高等教育质量的社会保障:特点、途径和实现条件

政府、社会和高校分别代表着高等教育运行过程中的三种基本力量,也是高等教育质量保障的三大基本主体。相对于政府和高校的质量保障,社会的质量保障主要通过市场经济引导、社会舆论监督、社会中介组织评价等途径来实现。要充分发挥社会力量在高等教育质量保障中的作用,政府的放权与高校的自治是前提,市场的完善与文化的先进是关键,社会力量的整合与引导是手段。     

Quality assurance for public higher education: context,strategies and challenges in Kenya

Quality assurance (QA) mechanisms used to be highly dependent on national administrative traditions but nowadays there is a convergence of mechanisms. Compared to more developed higher education (HE) systems in the world, QA systems in Africa are still at an infant stage and thus confronted by many challenges. The purpose of this article is to present some of the findings derived from a study analysing the crucial issues and unique challenges facing Kenya's public HE as it struggles to develop QA mechanisms. Using purposive sampling, the researcher chose two public universities who indicated their willingness to participate and a national QA Agency (QAA). The study was done through in-depth interviews and a review of historical materials and records. Overall, respondents strongly emphasised the need for Kenyan universities to have compulsory and effective external and internal QA mechanisms. They indicated that the trends facing HE make it necessary for HE in Kenya to review their traditional QA structures and to create new systems of external QA. The numerous comments in this research indicate deficiency not only in the QAA focus and work but also in the internal QA frameworks within public universities.     

Collaborative action research for middle grades improvement

Technology’s rapid evolution applies constant pressure to educational organizations, suggesting a need to continually re-envision schools for the digital age. Yet educators often struggle to understand the growing chasm between students’ out-of-school and in-school technology lives. This gap is particularly noticeable during the middle grades years, when home technology use increases dramatically. The purpose of this research was to examine the experiences of teachers and students engaged in collaborative action research for middle school improvement in technology-rich settings. We begin by outlining our theoretical framework, emphasizing Fletcher’s Ladder of Student Involvement. We then describe our case-study design and methods. Findings are organized by action research components and a discussion of key themes follows. Finally, we consider the implications of this study for action research as a means of student involvement and teacher learning.     

Academic achievement standards and quality assurance

Quality assurance processes have been applied to many aspects of higher education, including teaching, learning and assessment. At least in the latter domain, quality assurance needs its fundamental tenets critically scrutinised. A common but inadequate approach has been to identify and promote learning environment changes ‘likely to improve’ learning outcomes. They are simply labelled ‘quality assurance’ without establishing their effectiveness. Part of the problem is that the case for quality assurance has been largely taken as self-evident. Originally, quality assurance principles were developed in domains outside higher education. In those, auditable product, service and other standards play a central role. Although external processes do not directly transfer to higher education, their underlying principles offer perspectives and pointers for reconceptualising quality assurance and improving assessment and grading. Quality assurance should be grounded in authoritative and properly formulated academic achievement standards applied to actual student works, performances and course grades.     

分析测试中的质量保证和质量控制

本文详细介绍了分析测试中的质量、质量保证和质量控制技术。     

Quality assurance in higher education – meta-evaluation of multi-stage evaluation procedures in Germany

Systematic procedures for quality assurance and improvement through evaluation have been in place in Western Europe since the mid 1980s and in Germany since the mid 1990s. As studies in Europe and beyond show that multi-stage evaluation procedures as the main quality assurance instrument for evaluation of teaching and learning in higher education institutions have proved reliable and have gained acceptance, in Germany (as well as in other countries) the evaluation of teaching and learning through internal and external evaluations has long come under the fire of criticism. Our results of the first comprehensive and representative investigation of procedures for the evaluation of teaching and learning in Germany show that former participants in the evaluations (reviewers and those reviewed) are satisfied all in all with the multi-stage procedure. They are convinced that the goals of quality assurance and improvement were achieved. Suggestions for improving the procedures target individual aspects, such as, for example, the composition of the review panel. Against this background, it makes sense to perform regular quality assessments of the procedures for quality assurance and improvement. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Donors’ Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany (Stifterverband fu¨ r die Deutsche Wissenschaft) for funding our study and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

大学生党员质量保障及评价机制探讨

从大学生党员质量保障及评价机制存在的问题入手,深入研究、科学归纳,提出了要牢牢把握好大学生党员质量保障及评价机制的内在联系,并创造性地提出了大学生党员质量保障及评价机制"四维一体"的运行着力点,以全新的视野、创新的理念,力求为提高大学生党员质量作出积极的贡献。     

The school effectiveness movement: origins,shortcomings and future possibilities

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the school effectiveness/school improvement movement has provided an antidote to the pessimism and fatalism of the 1970s. However, it is deficient in four important respects: (1) it places too much emphasis on the notion of progressive school management as the dynamic of change; (2) it fails to take full account of the characteristics of the education system as a whole; (3) it shows little regard for issues of social class; (4) it has little to say about issues of curriculum content and pedagogy.     

教育行动研究的类型分析

教育行动研究是一个具有多种形态的研究过程,不同形态的行动研究具有不同的性质。从研究水平的角度,教育行动研究可以分为技术的、慎思的和解放的行动研究;从参与者的角度可以分为独立式、支持式和协同式行动研究。     

Using participatory action research to address absenteeism

Many urban high schools serving low-income families have below-average attendance rates, which can indicate that fewer students are prepared to matriculate into college and career opportunities. Through the use of participatory action research (PAR), we – a group of four educators at Wilson High School – have changed school policies and procedures in order to address our school's most problematic behavior: students cutting class. Through the processes and outcomes that our group, the Class Cutting Task Force, has experienced, we have called upon action learning (AL) in our focus on practical and experienced problems, and we have learned an important lesson: without clear and consistent school-wide expectations, our students cannot meet their potentials. Additionally, we have become empowered to drive a school-wide improvement initiative from the ground up by using the four-stage PAR process. It is our experience with the PAR process as a method of engagement in AL for school practitioners that we aim to share in this account of practice.     

Quality assurance of joint degree programs from the perspective of quality assurance agencies: experience in East Asia

Joint degree programs have gained popularity in East Asia, due to the growth of transnational higher education in the region since 2000. However, the external quality assurance (QA) and accreditation of joint degree programs is a challenge for QA agencies, as it normally involves the engagement of several institutions and multiple national accreditation procedures. The purpose of this study is to explore current QA approaches to joint degree programs in Europe and East Asia from the perspectives of QA agencies. There are four major findings from the study. First, East Asian countries tend to stipulate national regulations for a joint degree program. Second, an external QA mechanism for joint degree programs has not yet been developed in East Asian nations. Third, the adoption of international accreditation as the popular approach for joint degree programs in business fields in Asia raises the serious issue of national jurisdiction over higher education. Fourth, the European Consortium for Education's (ECA) single accreditation mode is highly recommended by QA agencies.     

Quality assurance and accreditation of engineering education in Jordan

This paper provides a study of the quality assurance and accreditation in the Jordanian higher education sector and focuses mainly on engineering education. It presents engineering education, accreditation and quality assurance in Jordan and considers the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) for a case study. The study highlights the efforts undertaken by the faculty of engineering at JUST concerning quality assurance and accreditation. Three engineering departments were accorded substantial equivalency status by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology in 2009. Various measures of quality improvement, including curricula development, laboratories improvement, computer facilities, e-learning, and other supporting services are also discussed. Further assessment of the current situation is made through two surveys, targeting engineering instructors and students. Finally, the paper draws conclusions and proposes recommendations to enhance the quality of engineering education at JUST and other Jordanian educational institutions.     

Professionalism,profession and quality assurance practitioners in external quality assurance agencies in higher education

This article seeks to spark a dialectic discussion on the establishment of a set of professional competencies for quality assurance practitioners who serve in external quality assurance agencies in higher education. Such a need is identified due to the shortage of relevant and sufficient coverage in the quality assurance literature. To substantiate the need, the concepts of professionalism and profession, and how these concepts are linked to the quality assurance in higher education sector, are carefully examined through a desk-top research study. References are drawn from the experiences in several other occupations. The result reveals that the development of the essential competencies for external quality assurance practitioners in higher education is valuable and essential and it will be useful for the practitioners to transform themselves into a profession in the long run.     

First-, second- and third-person values-based ethics in educational action research: personal resonance,mutual regard and social responsibility

Generalisation is inescapable. We all generalise. It is part of our cognitive apparatus and it is fundamental to the way we live. Our understanding of the world has to go beyond our own unique and limited experiences if we are to interact, empathise, understand and communicate with others in our social milieu. Without generalisation we could not interact with our world in a meaningful and coherent way – that is to say, we would need continual repetition of the same mental procedures for each new experience.     

教育科研发展趋势对中小学校本研究的启示

从量的研究到质的研究再到量与质相结合的研究,这句话简单地概括了中小学教育科研范式的发展路向。随着研究范式的转向,中小学教师的研究视角也发生了相应的变化:从宏观教育现象到微观教育教学问题,从探究事物的本质到探讨如何认识和实现事物,从"方法中心"到"问题中心"。中小学教育科研发展的趋势对中小学校本研究的定位、教师对教育科研的认识及教师参与教育科研应注意的问题带来诸多有益的启示。     

Activities and Attitudes of Retired University Staff

A national sample of 1662 academic and academic related university staff, who had retired 3-5 years earlier, completed a postal survey about their current employment, research, other academic activities, and the academic resources available to them, and about their attitudes to retirement, and the extent of their leisure, voluntary, and other caring activities. Over two-thirds of academics and four-fifths of academic related staff had retired early. Younger staff were more often currently employed, but the employment rate amongst academics aged 66-73 was very much greater than in the general population. The extent of research and other academic activities was related to university rank rather than age, with professors and readers more committed, and less involved in leisure activities. The most frequent reasons for early retirement were dissatisfaction with changes in the universities and financial inducements. The majority said they were more contented because of retiring, and most would not have wanted to retire later than they did, but concerns were expressed about the failure of universities to give adequate status and resources to retired academics. There was some evidence that women were discriminated against in retirement.     

Using multidimensional methods to understand the development,interpretation and enactment of quality assurance policy within the educational development community

Policy texts are representations of practice that both reflect and shape the world around them. There is, however, little higher education research that critically analyses the impact of higher education policy on educational developers and educational development practice. Extending methods from critical discourse analysis by combining textual analysis of a policy text with in-depth interviews with policy-makers and policy users, this article seeks to better understand the process of production, interpretation and implementation of policy. The article focuses on a leading national UK quality assurance policy in relation to the educational development community in order to uncover how policy is played out in practice. The findings paint a picture of a text that presents a version of higher education that is portrayed linguistically as universally accepted. Yet, the methodological approach enables the uncovering of the complexities of the policy process that go beyond the text’s words by highlighting the debates that shaped its development and the interpretations of its textual form that subsequently shape its enactment. Looking specifically at the constraints of policy boundaries, word choice and calls to educational development action (or inaction), the policy text is analysed in light of educational developers’ contexts and institutional positioning, surfaced through the research process itself. The article concludes by arguing that the combination of data collection and analysis methods used provide greater insights into how policy is played out in practice than the employment of any one of these methods individually could have achieved.     

Measuring equity in educational effectiveness research: the properties and possibilities of quantitative indicators

There has never been a published discursive review of equity measurement methodology in educational effectiveness research, though the literature on equity is growing. This paper sets out several indices that have the potential to measure it in terms of pupil attainment or in terms of how far a school (or group of schools) is from having a ‘fair’ proportion of its success attributable to a ‘fair’ proportion of its student population. The paper explores the principles and properties of three relatively simple metrics (the Range Ratio family of measures, the Coefficient of Variation and McLoone's Index) leading to two complex measures (Theil's T and finally to the Gini-based Attainment Equity Index). The paper investigates the warrant that the measures have (or do not have) for measuring equity by exploring them in a theoretical way so that their strengths, provenances and presumptions reveal themselves, and concludes with a discussion – the first of its kind in educational effectiveness research – on their desirable characteristics and properties. Worked examples from 2009 to 2011 UK pupil attainment data are presented in the Notes by way of worked illustrations, as are another two indices: the Variance of the Logs and the Atkinson Index.