Higher Education and Research Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Jeff Smith and Roger Mullin

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I would like to say a few words about the TEF, rather than the amendments as such. I want to put on record my concern about the way in which people are being swept along, believing that the TEF is particularly meaningful. I had a discussion a few days ago with Professor Jack Dowie, who, as some Members may know, is considered somewhat of a world expert in judgment and decision making. As he put it to me,

“Some instruments measure something that exists independently, like a tumour, and the items in the instrument, like symptoms and signs, are used to reflect the construct”,

which is doing something meaningful.

“However, some instruments claim to measure something that does not exist independently, and university quality is one such thing.”

Two Middlesex University lecturers, Dr Maeve Hosier and Ashley Hoolash, have kindly sent me for review an academic article that has not yet been published. They have just completed a study of the six major league table ranking systems, which are based on different instruments of assessment, and have quite understandably found that they all come up with completely different rankings of universities dependent upon the instruments used. This is just a caution that people should not read too much into how meaningful these types of system actually are.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.