Quality self assessment: a process of course team development or contrived collegiality and impression management?

Abstract

Ethnographic research in an FE College (College X) between 2000 and 2005 was designed to uncover the extent to which quality self-assessment processes had effectively utilised productive motivational inputs (i.e. lecturer self-interest, intrinsic motivation, altruism and tacit knowledge) in line with New Labour’s agenda of improved skills in students for employability and its egalitarian agenda of improved provision for disadvantaged students. The conclusion of such research was that top-down management within the college had limited the utilisation of productive motivational inputs because it created the context for contrived collegiality and impression management rather than course team reflection in line with New Labour’s skills and egalitarian agenda. Research suggested that a more effective QSA process would require senior managers in College X to adopt a more distributed leadership style so that motivational inputs beyond self-interest might be utilised, and to facilitate such leadership, a more de-centralised and trusting form of governance to shift the culture of College X from one of compliance with policy diktats to one of risk-taking and experimentation.

Keywords:

• policy
• governance
• rationality
• collegiality
• managerialism
• de-professionalism