A Study on Australian Performance-Based Funding for Domestic Bachelor Level Undergraduate Students

This study examined Performance Based Funding (PBF) for bachelor-level students in Australia. This study identified the importance of student stakeholder consultation in the PBF development process and explored students' views on this form of higher education incentive funding. 

PBF has received renewed interest in Australia as a strategy to improve learning and teaching in recent years. Australia recently introduced a new PBF model, which was effective in 2020. This study reviewed the Australian literature on PBF from 1989 through 2022 and did not identify any existing research studies that specifically examined students' views on this topic. 

The Australian government has made several changes to how it funds learning and teaching at public universities since the Dawkins Review in 1989. The Dawkins Review introduced a significant break from the funding mechanisms that had operated since the 1970s, and this was the starting point for this study. Since 1989, there have been several reviews of the university sector, such as the Dawkins Review, Nelson Review, Bradley Review, and the Kemp Norton review (as they are commonly known). Several of these reviews recommended adopting a PBF model to provide incentive-based funding to improve learning and teaching. 

While the higher education reviews noted above included extensive consultation, a gap in the literature was identified on students' views towards PBF. Since the Dawkins Review in 1989, many student and graduate opinion studies have been conducted; however, no studies were identified from the reviewed literature to indicate that student views had been examined in a researched manner. 

This research sought to understand students' views on PBF from both conceptual and practical application perspectives to enhance the PBF policy debate by providing an evidenced-based report on student views. This Grounded Theory study explored this topic through an exploratory sequential mixed research methodology in two stages. The first qualitative stage collected high-level opinions from senior and experienced university staff, the interviews were used to inform, design, and direct the second stage quantitative survey. The second stage of this research included a quantitative student focused survey on forty-two PBF statements as part of an eight-question survey. This survey also included free-text boxes to capture additional views. 

The results from this study indicated that students tended to be supportive of PBF, and they tended to be supportive of measures such as student satisfaction, graduate outcomes, and pass rates. Equity access measures were considered important but tended to rank secondary to academic and management measures. The interviews and the survey were conducted during the COVID pandemic, and less commonly used PBF measures, such as teaching innovation and university financial management, were also strongly supported in the survey results. The survey process did not aim to assess the technical understanding of students on this topic: it aimed to gather their views on the fairness and appropriateness of selected measures and processes, this concept was central to the survey preparation process. 

Students indicated a preference towards using the same measurement categories across all universities; however, tailored performance benchmarks for each university were supported positively. In terms of incentive management, students tended to prefer a model which allowed universities with areas of poor performance to have an opportunity to improve before any financial disadvantage was incurred. 

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a unique and up-to-date study on students' opinions on this specific area of university funding.