Listening to students will help external examiners uphold standards

Questions over the integrity of UK degrees have been debated fiercely among academics, media commentators and the wider public over recent years. And one burning issue remains ever-present in the debate: with so many higher education institutions in an increasingly diverse sector, how can universities claim their qualifications are broadly comparable to each other?

That is a conversation that the sector cannot avoid, nor has it sought to. Through the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment (UKSCQA), it has previously signalled its intent to protect the value of UK degrees through four specific commitments. These include ensuring that assessments continue to stretch and challenge students, reviewing and explaining how final degree classifications are calculated, reviewing and publishing data and analysis on students’ degree outcomes and, crucially, supporting and strengthening the external examining system.

The external examining system has been a key mechanism for protecting and upholding academic standards in UK higher education for almost 200 years, ensuring comparability across different institutions. In a system where autonomous institutions award and quality assure their own degrees, external examiners play a key role in ensuring that their processes are robust. Typically, higher education institutions have external examiners assigned to every course; my own medium-sized institution has 143 external examiners from more than 50 institutions; they work at the coalface to ensure fairness and robustness in assessment and marking. This altruistic external examiner system forms an irreplicable quality assurance network across the sector.  

In October 2021, Universities UK (UUK) and Guild HE commissioned the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) to carry out a review of external examining practice and to develop a set of principles to strengthen the external examining system and the role it plays in maintaining standards and protecting the value of qualifications over time. The QAA established an advisory group of staff and students from all nations of the UK to oversee this project, ensuring that the principles reflected the diversity of practice within UK higher education.

This advisory group has met over the past 10 months to understand existing practice, discuss what effective practice in external examining looks like, and how this contributes to the security of academic standards. Our conversations have been informed by the views of a wide range of stakeholders including academic staff, quality professionals, students and external examiners themselves who engaged with us through a survey and a series of roundtable events.

These conversations have proved fruitful, highlighting the essential role that external examiners are playing in supporting the maintenance of academic standards and upholding the global reputation of UK higher education. The feedback highlighted the high esteem in which the external examiner is held by the sector, while highlighting ways in which external examining practice can be enhanced.

This includes reaffirming the importance of the external examiner role for ensuring that standards are being met, while also considering how external examiners can provide valuable advice as a “critical friend” on matters such as assessment design and marking descriptors. The external examiner role could also be better understood by students and other stakeholders, such as professional, statutory and regulatory bodies (PSRBs), highlighting how it protects their interests.

From the valuable conversations we have held with colleagues across the sector, we have identified a set of principles addressing higher education institutions and external examiners themselves.

External examiners advise and challenge institutions, where necessary, on how their students are achieving threshold academic standards. They do this by commenting impartially on academic standards, student achievement and assessment processes in the institution where they are examining, and commenting on how this compares with arrangements in other institutions. As independent experts, they advise and support course teams to enhance the quality of the student academic experience by providing informed commentary on approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. They ensure that assessment processes are fair, transparent and reliable by advising on whether assessment regulations are being followed in the awarding of marks and qualifications.

But while the strength of the external examiner system is built on the expertise these individuals hold within their respective disciplines, there is always room for improvement. That is why a  commitment by external examiners to continued professional development is important as it enables them to retain and develop their ability to provide appropriate advice and commentary on student outcomes and awards.

As higher education institutions seek to create an inclusive learning environment that reflects the diverse needs of students, external examiners will support inclusivity and equity in teaching, learning and assessment by advising course teams on inclusive assessment approaches. It is also important that the community of external examiners should reflect the personal characteristics of the sector, and not be drawn only from particular groups within the sector.

The process of external examining may seem somewhat distant to students who have historically been unlikely to engage directly in this work, but this may do both parties a disservice. If institutions were encouraged to provide opportunities for external examiners to engage directly with students or their representatives in a variety of ways and at different points, students could gain a useful understanding how their outcomes are determined and the additional work attached to this process.

As educators know, the student academic experience is enhanced only when institutions commit to reviewing practice on a regular basis. UUK, GuildHE and QAA hope that these principles, which have been appended to the UKSCQA’s Statement of Intent, will serve as a helpful point of reference against which institutions can review their own processes and regulations on a regular basis.

The integrity of UK higher education has been built on a robust and interlinked system of quality that values peer expertise – the external examiner system has played and will continue to play a key role in providing these assurances for years to come.

Clare Peddie is vice-principal (education) and proctor of the University of St Andrews, deputy chair of the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment and chair of QAA’s External Examining Advisory Group.