Linked to this programme level framework
are statements known as subject benchmarks.
As of March 2002 the QAA
has published 22 benchmark statements, the outcome of the first phase
of a major project designed to make explicit the general academic characteristics
and standards of honours degrees in the UK.
These statements were formulated by groups
of academics from the discipline. In some cases they were developed
in conjunction with discipline based professional organisations) of
the characteristics and standards of learning at the level of the honours
degree in the various disciplines.
Subject benchmarking statements are intended
to embody the:
- defining principles or essence of a subject; q nature
and extent of a subject - map of subject territory, its boundaries
and range of programmes included in the territory;
- attributes that a graduate in the subject might
be expected to display and demonstrate in terms of the subject knowledge
and understanding : subject skills and other skills; teaching, learning
and assessment methods;
- the criteria that would be used to determine whether
a graduate satisfied the 'threshold' standard for the award of an
honours degree in the subject.
Many - perhaps all - of these statements
emphasise aspects of the nexus as central to the requirements for honours
classification in that discipline. . Thus the benchmarking statement
for English states that honours graduates " will be able to conduct
research through self-formulated questions, supported by the gathering
of relevant information and materials and organised lines of enquiry,
resulting in a sustained piece or pieces of work of sustained argumentative
and analytical power"(QAA, 2000, 7).
Return to QAA and
Subject Benchmarking Web page
