European standards for quality assurance and institutional practices of student assessment in the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article analyses the student assessment procedures of 12 universities in the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic with respect to their alignment with the European standards and guidelines on the quality of assessing higher education students (European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance [ESG] 1.3). Based on qualitative methodology combining document review with semi-structured interviews, the analysis has yielded three major results. First, the assessment procedures of the UK universities studied indicate the highest alignment with the ESG 1.3 when compared to the Czech institutions, with the Dutch universities occupying the middle ground. Second, a preference for summative assessment to account for pressures of massification can be observed at institutions in all three countries. Third, it is argued that contrary to some (ministerial) expectations, the influence of the ESG on institutions seems to be insignificant, due to unawareness of the ESG 1.3 at all of the UK and Dutch universities analysed and only moderate knowledge of ESG 1.3 in the Czech case. For this reason, there seems to be a need for communicating the ESG to higher education institutions rather than revising the scope of the ESG as envisaged in the 2012 Bologna policy document (Bucharest Communiqué).

Keywords:

• student assessment
• quality
• standards
• guidelines
• implementation

Acknowledgements

This article has been supported by the EU multi-national project ‘Identifying barriers in promoting the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance at institutional level’ (IBAR, reg. No. 511491-2010-LLP-CZ-KA1-KA1SCR). The author is particularly grateful to Liudvika Leisyte and Catherine Owen for their comments and explanations.