Student perspectives on quality in higher education

Abstract

The study provides an insight into student perspectives on quality in higher education, using Harvey and Green conceptualizations as the point of departure, and exploring the linkages between the views on quality, the developments of the Bologna Process and related national reforms, as well as students' motivation for and expectations from higher education. Using the data collected in a survey of the student population in several European countries, the study shows that students have a multifaceted perception of quality in higher education, very homogenous with regards to ‘quality as transformation/added value’ perspective, but rather polarized with regards to ‘quality as value for money’ perspective. Students seem to prefer perspectives that put them in the centre of the process, though not necessarily only as active participants and co-creators of the higher education experience, but potentially also as passive consumers. The results show some blurring of the boundaries between the more traditional Humboldtian and the consumerist views on higher education among students.

Keywords:

• quality
• students
• Bologna
• Humboldt
• consumerist

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jens Jungblut is a Ph.D. research fellow at the Department of Education at the University of Oslo. He holds a MA in Political Science from the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz. His work focuses on higher education policy and governance, the influence of political parties on higher education policy, student unions and organizational change of higher education institutions.

Martina Vukasovic is a postdoc researcher at the Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Department of Sociology, University of Oslo. She holds a Ph.D. from Department of Education, University of Oslo. She is in particular interested in the relationship between European initiatives in higher education and the processes of policy and organizational change in higher education.

Bjørn Stensaker is professor of higher education at University of Oslo, Department of Education. He has written extensively on quality assurance, governance and policy reform in higher education, and is currently working on a number of projects related to changes in organizational identities, academic leadership and the governance of higher education institutions.

Notes

1. From 2001 onwards more than 20 European events have been specifically focused on quality assurance, some of which with the official ‘Bologna seminar’ label, and the European stakeholder organization participated in more than 30 projects thus far, in most cases with EU funding. Just in the TEMPUS IV programme of the EU (2007–2013) more than 40 projects focusing on quality were funded.

2. According to a Google Scholar search performed in late February 2014, since its publication the paper has been cited more than 1000 times, with half of the citations in the last five years (from 2009 onwards).

3. See http://www.esu-online.org/projects/archive/quest/ (page accessed 21 November 2014).

4. The 2005 version of the ESG was developed by the so-called E4 group consisting of European University Association, European Association of Institutions in Higher Education, ESU and European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). The same organizations, joined by Education International, BusinessEurope and the EQAR developed a proposal for the revised ESG, which was endorsed by the Bologna Follow-Up Group in October 2014 and will be subject of approval at the upcoming Bologna Ministerial Conference in Yerevan, Armenia in May 2014.

5. According to the data available in the EUROSTUDENT database: http://www.eurostudent.eu/results/data (page accessed 21 November 2014).

6. According to Eurydice (2013). Compare also to Bates and Kaye (2014) on how the introduction of a new fee regime in the UK changed students' expectations towards more ‘value for money’ approach.

7. All correlation coefficients are Kendall's tau-b. This is a better measurement of correlation, compared to the often used Pearson coefficient, when variables are on the ordinal level of measurement, as they are in this case (see Agresti and Finlay 2009 for elaboration of this point).

8. The respondents in general were rather poorly informed about the different QA mechanisms; approximately 60% had no or very limited knowledge about processes and procedures on the programme and institutional level, while for the European-level mechanisms the proportion of those with no or limited knowledge reached almost 80%.

Additional information

Funding

The data presented and analysed in this paper are the outcome of the ESU project ‘Quest for quality for students', which was funded through the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission. In addition, Martina Vukasovic acknowledges the financial support from the Odysseus programme of the Flemish Science Foundation (FWO).