Advance HE analysis examines technicians’ visibility in TEF submissions

Updated Sep 07, 2026

In an Advance HE article published on 20 May 2026, Tim Savage examined how TEF 2023 provider submissions recognised technicians. He found explicit contributions in 76 of 222 PDFs reviewed: 34.23%. The sample came from 228 participating providers. Advance HE analysis.

What was counted

Savage searched keywords, then manually checked and interpreted relevant passages, excluding generic references to technical skills and roles outside his scope. The collection excluded student submissions and accompanying panel information.

Examples included demonstrations, practical guidance, formative feedback and some curriculum or assessment contributions. Some provider narratives cited NSS comments, internal feedback and awards when describing technicians’ support for students.

This was an analysis of provider narratives, not an independent review of all underlying student comments. Absence from a submission does not show that technicians did no teaching or that an institution lacks them.

The article compares recognition with an earlier TEF2 analysis but explicitly says the methods are not directly comparable. The figures should not be presented as a measured like-for-like increase. Methods, findings and limitations.

Check who a teaching narrative describes

Our practical suggestion is to ask whether a local evidence review can identify the roles students actually name. Do not assume every reference to teaching concerns lecturers or that every reference to technical support describes the same job family.

Keep the source question and context alongside an extract. A comment about a laboratory demonstration, an award nomination and a formal course evaluation have different purposes and selection effects. A few examples can illustrate experience without establishing its prevalence.

Ask staff and students to check interpretations where role names are ambiguous. Preserve relevant distinctions between people, equipment and facilities instead of combining them into one broad theme.

The NSS open-text analysis methodology explains limits to interpreting comment themes. A tailored review can help explore an institution’s evidence; it cannot determine a TEF judgement or prove that an omitted role is absent from teaching.

Review note, 7 September 2026: clarified that the dataset contains provider narratives, qualified the historical comparison and removed claims that the analysis directly measured sector-wide underuse of student feedback.