The future of history: towards a meaningful measurement of student learning in regional universities

Abstract

Regional universities are in a transitional period in which student engagement and learning are re-evaluated. In an effort to maintain course quality, the Australian government introduced the 'Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency', which is tasked with measuring students' acquisition of 'Graduate Attributes and Skills'. This task has particular implications for regional universities, where courses have higher proportions of cross-faculty and cross-programmatic enrolments because of economies of scale and budgetary constraints. This paper focuses on the acquisition of 'Graduate Attributes and Skills' in the Arts Faculty of the regional University of Southern Queensland. The paper suggests different learning expectations of 'Graduate Attributes and Skills' amongst students enrolled in history courses. It points to the implications for these differences in learning outcomes, and the particular pertinence of this given the new framework for measuring learning and teaching in Australian universities.