One of the challenges facing higher education is in understanding what counts for an excellent educational outcome, how students’ learning can be measured effectively, and how these measurements might be used to guide current investments and inform future developments.

While there is a substantial body of research examining learning gains in the USA and in the Netherlands (Bowman, 2010; Pascarella, Blaich, Martin, & Hanson, 2011; Tempelaar, Rienties, & Giesbers, 2015a), recent review of the learning gain literature by McGrath, Guerin, Harte, Frearson, and Manville (2015) indicated that approaches to measuring  learning gains are in their infancy in higher education in England.