The design of a meta-evaluation study of learning and teaching projects in higher education

Within Higher Education there exists a body of work on the how and why of evaluation of educational programs. Academic teaching staff are also highly conversant in the processes and benefits of evaluation of their own teaching. However there is little evidence in the literature of the evaluation of learning and teaching projects in the Higher Education sector, the majority of which are carried out by academic staff. A preliminary search of the literature indicates a trend towards guidelines on how and what to evaluate. There is little written on how effective these prove to be or whether they are even adhered to. This paper will outline the three phases of a mixed-methods research study that investigates the evaluation strategies used in learning and teaching projects in higher education and the reasons for the apparent limited systematic evaluation of such projects. The study will produce an interactive (online) evaluation, planning and implementation tool, which aims to build efficiencies into the evaluation process.