Faculty perceptions of instrumental and improvement reasons behind quality assessments in higher education: the roles of participation and identification

Abstract

While the stated aim of quality assessments is to improve the quality of the products and services offered by universities, some faculty view them as instrumental in justifying government budget cuts in education. By means of a survey administered to more than 300 faculty from 20 academic programmes undergoing quality assessments, we studied perceptions of the reasons behind the assessments. The results of our analysis show that faculty participation in the assessment process significantly decreases the chances that faculty believe quality assessments are carried out for instrumental reasons. In addition, those who believe assessments are carried out for quality improvement reasons are more likely to rate the assessments as legitimate and to be more identified with the academic programme that is being assessed. This study emphasizes the significance of faculty attributions about quality assessments and shows that faculty participation is crucial in overcoming initial scepticism towards external interventions.

Keywords:

• quality assurance
• faculty members
• participation
• cognition
• quantitative research

Acknowledgement

Financial support from the 7th EU Framework Program (Marie Curie IRG contract 205031) is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank Jean Bartunek for her valuable comments on earlier versions of this article.