COMPARING QUALITY IN EUROPE

As higher education begins to operate increasingly in a European framework, consequences for the assurance of quality in higher education are bound to become evident. A pilot study to develop a methodology for the comparison of quality across different higher education systems is described. The project involved comparison of ten study programmes in economics in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. A design derived from general considerations about the concept of quality and about the nature of higher education and different systems incorporated two stages. First was the collection of information and the processing of this information into manageable data sets; second was the assessment of the information by way of peer review. The proceedings and principal findings of both stages followed the overview of the project design. The article concludes by highlighting some implications of this pilot project for the future of quality assurance in higher education on a European scale.     

The self‐concept of Ukrainian doctoral students: Means–ends decoupling at the state level

Employing the Twenty Statements Test and a framework of self‐motives (self‐esteem, self‐efficacy, authenticity), this paper examines the self‐concept of Ukrainian doctoral students while means–ends decoupling takes place at the state level. The latter implies that the practices of state policies are disconnected from the state’s core goal of creating public welfare. Data are taken from a survey of 125 doctoral students at one Ukrainian university and supplemented with 30 personal interviews within the sample of respondents. The findings reveal that in the Ukrainian case, means–ends decoupling at the state level causes institutional complexity, which results in means–ends decoupling at the organisational level, which in turn leads to cultural complexity. Institutional and cultural complexities experienced by doctoral students trigger them to sustain means–ends decoupling at the individual level. The main decoupling for most Ukrainian PhD students is that doctoral education neither increases their employability nor contributes to the development of science, economy or society. Means–ends decoupling at all levels results not only in a severe diversion of financial and human capital but also has a negative impact on individuals’ well‐being, hindering their personal and professional development and evoking a sense of meaninglessness, alienation and cognitive dissonance.     

Means-ends decoupling at the state level and managerial responses to multiple organisational identities in Ukrainian research universities

Drawing on the model of managerial responses to multiple organisational identities (integration, aggregation, compartmentalisation, deletion and multivocality), this article explores managerial responses in Ukrainian research universities whilst means-ends decoupling takes place at the state level. The latter term implies that practices of state policies are disconnected from the state’s core goal of enhancing public welfare. Data is taken from recent interviews with 11 top managers from three Ukrainian research universities. Our findings reveal that the greater the institutional complexity experienced by the university and the more the top managers maintain confidence in practices and organisational identities that deviate from the global model of the research university, the greater the means-ends decoupling at the organisational level. The university that sustains the least degree of means-ends decoupling at the organisational level shows aggregation as the managerial response, while the university with the highest degree of means-ends decoupling is characterised by multivocality with underdeveloped identities of research at the international level and knowledge transfer. As a higher degree of means-ends decoupling at the organisational level implies a larger efficiency gap and significant diversion of both human and financial resources, a managerial response that lacks synergy, in our case multivocality, also leads to the above-mentioned negative consequences.     

The role of peer review in Norwegian quality assurance: potential consequences for excellence and diversity

The article analyses the role of peer review within broader external quality assurance schemes. Based on an analytical framework emphasising that modern quality assurance schemes are designed as a balancing act between standardised guidelines and professional judgement, the article uses data from a recent evaluation of NOKUT, the Norwegian Quality Assurance Agency, to investigate whether and how the peer review process has maintained its central role in quality assurance, not least with respect to promoting excellence and diversity. The findings indicate that what is presented as judgements based on peer expertise, turn out to be a rather technical process in which pre-defined rigid criteria and standards are imperative. In the conclusion, the role of peer review is discussed in relation to developments in European higher education.     

Two discourses: Researchers and policy-making in higher education

The theme of this article focuses on how policy discourse and research discourse meet in contract research in higher education. The interplay of these discourses has consequences for researchers who have to balance conflicting demands, which we view as links between research and policy cycles. Two evaluation studies on the introduction and effects of new policy instruments are discussed, focusing on the interaction between policy needs, and research design. The examples are taken from policies in the development towards increasing self-regulation in higher education, of which Finland and the Netherlands are interesting examples in the European context.     

From Design and Implementation to Impact of Quality Assurance: An Overview of Some Studies into what Impacts Improvement

Tertiary Education and Management - Attention shifted in recent years from design and implementation to use and usefulness of quality assurance. Scientific studies focus increasingly on quality...     

Towards a general model of quality assessment in higher education

In this article a number of elements of a general model of quality assessment in higher education are presented. On the one hand these elements are put in a historical context of quality assessment in Medieval universities and, on the other hand, deduced from the recent experiences with quality assessment in both North-American and Western European countries. With respect to the historical context a distinction is made between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education. Two types of quality assessment related to these values are also distinguished. Concerning the recent experiences with quality assessment systems, the practices in the U.S.A., Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are explored. In the final section the general mode of quality assessment is discussed in the context of the distinction between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education.