‘Transforming Quality’: Seventh Quality in Higher Education International Seminar

Engaging Grassroots Academics in Quality Conversations and Quality Assurance Initiatives: Opportunity lost?

Kim Watty

RMIT University

Outline

The Australian government is clear in its intention that universities are to develop their own individual goals, aims, strategies, indicators and outcomes, and that quality of performance will be assessed against those criteria. A clear focus of the government is on assuring that there are mechanisms, procedures and processes in place to provide evidence that the desired quality, however defined and measured, is delivered. The implicit assumption is that if mechanisms exist, quality can be assured. This is to be achieved via quality audits performed by the newly created Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) and has resulted, it seems, in a flurry of activity in the university sector to define or refine existing internal quality assurance systems.

The manner in which this activity, both internal and external to the operations of the university sector, is perceived often reflects the views of different stakeholder groups in higher education. Erridge et al. (1998) are not alone when they suggest that quality has been used as a primary method of increasing economic pressure on public expenditure and as part of a government agenda to reform public services (Kirkpatrick and Lucio, 1995). This reform uses tools and techniques imported from the private sector with quality forming part of the agenda for change. Sach’s (1993) also maintains that the quality agenda represents a solution to a particular set of problems, rooted in the larger economic context where Australia operates in a competitive international market.

However, Erridge et al. (1998) also point to a contrasting interpretation of quality initiatives in the public sector linking such initiatives to the commercialisation of public services and satisfying the ‘needs and demands of a variety of customers in the market place’ (accountability). This they refer to as a ‘political project’, in contrast to the ‘legitimate goal’ of improving efficiency and effectiveness of public sector operations (continuous improvement).

Identifying how stakeholders in the sector categorise these quality initiatives, (which invariably appear as part of an internal quality assurance programme) as either a political project or legitimate goal assist in understanding whether there is a shared vision of the future and purpose of higher education in this country.

Of particular interest in this paper are the views of one particular stakeholder group: grassroots academics. It is contended that grassroots academics run the risk of being isolated from the changing environment in which they operate if they:

  • are not invited to participate in quality conversations and the development of quality assurance systems at the unit or faculty level;
  • refuse (albeit graciously), or ignore invitations to participate

In an ethnographic case study of academic responses to policy change in a large UK tertiary institution, Trowler (1998) draws from interview data to categorise academic responses to major change into four categories. The categories represent types of behavioural responses, not types of academics and allows for the fact that some academics move between these categories. Briefly, the categories are identified as:

  • sinking: academics who are discontented and accept the status quo;
  • swimming: academics who are content and accept the status quo;
  • policy reconstruction: academics who are content and work around or change policy;
  • using coping strategies: academics who are discontented and work around or change policy.

Trowler (1998) provides a framework to consider the nature of academic engagement in quality conversations and resulting initiatives, if one assumes that there are invitations to participate. Where no such invitation is evident, a more serious question in relation to the extent to which university management value the views of grassroots academics in relation to quality issues arises.

In this environment there are two major issues, which the paper will address. First, it will be argued that the delicate balance between external quality assurance as accountability, and internal quality assurance as continuous improvement remains tilted toward the former. The literature is filled with discussion of this nature yet resolution is still appears a long way off. Whilst it is acknowledged that an accountability-led approach to quality may have encouraged (some suggest forced) institutions to acknowledge quality issues, it is also recognised that the benefits that arise from this approach have a limited life span (Harvey, 1996). The critical importance of a system of continuous quality improvement owned and driven by those who can effect change at the local level is common in the literature (Harvey, 1996; McInnes, 1994; Knight & Trowler 2000; Newton, 2000).

The second issue is a concern that whilst institutions may claim a focus on continuous improvement (having ‘moved-on’ from the accountability-led approach) those working at the local levels in schools and departments may not hold a similar view. A growing number of authors refer to the growing ‘gap’ between the perceptions of administrators and academics in institutions of higher education (Taylor et al. 1998; Campbell et al. 1999; Everett et al. 1994; Mc Innes et al. 1994; Newton, 2000).

Whether the need to redress the imbalance lies at seat of management or in the hearts of academics is a vexed question. This paper will argue that quality, as an issue of reform under the new public sector management (NPM) régime has had over a decade to ensure that as a minimum a balance between accountability and continuous improvement is achieved and has failed. There is empirical support for this statement as academics bemoan the increasing levels of administration and accountability associated with top-down imposition of standardised QA systems (Vidovich, 1998; Newton, 2001). Potentially, (if not inevitably) adherence to these systems leaves little time and resources to focus on core activities of teaching and learning, research and (community) service, and even less time and resources to focus on continuous improvement in these areas.

When Wilson (1996, p. 149) stated that: ‘As far as Western democracies are concerned the issue of quality in higher education must be termed the “theme of the decade”’, some may have considered quality in higher education as little more than a passing fad, that had almost run its race. As we proceed through the new decade, we know this not to be the case, and the focus on quality in higher education has, it seems, intensified. If quality is a creature of political fashion as referred to by Becher 1999, it appears that as a fashion it may be changing style, but remains a term notoriously elusive of prescription (Gibson 1985) and an increasingly contentious concept (Taylor et al. 1998) –– a combination sure to maintain our interest in researching ‘this thing called quality’ in higher education.

References

Becher, T., 1999, ‘Quality in the professions’, Studies in Higher Education, 24(2), pp. 225–35.

Campbell, T. I. & S. Slaughter, 1999, ‘Faculty and administrators' attitudes toward potential conflicts of interest, commitment and equity in university-industry relationships’, Journal of Higher Education, 70(13), pp. 309–52.

Dawkins, J., 1998, Higher Education: A Policy Statement (Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service).

Erridge, A., Fee, R., & McIlroy, J., 1998, ‘Public sector quality: political project or legitimate goal? International Journal of Public Sector Management, 11(5), pp. 341–53.

Everett, J. E. and L. V. Entrekin, 1994’, ‘Changing attitudes of Australian academics’, Higher Education Quarterly 2(7), pp. 203–77.

Gibson, A., 1986, ‘Inspecting education’ in Moodie, G. (Ed.), Standards and Criteria in Higher Education, pp. 128–35, (Guilford, HRSE).

Harvey, L., 1996, ‘Editorial’, Quality in Higher Education, 2(2), pp. 89–93.

Kirkpatrick, I., Lucio, M.M., 1995, ‘Introduction: the politics of quality in the public sector’ in Kirkpatrick, I. & Lucio, M.M. (Eds), The Politics of Quality of the Public Sector, London, Routledge, pp. 115

Knight, P.T. & Trowler, P.R., 2000, ‘Department-level cultures and the improvement of learning and teaching’, Studies in Higher Education, 25(1), pp. 69–83.

Lindsay, A., 1992, ‘Concepts of quality in higher education’, Journal of Tertiary Education Administration, 14(2) pp. 153–63.

Newton, J., 2000, ‘Feeding the beast or improving quality? Academics’ perceptions of quality assurance and quality monitoring’, Quality in Higher Education, 6(2), pp. 163ff.

Newton, J., 2001, ‘Views from below: academics coping with quality’, keynote at The End of Quality? Sixth QHE Seminar in Association with EAIR and SRHE, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Sachs, J., 1994,, ‘Strange yet compatible bedfellows: quality assurance and quality improvement’, Australian Universities Review, 37(1) pp. 22–25.

Taylor, T., Gough, J., Bundrock, V., & Winter, R., 1998. ‘A bleak outlook: academic staff perceptions of changes in core activities in core activities in Australian higher education, 1991–1996’, Studies in Higher Education, 12(3), pp. 255-268.

Trowler, P.R., 1998, Academics Responding to Change: New higher education frameworks and academic cultures (Buckingham UK, Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press).

Vidovich, L., 1998, Quality as Accountability in Australian Higher Education of the 1990s: A Policy Trajectory, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Murdoch University, Perth.

Wilson, B., 1996, ‘Quality in universities, Sir Robert Menzies Oration, 4 October 1995’, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 18(2), pp. 149–58.

4 June 2002

Contact: Kim Watty

School of Accounting and Law

RMIT University

GPO Box 2476V

Melbourne Vic 3001

Ph: 61 3 9925 1606

Fax: 61 3 9925 5741

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