegation of responsibility for the quality of placement learning provision to non-academic staff.
There are three matters that have been highlighted as important for any similar future project:
1. Demonstrable evidence of support for the project at senior management level
2. Related to the above, demonstrable evidence of interest in the project by both academic and non-academic staff
3. Building on this pilot project, opportunities for dissemination through presentations or workshops, beyond the confines of a single university, during the course of the project or immediately afterwards.
* * * * * * * * *
The broader picture: This project addressed evaluation of placement learning opportunities across a single university. Its outputs could be adapted for use more widely across the HE sector. Similar methodology has been used successfully in evaluation of practical classes and other university-based learning opportunities at
Bath, leading to specific recommendations for enhancement (Turner 2006) and could also be used more widely. In addition, this methodology might usefully be adapted for the evaluation of postgraduate learning opportunities.
Will the activity continue in the future?
(a) Yes (in its current form) (b) Yes (in a modified form)
It has been agreed that the outputs from the project will be used to support University QA documents required of the institution, and that they will also be located beside these documents, ensuring that they are fully accessible to the intended audience (University placement practitioners). The guidance document will evolve over time so that it remains upto-date.
In providing the 2 workshops for staff, staff have received CPD to influence their own practices and potentially the experience of 100s of students. In fact, feedback from the workshops indicated that some delegates will be using the training they received within their own departments immediately.
Materials are available online for the benefit of a wider audience. There was interest in the workshops from an academic external to the University (Edinburgh) who was enabled to access the materials through the webpages remotely after the events.
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South West Spoke
In relation to the approaches to sustainability outlined below, we are very interested in activities and commitments which have occurred within the timescale of the project.
However, we recognise that some approaches may still be in the development phase at the official project end date and it would also be valuable to include these examples in the template.
Approaches to
Sustainability
Continuance (finding alternative sources of funding)
Embedding (within institutional activity)
Mainstreaming
(changes in working practices)
Examples In relation to your project
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Commitment from institutions to provide continuation funding
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Network/ communities likely to be sustained through inclusion in future funding bids
It has been agreed that the guidance document will sit alongside the QA document for placements and evolve over time.
The University’s well-established PTF
(including placement managers and many of the workshop delegates) was a useful network for the project and will continue after the project has ceased.
Placement managers who collaborated in the project found working together useful and praised feeli ng ’truly part of the process’.
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Identification of institutional strategies that the project has informed
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Uptake which has taken place, or is likely to take place, within own/other
HEIs
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Influencing of organisations external to
HE Sector which has occurred through partnership working
Currently there is a major focus on placements at the University so the project has been well-timed; building on recommendations from an earlier
LTEO review and concurrent with a placements business review process.
The guidance documents will sit alongside and support University QA documents, for use by all staff
(particularly placement-related) from
2012/13.
Project outputs will be provided to
ASET (professional body for placement and employability staff), an executive committee member of
ASET sits on the SW External
Advisory Group (inputting into all aspects of the Legacy project).
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Staff development which is planned or has taken place as a result of your project

Curriculum enhancement that has occurred or is likely to take place as a
Two staff development workshops were run.
Delegates of the workshops indicated that they would use the materials within their own practice and there was an example of
1 delegate having used the
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South West Spoke
Legacy (passing on important elements of the project) result of your project

Influence of senior managers that has arisen as a result of the project frameworks within her own departments after the 1 st workshop, and finding it helpful under ‘real’ conditions.
The materials have particularly been identified as useful for staff new to dealing with placements.
The project has been promoted at all levels at the university from VCG to practitioners.
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Networks/communities likely to be continued

Dissemination of project outputs
Delegates of the 2 workshops indicated that they would use the materials and their new understanding of placement learning within their own practice. 
Evidence of impact of activities

Creative Learning Journey material made available via the SW Spoke
Creative STEM website where relevant.
The University’s well-established PTF
(including placement managers and many of the workshop delegates) was a useful network for the project and will continue after the project has ceased.
Project outputs are available online
( http://www.hestem-sw.org.uk/newsand-events/events/effectivelyevaluating-placement/ ) to allow those outside of the university to benefit from the materials and modify for their own use. An external academic
(Edinburgh) showed an interest in the workshops and was enabled to access the materials remotely, online.
A submission has been made to present at the National HE STEM
Conference in September 2012.
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South West Spoke
1 QAA Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education, Section 9: Work-based and placement learning, September 2007 http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/COP9Place mentLearning.pdf
. This is due to be replaced in September 2012 by UK Quality Code for
Higher Education
Turner, P. (2005). Undergraduate learning at programme level: an analysis of students’ perspectives . PhD thesis, University of Bath http://opus.bath.ac.uk/432/
Turner, P. (2006). Undergraduate learning at programme level: an analysis of students’ perspectives in Rust, C. (2006) Proceedings of the 14 th International
Symposium on Improving Student Learning , Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning
Development.
Clare Wilson, Faculty Placements Manager, Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences, University of Bath
Clare thought that the Guidelines for Evaluation of Placement Learning Opportunities
“summarised very well the different ways in which placements should be evaluated”.
Louise Oliver, Faculty Placement Officer, Faculty of Science, University of Bath
Louise wrote that “these Guidelines have the potential to be incredibly useful and
Poppy has done a fantastic job of bringing everything together” and that the
Framework s document was useful as “it provides a firm structure on which to base our evaluations. It will be especially helpful for new placement officers”.
Ben Smith, Placements Operations Manager, School of Management, University of
Bath and Chair of the University’s Placement Tutors’ Forum
“We are very positive about these Guidelines and we all want to thank you for your work on creating them and including us in the process – much appreciated!” Ben felt that the framework document “works well with the Guidance for Evaluation document and in particular will help old and new staff on campus to deal with situations where students … have a placement with a low learning potential”.
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