Session 3: research insights
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Session 3: research insights
We thought it important to devote at least one workshop session to examining current research into CATS and mature student access. We wanted to discover, in detail, as much as we could about the impact of developments of this kind on the roles of continuing education departments and the types of research which might, as a result of new initiatives, be needed.
Gaie Davidson, in introducing her research/developmental project on CATS in universities, outlined the growing strength of the CATS/modularity concept over the last ten years. She referred to the UGC Continuing Education Report in 1984 which advocated credit accumulation and transfer as a way of extending opportunities to adult learners. At that time CATS was of minimal importance to senior faculty or administrators although it was viewed enthusiastically by many adult educators. Times have changed and CATS has become a mainstream preoccupation creating the prospect, as the UGC Report envisaged, of the entire university curriculum being made accessible to adult learners. Lifelong learning, with CATS as the handmaiden, is an idea whose time has come.
The commitment to CATS has increased dramatically in recent years. Five years ago only five polytechnics had a system of credit accumulation in place; now most either have a full scheme in operation or are in the process of introducing one. The universities, despite UGC Reports, have been slow to act but times are changing here too. The Northern Group of Universities has recently met to co-ordinate development across a number of institutions. The debate is, in large part, no longer about principle but of timing and which system to choose. Nottingham and Leeds will have modular degrees in place by 1993, while Sheffield will follow in 1994. In eight years, Gaie argued, the position has moved from CATS as a marginal interest to it being a central policy question across the binary divide.
It is symptomatic of changed times that the CCVP has organised a major national seminar in the Autumn of 1991, for senior management in all the universities, to share experience and agree, in practical ways, how to introduce modularity across the entire system. The new higher education funding council will undoubtedly consider transferability of credit between different institutions to be essential.
Gaie sought to account for changed attitudes. Various factors were at work such as the Government’s call for increased access, the desirability of greater student mobility in Europe and the necessity of students being able to transfer credit between local, national and international institutions as well as work and education. Similarly, CATS provides a common structure across universities which allows flexible responses to changes in the pattern of student demand, by for example, developing new multi-disciplinary and combined programmes across subject boundaries. In the polytechnics there was a belief that CATS put more power in the hands of the learner by giving students a wider choice of combinations and degree options. It was to be welcomed for this reason alone.
Gaie argued that the introduction of CATS was highly significant for continuing education departments. It required departments, of whatever kind, to work collaboratively on an institution-wide basis. ‘You need central agreement and timetabling’, she said, ‘to make the system work’. Continuing education programmes would need to conform to the pattern of credit awards decided by an institution in its entirety.
Gaie went on to suggest that departments could continue to provide courses in flexible ways and create a valued niche for themselves in the market; many students might chose, because it was more convenient for them, to study a number of credits offered under the auspices of the liberal adult education programme, for example. (This assumes, of course, that such classes have been accredited and that the university concerned has agreed that they may count towards a degree).
The presentation finished by reference to the necessity of research into the student experience of CATS. This must include, Gaie argued, comparative studies of student experience in a CAT system as against more traditional modes. The analysis of whether CATS/ modular arrangements deliver academically coherent degrees, in the eyes of students, when compared with conventional programmes, ought to be given priority in the allocation of research funds. (The research could distinguish the many variants of CATS/modularity including the ‘cafeteria’ model in which students have freedom to pick and choose much as they like or a ‘bespoke’ arrangement where there is a stress on negotiation between the learner and the institution over the form a degree should take). Gaie concluded by reiterating her belief that CATS ought to be welcomed by continuing educators in that it opened the system to adult students and empowered them once inside.
Terri Kelly then introduced her DES-financed ‘action-research’ project at Leeds and Bradford Universities. Its purpose was to facilitate greater mature student access into both institutions. Mature students were defined, for these purposes, as people aged 21 and over at the time of entry to a degree. It was intended that the project would also stimulate a number of ‘pilot modular schemes’ to be organised by the continuing education departments of the two Universities. However, echoing Gaie Davidson’s earlier comment that CATS requires institution-wide arrangements if students are to have maximum choice, it quickly became apparent that modularity could not be introduced piecemeal. If a student was to study a module under the auspices of continuing education, the course of study had to be valid in the eyes of the rest of the institution too.
Terri described how the CE Units at Bradford and Leeds had very different histories. At Bradford, the Continuing Education Unit was established to organise PICKUP and vocational education while the Leeds Department had a strong extramural, liberal tradition. The Leeds department had ‘high visibility, status and influence’ while the Bradford Unit was still striving for acceptance and legitimacy in the wider institution.
It was decided, early in the project, that the researcher would need to liaise with people at all levels of the hierarchy. At Leeds this meant relating to, and understanding the perspectives of, central administrators as well as colleagues in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education. It was apparent that there were tensions, and a lack of communication, between these different groups. A wider access group, for example, was established by central administration without Department of Continuing Education representation.
There were other difficulties. Definitions of ‘access’ varied between the different interests. The Department of Continuing Education stressed the need to preserve flexible entry into degree-level study, particularly given the danger that validated access courses have, perhaps, made it more, not less, difficult for some adults to enter university. Similarly, the Department naturally wanted to concentrate on access to the humanities and social sciences, reflecting student demand. In contrast, some central administrators and internal faculty thought the project should pay most attention to the difficulty of recruiting older students to science and engineering courses. The central administrators also favoured a more prescriptive approach to entry, in the interests, as they saw it, of preserving entry standards. They argued for more tightly defined access routes and matriculation requirements.
A particular debate centred on the University’s relationships with open college federations. Some administrators were concerned that particular courses or programmes of learning might not offer the academic preparation required for some degree courses. It might, they considered, be preferable for the University itself to stipulate what should be studied, and at what level, in order for students to matriculate.
The Project indicated, as did the CATS study, that wider access required continuing education to co-ordinate its programmes with the rest of the institution. For students to have the option of transferring credit form adult education courses to mainstream ones, meant institution-wide regulations and agreements. Continuing Education could, and should, no longer function in Chris Duke’s words as a ‘projected microcosm’ of the university but become an integral part of it.
There was some questions and discussion in the short time available following the presentations. One participant wondered whether any particular CATS framework was being favoured by institutions. It was clear, in response, that CNAA/CATS, or variants of it, was being adopted because of its national currency in the PCFC sector. There was a comment that extramural classes could be accredited without jeopardising valued aspects of the ‘liberal tradition’, such as the importance of negotiation between students and tutor over what should be studied. Syllabuses, as in some existing part-time degree and diploma courses, could specify options rather than being overly prescriptive.
Reproduced from 1991 Conference Proceedings, pp. 78-79 SCUTREA 1997