Guide to using Evidence in Higher Education

This Guide to Using Evidence has been designed to, to support and encourage students and students’ association and union staff to actively engage with data and evidence. It offers an accessible introduction to a range of key ideas and concepts and a range of activities which allow readers to develop their own thinking and confidence in key areas. The ambition of its authors, QAA Scotland and the students who reviewed early drafts, is that students and students’ association and union staff will reach for this resource as they prepare for committees, devise new campaigns, deliver services, and do all of the other things they do to enhance students’ experiences and outcomes. Underpinning all of this is a belief that students themselves, the institutions they are working with, and the sector as a whole, are better served when students are, and are seen to be, agents in the ‘data landscape’, not just subjects of it. Engaging with this Guide will help students and students’ association and union staff to develop that sense of agency in themselves and foster it in others. This Guide is a product of a student-led project coordinated by QAA Scotland as part of the Evidence for Enhancement Theme (2017-20).