Impact of institutional quality audit in the Aotearoa New Zealand university system

ABSTRACT

Assessing impact of external quality assurance is a critical component of the professional practice reflection of external quality assurance agencies. This paper analyses the responses of universities in Aotearoa New Zealand to recommendations made in the most recently completed cycle of academic audits using artefacts (universities’ one-year follow-up reports on responses to recommendations) from the quality assurance process. This approach allows for an assessment at system level and qualitative analysis provides further insight into thematic areas where response to recommendations is further advanced. One year after the release of audit reports, impact has been greater in the areas of leadership and management of teaching and learning and research student supervision. An index developed in the paper can support inter-institutional and inter-system comparative analyses of impact.

KEYWORDS:

• Impact of external quality assurance
• system-level
• Aotearoa New Zealand

Disclosure statement

Sheelagh Matear is the Executive Director of the Academic Quality Agency for New Zealand Universities (AQA). A brief summary of the results reported in this paper was published in the September 2019 AQA Newsletter https://www.aqa.ac.nz/sites/all/files/AQA%20News%20September%20FINAL%20VERSION%203%2019.pdf.