Research project Assessment of pedagogical competencies
Assessment of pedagogical and scientific competence must be done with equal care when employing academic staff. This project aims to investigate challenges associated with assessing pedagogical competence in academics’ teaching portfolios.
Assessment of pedagogical and scientific competence must be done with equal care when employing academic staff. This has been statutory in Sweden since the 1960s. The difficulty of making qualified assessments does not, however, only apply to employment and promotion. The increasingly common systems for rewarding pedagogical competence at Swedish universities have further focused on the need for competent assessors.
This project aims to investigate challenges associated with assessing pedagogical competence in academics’ teaching portfolios. Through a questionnaire sent to participants in a course on assessment of pedagogical competence for three consecutive years, after analysis, we arrived at five different themes. The results provide support to experts and people who have to make decisions about employment, promotion or pedagogical qualifications, but also to teachers who work with compiling their pedagogical qualifications in a teaching portfolio.
Project description
This project has several sub-studies
The first sub-study was conducted in 2019 and consisted of a document analysis of expert statements in employment and promotion matters at the Faculty of Law. By analyzing the scope, content and focus of the statements written by both scientific experts and specially appointed pedagogical experts, certain differences emerged. It was about both quantitative and qualitative differences. Quantitatively, it turned out that the pedagogical experts wrote much more comprehensive and detailed statements. Qualitatively, a picture emerged where, despite the faculty's clear criteria for how pedagogical skills should be assessed, the scientific experts examined the applicants' pedagogical merits to a lesser extent in relation to the criteria than the pedagogical experts. In addition, the study showed that several of the criteria were difficult to treat for both pedagogical and scientific experts.
The second sub-study consists of a collaborative project with five more Swedish higher education institutions and aimed to investigate the challenges associated with assessing pedagogical skills. In connection with the national course for expert reviewers of pedagogical qualifications, a questionnaire survey was conducted with open-ended questions about what challenges the participants had identified linked to expert assignments with a focus on pedagogical skills. The survey results were analyzed qualitatively and resulted in five different categories. The results of the study provide expert guidance on areas to pay special attention to and develop competence in, but also problematize the question of how we within the academy create different kinds of assessment cultures, and the question of the development of assessment competence.
Project members
Project managers
Klara Bolander Laksov
Professor
Members
Åsa Ryegård
Senior Lecturer
Maja Elmgren
Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor