Driving departmental change through evaluation: some outcomes and problems

Abstract

This paper will focus upon some of the outcomes from the first year of the Courseware for History Implementation Consortium (Chic), a Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP), Phase 3 project. It is particularly important that the consortium addresses the issue of embedding change within organizations if it is to succeed in its aims. However, as Brown (1998) has noted, the integration of learning and teaching innovation into the broader fabric of an institution, by projects with a fixed remit and life cycle, is problematic. Here we will investigate how the Chic project has related evaluation outcomes to disciplinary pedagogical imperatives in order to foster a greater sense of purpose and cohesion towards the project and its objectives. This recognizes the value of evaluation in affecting the context of learning, through the iteration of teaching techniques and resource provision. The resultant implications for institutions, and the barriers to change, need to be examined in the light of the pedagogical context of the history discipline. Whilst accepting the premise that change needs to be placed in the context of institutional policy (Hart, Ryan and Bagdon, 1999; Li and Kaye, 1999), this paper will show how a culture of change can be promoted within departments.

DOI: 10.1080/0968776000080103