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University partnerships with disadvantaged schools are used across Europe, the US, and Australia to widen participation, with Australia’s HEPPP emphasizing evidence-based funding criteria and rigorous evaluation. The paper argues for complementing formative qualitative analysis with quantitative research to enable summative impact assessment against public policy objectives.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/enlightening-evaluation-from-perception-to-proof-in-higher-education-social-policy/595491/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/enlightening-evaluation-from-perception-to-proof-in-higher-education-social-policy/595491.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Well Done","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-31","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why do qualitative evaluation methods limit assessment of social policy outcomes?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Qualitative methods often cannot establish a causal relationship between policy objectives and observed outcomes, making impact assessment against primary objectives difficult.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What role do university partnerships with disadvantaged schools play in widening higher education participation?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Across Europe, the US, and Australia, partnership programmes are used to broaden access and improve articulation of targeted student cohorts to university.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What evaluation change does the paper propose for HEPPP-related partnerships?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The paper proposes augmenting formative qualitative analysis with quantitative research to support summative evaluation aligned with public policy objectives and to better determine program impact.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},595491,1792210575,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":44,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},5909892210082,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/56001069da27c9f41e8?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1789614185077863061","A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nEnlightening Evaluation: from perception to proof in higher education social policy  \nJennifer Oriel Deakin University  \nGovernment policies designed to redress social inequality are often evaluated by qualitative methods, which prevents the establishment of a causal relationship between policy objectives and outcomes. Social programmes to broaden participation in higher education have been a feature of government policy in Europe, the US and Australia during the past three decades. The principal instrument of policy optimisation has been university partnerships with disadvantaged school students. The Australian Labor Government’s Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) is the most recent iteration of policy to broaden access to university. Unlike many of its European counterparts, the Australian policy includes funding criteria for evidence-based partnerships and rigorous evaluation methods. In the new era of accountability for publicly funded programmes between universities and disadvantaged schools, the qualitative research methods and formative analysis that dominate evaluation research in this field will need to be augmented by quantitative research that enables summative evaluation against public policy objectives. Transforming the evaluation paradigm is required to determine the impact of university-school partnerships on higher education participation.  \nIntroduction  \nPublic policy designed to increase the proportion of students from low income backgrounds participating in higher education has been introduced in Europe, Australia and the US (Woodrow et al. 1998; DEEWR 2010; Cunningham et al. 2003). Its primary instrument of policy optimisation has been university partnerships with schools (HEFCE 2009, p. 9; DEEWR 2010; Cunningham et al. 2003) . The literature indicates that the principal objective of these partnership programmes is to increase the articulation of targeted cohorts to university. However, programme evaluations are often designed using qualitative rather than  \nquantitative methods, the latter of which is required to establish a causal relationship between the programmes and students’ articulation rate (Cunningham et al. 2003; Gale et al. 2010; Passey et al. 2009). The qualitative approach has led to the development of partnership evaluation instruments that may inform incremental improvements in programme delivery, but do not enable impact assessment against the principal public policy objective.  \nIn this paper, I propose that a quantitative approach to evaluating university partnerships with disadvantaged schools and student cohorts is necessary to determine whether these programmes improve the articulation of low income and low SES students to  \nvol. 53, no. 2, 2011 Enlightening Evaluation: from perception to proof in higher education social policy, Jennifer Oriel 59  \nA U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nhigher education.The article addresses this proposal in four steps: an exploration of the development of social programme evaluation as a discipline; observation of the political challenges associated with evaluation of social programmes; a comparative analysis of evaluation methods for university-school partnerships in the UK,Australia and the US; and a proposed model for evaluating university partnerships with disadvantaged schools in alignment with the Australian Government’s Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program.  \nIn their 2009 budget paper ‘Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System’, the Labor Government seta national target that by 2020, 20 per cent of students participating in higher education should be from low SES backgrounds. The 2010 Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (which regulates the 20 per cent target), lists principles and objectives for university-school partnerships, including evaluation criteria set against clear policy objectiv","cbCaitgy1PwUQQ0o","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitgy1PwUQQ0o","pdf",163878,"English","# Introduction\n# The politics of evaluation\n## Social programme evaluation and quantitative methodology\n## Challenges in causal impact assessment","[{\"question\":\"Why do qualitative evaluation methods limit assessment of social policy outcomes?\",\"answer\":\"Qualitative methods often cannot establish a causal relationship between policy objectives and observed outcomes, making impact assessment against primary objectives difficult.\"},{\"question\":\"What role do university partnerships with disadvantaged schools play in widening higher education participation?\",\"answer\":\"Across Europe, the US, and Australia, partnership programmes are used to broaden access and improve articulation of targeted student cohorts to university.\"},{\"question\":\"What evaluation change does the paper propose for HEPPP-related partnerships?\",\"answer\":\"The paper proposes augmenting formative qualitative analysis with quantitative research to support summative evaluation aligned with public policy objectives and to better determine program impact.\"}]","Enlightening Evaluation: from perception to proof in higher education social policy | PDF",1792081244,23]