Purpose: The common approaches to quality assurance (QA), as practiced by most post-secondary education institutions for internal quality monitoring and most QA authorities for external quality monitoring (EQM), have been considered by many researchers as having largely failed to address the essence of educational quality. The purpose of this…

Purpose: The aims of this paper are twofold: first, to engage with the definition of quality as "excellence" and to show why this could be regarded as unhelpful and misleading; and, second, to suggest some factors which contribute to a "cultural divide" between quality assurance specialists in universities and their colleagues who are full-time…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on self-assessment processes and to identify the difficulties, benefits and success factors of the European Foundation for Quality Management self-assessment model, analysing the importance of follow-up. Design/methodology/approach: First, the paper carries out a literature review on…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need for managers of public universities to pay attention to performance management practices and information communication technology (ICT) adoption in order to achieve successful managed performance. Design/methodology/approach: Using a disproportionate stratified purposive approach, a…

Purpose: This paper aims to report on how an Administrative Division at a research-intensive Australian university utilised feedback data from the Learning and Growth Survey, to initiate changes. Design/methodology/approach: This paper refers to the actions taken by the Administrative Division to the results obtained from the Learning and Growth…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to introduce a conceptual model for assessing undergraduate student learning outcomes and satisfaction that involves concepts drawn from the services marketing and assessment literatures; second, to illustrate the utility of the model as implemented in an academic department (geography)…

Purpose: This paper aims to present an in-depth case study with student perceptions of service quality, discussing the relevance of these perceptions for the important issue of quality improvement in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents institutional research carried out in a multi-campus system in Spain made up of…

Purpose: This paper aims to develop and empirically test the performance-based higher education service quality model. Design/methodology/approach: The study develops 67-item instrument for measuring performance-based service quality with a particular focus on the higher education sector. Scale reliability is confirmed using the Cronbach's alpha.…

Purpose: Higher education is increasingly being scrutinised and discourse centred on its usefulness to stakeholders. In 1992, the University for Development Studies (UDS) was established in Northern Ghana with a mission to engage with local communities to develop the area. This paper aims to understand the quality perspective of the university…

Purpose: This paper aims to reflect on the relevance of the Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) of the European University Association (EUA) to universities' quality improvement. It aims to analyse IEP follow-up reports to determine whether the programme contributes to the development of a quality improvement culture.…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine which categories and indicators of quality are best suited to evaluating associate degree culinary arts programs (ADCAP). Design/methodology/approach: The researchers surveyed a national sample of culinary educators and industry chefs in the USA. The instrument asked the participants to rate the…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to identify the quality determinants for education services provided by higher education institutions (HEIs) in Greece and to measure their relative importance from the students' points of view. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-criteria decision-making methodology was used for assessing the relative importance…

Purpose: Teacher research (inquiry) has been characterized as practice improvement, professional development and action research, among numerous names and descriptions. The purpose of this paper is to support the case that teacher research is also a form of quality improvement known as continuous process improvement (CPI).…

Purpose: A major focus of the recent research into the quality of post-secondary education is the centrality of the student experience. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on studies addressing such a focus to shed light on how quality assurance (QA) practices can be improved. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews some…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure and compare the performance of Portuguese secondary schools. Design/methodology/approach: Some data on the schools were collected via an electronic questionnaire sent to 103 secondary schools of the centre region of Portugal; other needed data were available through the Centre Regional Education…