Session Information
22 SES 09 C, Policy, Management and Governance in Higher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The introduction of Quality Assurance (QA) in Higher Education is related to several changes in higher education systems, and different purposes are expected to achieved it; like assurance, enhancement or control. In spite of that, QA processes are relatively homogeneous in terms of methodology, being mostly based on assessments processes (Dejean, 2007).
In fact, in the name of quality, evaluation of higher education spread quickly in different national contexts. Nonetheless, official’s discourses about QA often highlights the causes and the benefits of these processes, being paradoxically, less explicit about what specifically the approach adopted is supposed to do (Harvey and Newton, 2004, p.150).
The first question that arises is, does exists a lack of distinction between the purpose granted to QA and the questions that assessment processes are trying to answer?
This distinction is considered as a basic one (Fraisse and Gaulejac, 1987), nevertheless in the case of evaluations for QA process, it does not happen by itself.
In this context, this research seeks to point out the questions and the orientations proposed in institutional evaluations, within external QA assurance processes for higher education institutions. To do so, this paper proposes an analysis of “quality guidelines” from three different contexts: international organizations, Europe and one Latin American country; Chile.
The interest of linking European and Latin American process is because one of the central ideas for the construction of European Union-Latin America- Caribbean Higher Education Area [UEALC] was the knowledge, exchange and the improvement of assessment practices between the different nationals systems (Action Plan, 2002-2004). In the absence of guidelines at that regional level, this research proposed to analyses Chilean guidelines. Authors agree in the importance of what had being made in Chile, in terms of QA process influence at regional level (CNAP, 2007; Zapata and Tejeda, 2008).
The theoretical framework is taken from the EVALUE research project (1998). Four categories to analyse institutional evaluation are propose:
a) Objectives b) object and evaluation criteria’s c) references and, d) actors
Evaluation means to operate judgments about one specific object (activity, organization, action) oriented by objectives and criteria, including comparison process and recommendations.
The evaluation's criterias point to the elements considered as representatives of the evaluation object, and the references are the framework to interpret the information collected in the evaluation process (Figari and Tourmen, 2006). Therefore evaluation's criteria are proposed from a notion of higher education institution, and are built on, or aim at, certain notions of quality (Lueger & Vettori, 2008).
Thus, the particular interest in this paper is to answer three major questions: What are the elements considered as representatives of a higher education institution? What is the underlying quality concept in quality guidelines? Finally, in a comparative level, are there common elements in differents quality guidelines, and which ones?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
ALCUE (2004) Plan of action project 2002-2004 to build common ground for higher education in the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean CNAP (2004) Guia para la Evaluación, Proyecto piloto de acreditación institucional Comisión Nacional de Acreditación de Pregrado, documento de trabajo. Dejean J. (2007) Les démarches qualité dans l'enseignement supérieur, entre évaluation et contrôle in HELDENBERGH A., (dir.) (2007) Les démarches qualité dans l´enseignement supérieur en Europe, Paris, l'harmattan, 7-53 ENQA (2005) Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area, created by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education EVALUE (1998) Evaluation et Auto-Evaluation des Universités en Europe, Doubois, P. (coord.) Projet financé par la communauté européenne Programme de recherche finalisé en Socio-Economie (TSER) Figari G. and Tourmen C. (2006) « La référentialisation: une façon de modéliser l’évaluation de programme, entre théorie et pratique » in mesure et évaluation en éducation, vol.29, n°3 Fraisse J., Boneti M. et De Gaulejac V. (1987) L'évaluation dynamique des organisations publiques, Paris, Les éditions d'organisation Harvey L. (2004–9) Analytic Quality Glossary, Quality Research International, http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/glossary/ Harvey L. et Newton J. (2004) « Transforming quality evaluation » in Quality in Higher Education, Vol.10, Nº2, 149-165 Lueger M. and Vettori O. (2008) «“flexibilising” standards? The role of quality standards within a participative quality culture» in Implementing and using quality assurance: Strategy and practice, EUA case studies, Belgium. OECD/UNESCO (2004) Guidelines for quality provision in cross-border education, OECD/UNESCO, Paris Zapata G. and Tejeda I. (2008) Informe Nacional-Chile. Educación superior y mecanismos de aseguramiento de la calidad. Proyecto ALFA «Aseguramiento de la Calidad: Políticas y Gestión Universitaria» disponible en: http://www.cinda.cl/proyecto_alfa/download/informe_QA_Chile.pdf
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