Driving excellence in higher education: The TEF 2023 Evaluation
At a glance
The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023 Evaluation, conducted by IFF Research for the Office for Students (OfS), provided a detailed analysis of how the TEF is functioning in practice. It looked at the efficacy of TEF processes, the impact of the framework on enhancing the student experience and outcomes, and its role in driving continuous improvement across higher education providers in England. The evaluation revealed positive outcomes, including heightened use of evidence-led decision-making and empowering the student voice, while highlighting areas for refinement in future iterations.
About the client
The Office for Students (OfS) is the independent regulator of higher education in England. With a mission to ensure every student, whatever their background, has a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers, the OfS oversees the TEF to incentivise excellence in teaching, learning, and student outcomes.
Challenges and objectives
The OfS required evidence to assess the effectiveness of TEF 2023 in driving improvement and achieving its policy goals. Key objectives included understanding the burden of participation, and assessing whether TEF processes successfully empowered the student voice and incentivised excellence.
The 2023 framework involved some key changes, including the introduction of new elements, such as asking providers to define and measure their students’ wider educational gains and aspect ratings (separate ratings for student experience and student outcomes, in addition to an overall rating). The OfS were seeking to understand the effects of these changes.
The primary objectives were to:
- Evaluate the effectiveness of TEF processes
- Understand whether, how and why the TEF is making excellent student experiences and outcomes matter to providers
- Examine the role of TEF in driving continuous improvement and excellence in the student experience and outcomes
Solution
We used a comprehensive mixed-methods approach. This included qualitative interviews with staff and student representatives, as well as surveys with participating and non-participating providers using a realist evaluation framework.
Key aspects of the evaluation included:
- Driving improvements: analysing whether TEF outcomes inspired evidence-led interventions and sharing of best practices within and between providers.
- Benefits of participating: understanding the effort involved in and benefits associated with participating in the TEF 2023 exercise for providers.
- Empowering the student voice: investigating how TEF processes amplified student representation in institutional decision-making.
- Effectiveness of guidance: assessing whether TEF guidance, templates, and support enabled providers and students to confidently engage with the framework.
- Impact of data dashboards: evaluating their usability and role in identifying performance strengths and weaknesses
Impact
The results produced insights that highlighted the successes and challenges of TEF 2023.
- Enhanced data-driven decision-making: providers reported increased use of TEF data dashboards and panel statements to assess performance and identify improvement areas. Nearly 60% of surveyed providers acknowledged that TEF 2023 encouraged better use of evidence.
- Empowering the student voice: the exercise provided an impetus for many providers, particularly smaller and specialist institutions, to strengthen student engagement mechanisms. Around half of providers noted improvements in collaboration with student representatives.
- Driving excellence: while early impacts were limited, many providers began implementing evidence-led interventions, such as new student skills programmes, improved assessment strategies, and focused action plans based on TEF outcomes. These further built on the impacts of earlier TEF exercises.
- Sector collaboration: TEF 2023 facilitated sharing of best practices within providers and, to a lesser extent, across institutions, with participation at conferences and networking events driving collaboration.
- Challenges recognised: The evaluation identified areas for improvement, such as clearer guidance on educational gains, the desire for more advanced notice ahead of a future submission process, a less time intensive submission processes, and support for smaller providers facing capacity constraints.
As well as validating the framework’s effectiveness in enhancing educational quality, the evaluation has also provided valuable evidence to inform the continuous development of the TEF and understand its impact on both institutions and students alike.
“The TEF evaluation has given us a robust understanding of the early impacts that TEF 2023 had on the higher education sector. We’re using this evidence as we design our future quality assessment system to inform our proposed approach to improvement-focused assessments and how we deliver these”
Nicola Ruddle, Head of Evaluation,
Office for Students
