The work of Engeström (2001) introduced in the last chapter provides a useful framework to explore this current state further from a CHAT perspective. Engeström has introduced the notion of interacting activity systems, cast as third generation activity theory. This conception considers the effect of not only the internal tensions within a particular activity system itself, but also the tensions and contractions between these differing activity systems that are focussed on a shared object. Using this
conceptual tool, we can analyse the broader tensions and contradictions that emerge in this ‘third space’ where similarly focussed activities interact. In this case, we can identify three distinct interacting and networked activity systems around student- feedback based evaluation in contemporary Australian higher education: quality improvement of individual or course teaching (Activity One), quality assurance of teaching and learning practices (Activity Two)and individual performance measurement (Activity Three). All have a distinct historicity, having been shaped by diverse
institutional and sectoral forces over long periods of time. Similarly, each carries similarly distinctive artefacts, communities, rules and divisions of labour.
Fundamentally, as we see evidenced in the contemporary constructions of student feedback-based evaluation discussed in the latter part of this chapter, each of these interacting activities exist with contradictions which create what Engeström (2001) has described as ‘historically accumulating structural tensions’ within and between these networked activity systems.
The nature of these distinct activity systems related to student feedback-based
evaluation and the interactions between them are characterised in Figure 4.3. Here the different subject and object orientations related to the use of student feedback-based evaluation are modelled are demonstrated, along with the primary elements that mediate the relationship between the two. As the model demonstrates, each activity carries distinct rules, communities and divisions of labour, yet all activities are interconnected by their collective orientation to the use of student feedback. These differing specific orientations (i.e. improvement, assurance and performance) inevitably create strong
tensions and contradictions in the contemporary use of student feedback. These key tensions identified in this analysis include the simultaneous demands for:
voluntary, compulsory and/or pragmatic collection of student feedback; private, public and selective use of generated student data;
use of data for academic development, quality assurance and human resource purposes;
individualised, aggregated and comparative forms of data analysis; framing of outcomes for localised improvement, program or institutional
assurance and comparable institutional or sectoral reputation.
Finally, this analysis model points to an important outcome of this form of CHAT analysis: the potential from these tensions and contradictions for further development of the activity: what Engeström (2001) describes as its expansive learning potential. The conception of expansive learning seeks to identify from these historically formed and inherently interrelated activities what development potential exists to form new
approaches to go beyond the inherent limitations identified in each of these interrelated activity systems. The potential areas for expansive learning (identified in the box included inFigure 4.3) arise from an analysis of these tensions and contradictions in the differing object orientations of these specific, but necessarily related, activities around the use of student feedback. These identify the possible opportunities for future development in the contemporary Australian higher education system given the trajectory analysed in this chapter. It is this identified potential that provided the orientating frame for the two case studies that will be introduced and detailed in the following chapters.
99 Figure 4.3: Mapping the interrelated activities of student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education
Conclusion
The current state of student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education remains strongly contested. The original motive of student feedback to improve the quality of teaching and courses teaching is under increasing challenge by the rising tides of internal and external quality assurance mechanisms, as well as the intensification of managerial performance management models in universities. This originating
improvement motive is also increasingly confronted by rising competition amongst universities to attract students and the deteriorating employment environment created by increasing insecure work in universities. Nevertheless, the powerful traces and key cultural artefacts of early-stage, localised forms of quantitative student feedback-based evaluation remain largely in place in universities and continue to inform of local practices, policies and questionnaires. However, these are gradually homogenising under these newer demands of heightened accountability, comparability and
transparency. These tensions have rendered student feedback an increasingly complex social activity within the contemporary Australian university.
This chapter has sought to further develop an understanding of student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education by using the critical lens of historicity.
Consistent with the CHAT theoretical framework that underpins this study, this analysis forms a critical foundation of understanding how the contemporary activity of student feedback-based evaluation has been formed and how the tools that mediate its use have evolved. It also provides a basis for considering the likely future trajectories of student feedback-based evaluation in its current or in a disrupted form. In the next three chapters, the analysis moves from the broad historical evolution of student feedback- based evaluation to its localised contemporary form, introducing and reporting on two case studies in an Australian university centred on student feedback. Using a CHAT- informed, action research framework, these case studies provide a critical lens with which to further consider the current and prospective activity of student feedback and its relationship to pedagogical practices in university teaching.