Assuring Quality/Resisting Quality Assurance: Academics’ responses to ‘quality’ in some Australian universities

Abstract

Academics, although committed to quality in research and teaching, continue to resist quality assurance processes within their universities. This apparent paradox reflects a series of disputes surrounding issues of power, definition and efficacy. This article reports on a study of 30 academics from 10 Australian universities and details their responses to, and critiques of, quality assurance processes in their universities. It is argued that until university management, university quality agencies and academic staff in universities draw on mutually agreed understandings of this contested concept—quality—academics will continue to resist quality processes, treating them as games to be played and systems to be fed.

Keywords:

• quality
• academics
• student evaluations
• performance appraisals
• resistance

Notes

[1] It is debateable as to whether this does indeed constitute behaviour modification.