高等教育质量管理新进展:质量文化研究

高等教育质量已经成为高等教育领域的核心话题,各种高等教育质量管理程序和技术开始建立并推广,对保障高等教育质量起到了一定的作用。然而,欧洲的研究者提出,质量管理程序和技术最终不能解决质量的改进问题,而只有由下而上地建立高等教育质量文化,使追求和提升质量成为成员的自觉观念和行动,高等教育质量才能持续提升。围绕"质量文化"这一概念,对欧洲高等教育领域近年的质量文化研究进展进行考察,并从这些新进展中捕捉对中国高等教育质量管理的启示与意义。     

Subjected to review: engendering quality and power in higher education

Both feminism and quality assurance movements have attempted to deconstruct and reconstruct the academy. Both have called for more transparency in procedures, accountability from elite professional groups and the privileging of the student experience. Both are globalized systems calling for transformation. However, it is questionable as to whether these two forces for change can form strategic alliances, or whether indeed they are in oppositional relationship. As a dominant regime of power in the UK academy today, quality assurance both exposes the micropolitics of gendered power in organizations and creates its own structures and systems of power. Quality assurance is part of the modernization process of the public services. However, gender equity is not a performance indicator in UK quality audits. In this paper, I interrogate the gendered implications of quality assurance, with particular reference to the assessment of teaching and learning in the UK (the Quality Assurance Agency's Subject Review). Drawing on empirical data and conceptual critiques, I will argue that quality assurance, as a regime of power, is gendered in its conception and practice.     

Resilience in higher education students: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The health, wellbeing and employability of university students are key considerations within higher education. In response, interest in student resilience is on the rise. Reviews of contemporary resilience literature highlight both conceptual and methodological weaknesses, issues which hamper attempts to design effective resilience interventions. To inform the design of a student resilience program, to be piloted at three Australian universities, a scoping review of resilience specific to the higher education context was undertaken. Searches of three electronic databases (PsychINFO, CINAHL and ProQuest) were conducted. Seventy-two peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2017 were included in the review. While the review reaffirms the conceptual and methodological issues found in previous resilience research, it provides a useful critique of key issues in relation to university student resilience and interventions to enhance students’ resilience. Recommendations for educators and researchers are provided.     

Embedding quality culture in higher education in Ghana: quality control and assessment in emerging private universities

High quality provision has been one of the key aims of the current reforms in higher educational institutions across the globe since the beginning of the century and the millennium. Consequently this has led to the increasing demand for quality assurance (QA). This report identifies those institutional processes and structures that support the development of an internal quality culture in the emerging private universities in Ghana. The study bases its understanding of “quality culture” on the definition which sees it as referring to an organizational culture characterized by a cultural/psychological element on the one hand, and a structural/managerial element on the other hand. If we take our educational activity as a process, then the process (the activity) requires inputs (information, materials), resources (people, equipment, space) and control (QMS) to produce outputs (products and/or services). QA then is a culture—a way of continuously aiming to improve and do better—and the private universities in Ghana are responding to this.     

Reclaiming quality in higher education: a human factor approach

Interest in quality is well established within higher education. This paper will critically review the most commonly used definitions of quality: fitness for purpose and value for money. It will point out that these two definitions are important but they ignore the emancipatory power of higher education and the development needs of academics and students. This paper will propose a new understanding of quality as a virtue of professional practice, which can be used as a useful force for individual academics and students to increase their commitment to learning and teaching. A new model of quality evaluation will be outlined as a supportive mechanism to enhance academics’ professionalism and to increase students’ capability to learn.     

Service learning in higher education: a systematic literature review

Asia Pacific Education Review - In the last few years, adoption of service learning in higher educational institutions has emerged as a modern teaching and learning strategy. This study is aimed to...     

Intersectionality in higher education research: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a systematic structured review of recent research that explicitly adopts intersectionality as a theoretical framework to interrogate how tertiary institutions manage, cater for, include, exclude and are experienced in ways that produce advantage and disadvantage. The analysis addresses the following questions: Within research that uses intersectionality, what aspects of the HE context are the focus? What methodologies are employed and how do these contribute to the production of knowledge? What vectors of identity are included? We find that gender appeared as the primary identity with which other dimensions of difference were combined to produce intersectional positions. Furthermore, case study and auto-ethnographic designs were primary approaches. This systematic literature review of 50 papers demonstrates that, when considering the workings of multiple systems of (dis)advantage, academic participation is intertwined with social and personal aspects of the HE experience. While intersectionality challenges the dominant instrumental view of HE, our review concludes that there is considerable work to be done to actively address the workings of intersecting systems of inequity impacting on participation and outcomes of students and faculty.     

A social realist perspective on student learning in higher education: the morphogenesis of agency

Contemporary critiques of student learning research call for new theoretical and methodological approaches. This article proposes a social realist approach to this research, using the morphogenetic theory of sociologist Margaret Archer. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated by reference to an empirical study of engineering students at a South African university, using narrative analysis. In the article itself, two narratives are given in some detail, illustrating the key outlines of the analysis. Students’ emerging personal identities are shown to be highly dependent on their social backgrounds, yet when in the university the possibilities for the morphogenesis of student agency are very constrained. A critical interrogation of these findings proposes that a true higher education should facilitate the development of an enlarged sense of agency for students.     

Employability: a contemporary review for higher education stakeholders

Higher education institutions are under pressure to produce employable graduates who are required to contribute to the sustainability of strong economic growth and development. As such, the onus is on the higher education sector to present graduates to the labour market who are both work ready and have attained employability. This article contributes to the discussion surrounding the employability of graduates by: enhancing understanding and discussing contemporary evidence and debate around employability; showing the genesis, influence and synthesis of the major models associated with employability; summarising the boundaries and barriers to graduate employment; and exploring the determinants of employability from the employer’s perspective. Importantly, the article summarises the contemporary theoretical bases of employability in the one place. Recommendations are made regarding further research and the need for further theoretical contributions.     

Measuring higher education quality

Conclusion The panelists indicated that considerable progress is being made by such organizations as ACT and NCHEMS in identifying the domains of quality to be measured and particularly in devising unidimensional indicators of student progress. Few were able to cite comparable advancements in the development of multivariate techniques to assess the relation of student growth to other variables. Notable progress in achieving consensus on appropriate standards for measuring quality institutions or curricular programs within comparable institutions remains as a future task.Panelists were: William Toombs, Pennsylvania State University; Patrick Terenzini, State University of New York at Albany; Lois Torrence, University of Connecticut. Joan Stark, University of Michigan, was moderator.     

The idea of quality in higher education: a conceptual approach

The paper suggests that the idea of quality in higher education is ideologically constructed and conducted. In a spiral of mutual reinforcements, quality regimes naturalise experience, while the theories of that practice legitimise the naturalness of ‘quality’. I shall suggest that quality regimes provide too narrow readings of higher education. The central concepts, which I propose to use – discourse and power – emphasise the connectedness of ideology and quality in higher education. In particular, I suggest that the ideological character of the idea of quality in higher education is evident in discourses – which themselves are interlinked in networks. These discourses and networks are backed up by power and this helps to sustain their ideological character. Thus, this paper attempts two things: to outline a conceptual framework concerning the ideological character of the idea of quality in higher education and to draw attention to the organisation of that ideological formation.     

Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective

Peer review is a reciprocal process whereby students produce feedback reviews on the work of peers and receive feedback reviews from peers on their own work. Prior research has primarily examined the learning benefits that result from the receipt of feedback reviews, with few studies specifically exploring the merits of producing feedback reviews or the learning mechanisms that this activates. Using accounts of their experiences of peer review, this study illuminates students’ perceptions of the different learning benefits resulting from feedback receipt and feedback production, and, importantly, it provides insight into the cognitive processes that are activated when students construct feedback reviews. The findings show that producing feedback reviews engages students in multiple acts of evaluative judgement, both about the work of peers, and, through a reflective process, about their own work; that it involves them in both invoking and applying criteria to explain those judgements; and that it shifts control of feedback processes into students’ hands, a shift that can reduce their need for external feedback. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. It is argued that the capacity to produce quality feedback is a fundamental graduate skill, and, as such, it should receive much greater attention in higher education curricula.     

Individualizing instruction in higher education: A review

The salient characteristics of a variety of approaches to individualizing instruction are described and their respective merits with regard to higher education discussed. The review includes: programmed instruction, computer-assisted instruction and -management, information retrieval systems, audio-tutorial and modular instruction, contingency management and contracting, and personalized and individually prescribed instruction. While these approaches differ from each other in some respects, they all share an overriding concern for individual differences among students and seek to better adapt instruction to the learner.A section on general issues regarding the degree of individualisation, the role of the professor, institutional support for improving instruction, the role of the student, content and method, evaluation, and the future of individualized instruction concludes the review.Formerly, Centre for Learning and Development, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.     

Peer teaching in higher education: A review

In the last decade, peer teaching has gained momentum in higher education. Socio-psychological, pedagogical, economical and political considerations have all contributed to this recent interest. A number of peer-teaching models including discussion groups led by undergraduate students, proctoring (PSI), student learning groups, the learning cell, and student counseling of students (parrainage) have evolved. Several issues and problems may confront the instructor who wants to use undergraduates as teachers: selection of student partner, functions of student teacher, cooperation vs. competition, the structure of the learning situation, preparation of the student teachers, benefits of peer teaching, the role of the professor, financial aspects and instructional facilities. The evidence reviewed suggests that peer teaching, best used in conjunction with other teaching and learning methods, has great potentials for both student teacher and student learner, especially if one seeks to enhance active participation and develop skills in cooperation and social interaction. A student's colleagues often represent the least recognized, least used and possibly the most important of all the resources available to him. (Mackenzie et al., 1970).Portions of this paper have been presented by the second author at the International Symposium on Ingenieurpädagogik '75, 14–16 April, 1975, in Klagenfurt, Austria and at the International Conference on Improving University Teaching, 9–11 May, 1975, in Heidelberg, Germany.     

Modular instruction in higher education: A review

The principles and purposes of modular instruction (MI), its advantages for both students and instructors, and a comparison between the conventional and modular approach are presented. Separate sections deal with implementation and management of MI and include a discussion of evaluation and cost. Several examples of modular formats in use at North American universities are described.Present evidence suggests that MI meets the needs of today's students more adequately than traditional instruction both with respect to the quality of learning and the content. However, certain problems may arise in implementing MI. These are presented from the perspective of the student, instructor, and administrator. Given its emphasis on individualized learning and its adaptability to large numbers of students, MI has emerged as one of the most promising alternatives in higher education today.     

社会学视角中的高等教育质量理论

为了理解高等教育质量,我们需要关注作为其前提的知识的作用。因为知识是大学学术工作的基础,它直接或间接地关系到高等教育文化的多样性。换句话说,知识形成了认知、诊断和处理高等教育质量问题的基础。本论文从知识的作用及知识重建的视角,分别就以下五个方面以日本为案例来研究质量保障的方法:知识的作用;知识社会和高等教育的关系;打造学习中心:日本文化和西方文化的冲突;多样化的知识:分裂、分化和冲突;探索新的大学模式。