CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 81Evaluation of Teaching PracticesEducational Assessment and PedagogyHigher Education Governance and Development

Making sense of learning gain in higher education

Open access
Evans, C., Kandiko Howson, C., Forsythe, A.·2018·Higher Education Pedagogies
DOI 10.1080/23752696.2018.1508360
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Internationally, the political appetite for educational measurement capable of capturing a metric of value for money and effectiveness has momentum. While most would agree with the need to assess costs relevant to quality to help support better governmental policy decisions about public spending, poorly understood measurement comes with unintended consequences. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the development of measures of learning gain in higher education, exploring political contexts, methodological challenges, and the multiple purposes and potential of learning gain metrics for quality assurance, accountability and enhancement, and most importantly, we argue, the enhancement of learning and teaching. Learning gain approaches should be integral to curriculum design and delivery and not extraneous to it. Enhancing shared understandings of concepts, measures, and instruments, transparency in reporting and investment in developing pedagogical research literacy, including effective use of data are essential in the pursuit of meaningful approaches to measuring learning gain within higher education.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/23752696.2018.1508360

Cites

111 of 111 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • There is a lack of in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences in learning gains across different contexts, which raises new questions regarding how to meaningfully and practically assess cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning gains.

    “However, there is a lack of in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences in learning gains across different contexts, which raises new questions regarding how to meaningfully and practically assess cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning gains (22–24).”

    From Digital affordances of AI chatbots in nursing education: a systematic review of learning gains and gaps in the evidence (2026) · cites this paper as [23]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 113 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. Academy of Management Learning and Education (AMLE). (2017). Editorial: Establishing methodological rigor in quantitative management learning and education research: The role of design, statistical methods, and reporting standards. Academy of Management Learning & Education , 16 (2), 173 -192.
  2. Arum, R., & Roska, J. (2011). Academically adrift . Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press.
  3. Coates, H. (2016). The market for learning: Leading transparent higher education . Melbourne, Australia: Springer.
  4. Fisherman, T., Ludgate, A., & Tutak, J. (2017). Success by design, improving outcomes in American higher education. A Deloitte center for higher education excellence series on student success. Deloitte University Press. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/ insights/us/en/focus/reimagining-higher-education.html.
  5. Havergal, C. (2017). Cambridge looks to crack measurement of ' learning gain ' . Times Higher Educational Supplement, December 7, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereduca tion.com/news/cambridge-looks-crack-measurement-learning-gain
  6. HEFCE/OfS. (2015). Listed in hefce/office for students (ofs) grant letters for 2015-2016 . London/ Bristol: Higher Education Funding Council for England
  7. Kuh, G., O ' Donnell, K., & Schneider, C.G. (2017). HIPs at ten. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning , 49 (5), 8 -16.
  8. Rosenfeld, M., & Rosenfeld, S. (2011). Illustrating a complementary paradigm for styles research: From a third-person to a second-person perspective. In S. Rayner & E. Cools (Eds.), Style differences in cognition, learning, and management: Theory, research and practice (pp. 143 -159). New York, NY: Routledge.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Evans, C., Kandiko Howson, C., & Forsythe, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Southampton (GB)
  • King’s College London, University of London, London, UK
  • University of Liverpool (GB)
Corresponding author
Evans, C.
ORCID
Venue
Higher Education Pedagogies
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2018-01
Volume
3
Issue
1
Pages
1-45
ISSN
2375-2696 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1080/23752696.2018.1508360
OpenAlex
W2892120767
Cited by
81
References
113
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2 · 2013: 1
FWCI
27.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Higher Education Pedagogies (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Griffith Research Online (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Wolverhampton Intellectual Repository and E-Theses (University of Wolverhampton) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Evaluation of Teaching Practices
  • Social Sciences › Education › Educational Assessment and Pedagogy
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Higher Education Governance and Development
Keywords
learning gains, higher education, educational testing, value for money, quality assurance, accountability, curriculum development, learning analytics, education policy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review