Quality: An Organising Principle for Higher Education?

This paper discusses the barriers and opportunitites facing higher education when assessing the usefulness of 'quality as an organising principle' for institutions. Four general definitions of quality are identified alongside a number of operational dimensions of quality. Both internal and external pressures towards quality of performance and service are outlined. Private sector and higher education quality systems are examined, and conclusions are drawn which emphasize the challenges ahead for leaders of higher education institutions.     

澳大利亚高等教育质量保证体制综述

文章首先考察了20世纪90年代澳大利亚高等教育质量保证的发展，然后总括了澳大利亚目前多层面质量保证体制，论及了两个联合政府机构：澳大利亚学历资格评定框架署和澳大利亚大学质量保证总暑，联邦、州和地区政府以及高等教育部门的各种职能。     

Measuring service quality in higher education: three instruments compared

Measuring the quality of service in higher education is increasingly important, particularly as fees introduce a more consumerist ethic amongst students. This paper aims to test and compare the relative efficacy of three measuring instruments of service quality (namely HEdPERF, SERVPERF and the moderating scale of HEdPERF‐SERVPERF) within a higher education setting. The objective was to determine which instrument had the superior measuring capability in terms of unidimensionality, reliability, validity and explained variance. Tests were conducted utilizing a sample of higher education students, and the findings indicated that HEdPERF scale resulted in more reliable estimations, greater criterion and construct validity, greater explained variance, and consequently was a better fit than the other two instruments. Consequently, a modified five‐factor structure of HEdPERF is put forward as the more superior scale for the higher education sector.     

Further Education Opportunities in Scotland for Young People with Special Needs

Abstract

In order to achieve rapid growth in student numbers, a number of Higher Education Institutions have borrowed some of the concepts of franchising from the private service sector. A franchise involves one party — the franchisor — developing a service and monitoring standards, whilst a second party — the franchisee, delivers the service in return for a share of the reward.

This article draws comparisons between private sector and higher education franchising and analyses the franchise strategies open to the HE sector. It concludes that if managed correctly, franchising will bring benefits to the higher education sector, colleges of further education and students alike. The uncertain start to higher education franchising mirrors the early days of private sector franchising, but like the latter, it has potential subsequently to achieve rapid mutually beneficial growth.     

Student voice and engagement: connecting through partnership

This paper draws on research conducted across an English higher education partnership to investigate the ways in which student voice was engaged in further education colleges offering university awards through partnership arrangements. Such collaborations are characterised by the marginal presence of higher education students in an environment that is dominated by further education structures, culture and practice. This provides challenges for both colleges and universities in developing higher education student identity and appropriate mechanisms of student engagement that comply with expectations within the higher education sector but also recognise the contextual situation of students within the college environment. It is argued that student partnership collaboration can be a positive driver in an increasingly marketised global environment, where student voice and feedback mechanisms are at the forefront of quality assessments and institutional reputation. An ideal types framework is suggested as a heuristic device for the evaluation of college strategies of engagement.     

Fighting for excellence: the case of the Federal University of Pelotas

This paper investigates the implementation and evaluation of quality management systems within the higher education sector in Brazil. It is based on Institutional and Neo Institutional theories and presents the case of the Federal University of Pelotas, to discuss higher education institutions’ options in a context of wide and complex environmental changes.     

Consumerisation in UK higher education business schools: higher fees,greater stress and debatable outcomes

For many UK higher education business schools, the continued recruitment of UK, EU and international students is crucial for financial stability, viability and independence. Due to increasingly competitive funding models across the sector, many institutional leaders and administrators are making decisions typical of highly marketised consumer environments. Thus, this paper explores academics’ perceptions of the impact of consumerisation in UK higher education business schools. To achieve this, 22 business school academics were interviewed within three UK higher education institutions (HEIs) in the North of England. Participants had a minimum of three years teaching experience. Data was analysed using template analysis taking an interpretive approach. The findings indicate that academics perceived the introduction of tuition fees to have been the catalyst for students increasing demonstration of customer-like behaviour: viewing the education process as transactional, with the HEI providing a ‘paid for’ service. It is argued that these changes in UK higher education have created tensions between university leaders and academics, creating genuine dilemmas for those with decision-making responsibilities who must balance academic integrity and long-term institutional financial viability.     

SERVMO: A Measure for Service-Driven Market Orientation in Higher Education

With the intensified pace of globalization and increasing customer expectations, the higher education sector, like other economy sectors, faces increasing competition in terms of serving customers better. Service has been recognized as an effective tool for a competitive advantage. Thus, there is always a need for a more effective way of improving service, specifically in higher education. For this, a strategic and service-oriented marketing construct that is empirically operationalized and tested is deemed necessary. However, this measure of customer-perceived market orientation for service has yet to be developed for academic and practical purposes.

This paper presents the scale development for a service-driven market orientation (SERVMO) in higher education using data from Malaysian institutions of higher learning. The perceptions of senior students were analyzed and the results show that the proposed multi-dimensional construct consists of six components, namely customer orientation, competitor orientation, inter-functional orientation, performance orientation, long-term orientation, and employee orientation. This construct is closely correlated with service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Some key implications and future research are also discussed.     

Restructuring Teacher Education in Australia

Debate on teacher quality and quality in teaching and teacher education has been as vigorous in Australia as it has been in the UK and the USA. In Australia, however, reform in teacher education has been subsumed within a national metapolicy of corporate federalism which is an amalgam of beliefs or discourses including neo‐corporatism, economic rationalism, corporate managerialism and human capital. The paper analyses the most recent document on reform of teacher education in Australia (the Ebbeck Report) and shows how its policy formulation is influenced by the discourse of corporate federalism. It also shows how micro‐economic reform in this sector is related to reforms in other sectors of education.     

Inequality of educational opportunity: the relationship between access,affordability, and quality of private schools in Lagos,Nigeria

Using data from a census of private schools in one of Lagos, Nigeria’s administrative jurisdictions, this paper explores the linkages between a heterogeneous sector of private schools and issues of school access, affordability, quality, and ultimately social mobility for households at the bottom of the income distribution. Although a large private education market has buoyed Lagos’s growth towards near-universal primary enrolment, this heterogeneous school sector appears to be providing socially stratifying paths towards educational attainment. We apply Lucas’s theory of effectively maintained inequality to assess the extent to which access to higher quality education services within the private sector is determined by cost. We find that higher-cost private schools provide students with greater opportunities to study in institutions with higher quality inputs and increased potential for progression within the educational system. As such, it is highly likely that these schools are primarily accessible to students at the upper ends of the income distribution.     

教育实践是高师教育的重要环节——二论高师教育教师职业道德和职业技能培养的有机结合

教育实践是高师教育的重要环节 ,是高师教学的重要组成部分 ,突出实践是培养高素质人才之必须 ,规范化是提高教育实践质量的保证。     

高等教育服务过程中大学生的角色分析

高等教育教学过程实质上是教育服务的消费过程。在这一过程中,生产与消费同时进行,教学互动性很强,学生自身的素质、学习态度、学习方法以及对学习需求等都会影响到教育服务质量的高低。大学生既是教育服务的消费者、购买者和使用者,同时也是教育服务生产的资源供应者、合作生产者及最终受益者。     

University Student Satisfaction: An Empirical Analysis

The purpose of this research is to gain an empirical understanding of students' overall satisfaction with their academic university experiences. A hierarchal model is used as a framework for this analysis. Fifteen hypotheses are formulated and tested, in order to identify the dimensions of service quality as perceived by university students, to examine students' overall satisfaction with influential factors such as tuition fees (price) and university image, and to determine the impact of students' overall satisfaction on favourable future behavioural intentions. Students' perceptions of these constructs are compared using demographic factors such as gender, age, and ethnicity.

Statistical support is found for the use of a hierarchical model, three primary dimensions, and ten sub-dimensions. In addition, the results support a relationship between service quality and price; service quality, image, and satisfaction; and satisfaction and favourable future behavioual intentions. However, there is no statistical support for a relationship between price and satisfaction. The results also suggest that students' perceptions of the constructs are primarily influenced by their ethnicity and year of study.

The results of this analysis contribute to the service marketing theory by providing empirically–based insight into satisfaction and service quality constructs in the higher education sector. This study will assist higher education management developing and implementing a market-oriented service strategy, in order to achieve a high quality of service, enhance students' level of satisfaction and create favourable future behavioural intentions. ¹ 1. Missing At Random (MAR) is a condition which exists when missing values are not randomly distributed across all observations but are randomly distributed within one or more sub-samples. View all notes     

教育服务贸易自由化与中国教育发展

全球化是一个让所有东西过时的名词,但正如贸易和商务一样,教育正日益跨越国界,融入全球化的浪潮之中。本文正是从对教育自由化的动因入手,对国际教育服务自由化进行探讨,重点结合世界贸易组织服务贸易总协定的有关规定和中国入世后就教育服务市场开放所做的具体承诺讨论中国目前面临的机遇与挑战及应对之策。     

The repositioning of high education from its expanded visions: lifelong learning,entrepreneurship, internationalization and integration

In contemplating about the quality of higher education needed for today, this paper reviews the changing concepts and expectations towards higher education. It does so by delineating the changing setting of the higher education sector, the changing understanding of scholarship, the changing economy that leads to the emergence of entrepreneurial university, and the growing globalization and internationalization of higher education. It concludes by suggesting an integrative role to be taken by the university that takes into account all the changing expectations towards higher education under new economic and social circumstances.     

A European Context and Framework for Business Education

Higher education in further education colleges has a long history and has expanded in recent years. However, higher education in further education colleges is often treated as being unproblematic. This paper rejects the argument that higher education is simply a level of study, noting that it is a contested concept. As such, the paper seeks to establish a robust definition of just what higher education is. It recognises that the higher education sector is characterised by diversity but argues that, in spite of the differences that exist between higher education institutions, there are certain issues relating to the further education sector that mean that higher education in further education colleges is likely to differ from that in higher education institutions. The paper considers that New Public Management reinforces these differences and, when taken alongside recruitment problems within the further education sector, questions whether or not the development of higher education in further education colleges should be welcomed.     

The massification of higher education in the UK: Aspects of service quality

This article explores several aspects of service quality for the provision of higher education. Alongside the trend of the massification of higher education over the past two decades, higher education institutions are required to review quality across a range of outputs, besides teaching and learning. The study was undertaken within the undergraduate placement programme of a UK higher education institution and investigated aspects of service quality through students’ surveys conducted over a five-year period and staff questionnaires and interviews. The findings of the study point out that, amongst other factors, the increase in student numbers implies a deterioration of higher education service quality. Based on the findings, several areas that can potentially improve the quality of higher education services in modern universities are identified.     

聚焦质量,齐抓共管,扎实推进本科教学评估工作——兼谈对普通高校本科教学评估新方案的学习体会

提高质量是高等教育发展的核心任务,最近教育部出台了有关全面提高高等教育质量和开展本科教学评估的文件,如何理解并贯彻落实是高等教育战线面临的现实问题。本文从国家高等教育发展战略的高度,国际教育管理改革和质量保障发展的角度,阐述提高质量的重要性,并指出教育评估是提高质量的重要抓手。进而,全面解读了新时期我国普通高校本科教学评估的制度框架,分析其内涵和基本特征。为了把本科教学评估工作落到实处,按照齐抓共管、内外结合的思路,从政府、高校、评估机构等不同主体职能分工出发,文章指出政府应发挥主导作用、高校应加强内部质量保障和自评自测、评估机构应提供专业服务并实行行业自律管理。     

Shaping a culture: oral histories of academic development in Australian universities

Academic development has had an approximately forty‐year history within Australian higher education, paralleling the major expansions and changes in the sector, both nationally and internationally. Its principal concerns have been the improvement of teaching and the professional development of the academics who teach. The history of academic development has gone largely undocumented and unexamined at a national level, in Australia and elsewhere. However, as university teaching has increasingly become important in relation to quality in higher education, academic development has become a central player in the work of universities. It becomes of particular importance at this time to garner a more thorough understanding of the continuities as well as the discontinuities in the meanings and practices of university teaching and in the work of those whose role has been to support its development. This article presents a discussion of two key themes identified from a set of oral history interviews conducted with early leaders in academic development in Australia. These themes offer different insights into issues and understandings of academic development in today’s university. The first concerns a perennial issue in academic development – the struggle to define academic development’s emerging ethos in relation to research and service to the broader university’s endeavour. The second theme represents an issue that has been forgotten or marginalised in the official accounts of academic development but which lives on in the ‘lore’ of the field – the role of activism in the shaping of university teaching and academic development.     

'Your Flexible Friends': Sessional lecturers in the UK further education sector,commitment, quality and service delivery

This research examines the utilisation of part-time lecturers in the further education (FE) sector and considers the impact that has on the quality of service delivery. The research has used qualitative and quantitative methods in a longitudinal study of a sample of 42 sessional lecturers drawn from colleges within the East Midlands. The article explores changes within the sector providing a literature review on the changing nature of the FE sector. The article then considers the experience and reality of those employed as sessional lecturers, highlighting the benefits of a flexible workforce to the organisation, but also considering some of the main issues surrounding its utilisation. The article concludes with reflections on the implications for college management of present trends in flexible staffing.