Chapter 7: How Do Institutions Evidence Effectiveness via Evaluation?

This chapter will focus on the evaluation of student experience and success activities, for which there is an internal, institutional imperative to support students and an external regulatory imperative imposed by marketisation. After an introduction to the politics of evaluation, this chapter will discuss how student success is evaluated. This will include discussions about suitable indicators of success and types of method employed within this context, including ethical and epistemological debates around what works and claims of causality. Who evaluates student success is a key consideration and will be considered alongside institutional structures, resourcing and existing communities of evaluators in higher education (HE), including overlaps with domains such as practitioner reflection and action research.