OfS Key Performance Measures on student outcomes
David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe
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The Office for Students is great! Who says so? Why, the Office for Students does – drawing on data collected on behalf of the Office for Students and analysed by the Office for Students against targets set by the Office for Students.
This week’s updated Key Performance Measures are:
- KPM1 – Extent of poor student outcomes
- KPM2 – Student outcomes at all registered providers
- KPM9C – Proportion of students at providers with student outcomes indicators above numerical thresholds
In essence this is one release: KPM9C is much the inverse of KPM1, the latter showing the proportion of students with student outcomes below numerical thresholds. This feels like a reasonable thing to consider until you realise it mashes together modes and levels without one single care, to come up with a single “students doing good/bad now” measure.
Compared to this mess, KPM2 is a breath of fresh(er) air – you can filter by mode and level to look at that same B3 condition (continuation, completion, progression) data for full-time first degree students as opposed to the “all students” approach. All of which prompts the user to consider what these measures actually show, which are areas where the OfS needs to act but has either failed to act (areas where B3 measures are concerning and there has been no inquiry) or seen its actions fail (an inquiry where recommendations/sanctions have not had the desired effect, or where the effects have not been seen because this is massively time-lagged data, or where the data itself was inappropriately used).
The only stories the actual numbers tell are about stasis (or, in terms of continuation among full time undergraduate students, a gradual decline). It’s fair to see this through the post pandemic lens, where continuation rose while undergraduates had few alternatives to study, and is now falling back to the 2016-17 baseline.
It is a huge amount of data to collect and analyse to demonstrated that the sector appears to be performing as well for students (many more students to be scrupulously fair) as it did under HEFCE.