Internal quality assurance: A new culture or added bureaucracy?

Abstract

This paper analyses teaching and non-teaching staff perceptions on the implementation of internal quality assurance (QA) practices at their higher education institutions. The aim is to understand how far different perspectives on quality – as culture, as compliance or as consistency – are reflected in the views of these two groups on such practices. Data from a survey sent to all Portuguese institutions show that, to some extent, the perspectives of quality as culture and quality as compliance seem to permeate both groups’ views. This is evident in regard to the factors identified as supporting the development of internal QA, the main features underlying the implementation of such practices and their main effects. As the study allows for a better understanding on how these practices are perceived by teaching and non-teaching staff, it can contribute to promoting the critical reflection of institutions about QA and the way it can be both more effective and aligned with academia’s needs and expectations, contributing to influencing institutional practices.

Keywords:

• Internal quality assurance
• higher education institutions
• teaching staff
• non-teaching staff

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the FCT through the project PEst-OE/CED/UI0757/2013 (funded by the Programme COMPETE) and under the grant EXCL/IVC-PEC/0789/2012 - GLONATINS - Global Challenges, National Initiatives, and Institutional Responses - Mapping the Transformation of Portuguese Higher Education Institutions at the Dawn of the Twentieth-First Century. Disclosure statement Authors acknowledge that no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of their research and, therefore, that no conflict of interest occurred.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sónia Cardoso

Sónia Cardoso is a researcher both at the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) and at the Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES). She completed her PhD in Social Sciences under the topic of Quality Assurance in Higher Education. Her main research interests and publications, in reference journals and books, are within the fields of higher education policies, quality assurance, and institutions a d institutional actors’ relation with quality assurance. She is a member of CHER.

Maria J. Rosa

Maria João Rosa is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism at the University of Aveiro, a senior researcher at CIPES and a collaborator researcher at GOVCOPP. Her main research topic is quality management, with a special focus in higher education systems and institutions. She has several publications on the subject, namely in different journals, and she also co-edited different books on the theme. She is a member of CHER and EAIR (where she has been a member of the executive committee for several years).

Pedro Videira

Pedro Videira holds a PhD in Sociology and is a researcher at Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES). His main research interests lie in the area of higher education and science policies, namely in recent changes to the academic profession, quality assurance processes in higher education institutions, individual and institutional kowledge transfer processes and scientific mobility. Alberto Amaral is a professor at the University of Porto and a researcher at CIPES. He was the rector of the University of Porto from 1985 to 1998 and former chair of CHER. He is life-member of IAUP and former member of the Board of IMHE/OECD. At present he is the chair of the administration council of the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES).