CC BY
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Section 9. Pedagogy
Melnichuk Marina Vladimirovna, Financial University Doctor of Sciences, Professor, Head of the Chair of Foreign Languages - 3
E-mail: [email protected] Varlamova Alla Igorevna, Financial University Assistant Professor, Chair of Foreign Languages - 3 E-mail: [email protected] Osipova Valentina Mihkailovna, Financial University Assistant Professor, Chair of Foreign Languages - 3 E-mail: [email protected]
Quality criteria as a key element of higher education
Abstract: The article deals with the problem of quality assessment in the field of higher education in the world. The authors describe the solution of the problem in the modern period of reforms and globalization and authors’ analysis of main quality assessment approaches are presented in the article.
Keywords: higher education, quality improvement, quality criteria, quality assessment, traditional and alternative approaches.
Quality is a key aspect of higher education. In many countries that are striving to guarantee all students the right to education, the emphasis on access to education often leads to the fact that the issues of quality of education remain in the shadows. But the quality of education depends on the volume and degree of assimilation of the students received knowledge; other than that it is the quality of education determines the extent to which students will be able in the future to take advantage of this knowledge to their personal and social development and the contribution they can make to the development of the country. Emphasis should be placed on improving the quality of higher education in all its aspects. But there are different approaches of quality improvement and quality assessment in the world.
How to study quality issues in the light of such different approaches?
Let us consider some possible solutions.
In Austria, the Act of 1997 on the quality assessment of education calls for measures to ensure the quality of the universities. In 2000 a law on accreditation was adopted for private universities. Britain did not follow the path of mutual recognition of accreditation procedures. A national approach is based, or rather moving towards mutual recognition of studies and qualifications. UK do not advocate the creation of a single comprehensive European Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, as it believes that successfully operating system to ensure the quality of training should be sensitive to the expanding needs of a particular society, which are institutions of higher education. As the best way of strengthening cooperation in this field is to ensure they offer the comparability of learning outcomes.
Due to the nature of the education system in Scotland, measures to ensure the quality are somewhat different from the others. Funding Council for Higher Education in Scotland is officially authorized to assess the quality of educational services in 50 state-run institutions. In collaboration with
the Council and the higher education institutions a method ofinstitutional audit to improve the quality has been developed. This model considers greater involvement of students in the assessment process. It is used now in partnership with relevant stakeholders. This approach is used only in Scotland and includes a national student development service for those students who wish to take part in activities to ensure the quality, and the national theme in the field of quality improvement. The priority directions of quality improvement in Scotland are «evaluation» and «satisfaction of students.»
In Italy, the only functioning institution that assesses the quality of education is the National Committee of quality assessing (NCQA). Its responsibilities include the definition of common criteria for evaluating some universities, facilitate
the appropriate pilot scheme, expansion of some valuation
techniques, development of an annual program of external quality assessment in universities. Another important task of NCQA is to determine the criteria and methods of harmonization of the internal quality control conducted by relevant departments of universities. At the request of the Ministry, the Committee also plays an advisory role, conducts preliminary assessment and defines the standards, parameters and methodology rules. There is also a method of evaluating training programs involving the assignment of degree (bachelor’s or master’s degree), which is used in universities on a voluntary basis.
Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NAQA) was established by the Parliament of Norway in
2002. The Agency is an independent government agency created to oversee the quality of the higher education system through the assessment, accreditation and recognition of quality of systems, institutions and courses. The Agency performs the following functions:
— monitors the quality of higher education;
— evaluates the work of private universities as well as public universities which want to change their status;
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Quality criteria as a key element of higher education
— accredits academic courses when such accreditation can not be given to a specific institution;
— monitors and evaluates the accreditation which have been already given.
All Finnish universities are obliged to assess their own work and to participate in an independent evaluation. An evaluation report is open to the public. Students play an important role in all assessments. Most evaluations are measured by international experts. Finnish Council of Higher Education Evaluation (FCHEE) was established in 1995 to assist universities in the assessment [13].
The European Union investigated the impact of education on the economic growth. It was proved conclusively that advance in the education level increases macroeconomic performance. In particular, according to the data of the foregoing EU investigation, the annual 1% human capital increase in the higher education ensures 5.9% increase in the GDP growth rate per capita. The average training period (with account for the school, BA, MD and the doctoral degree training) is permanently increasing worldwide. By this indicator the leadership belongs to Australia where the average education term is 21 years; in the G8 countries between 1950 and 2012 the average period of the human cognitive activity only in the course of primary education increased by about 50% [4].
However, the conditions needed for the innovative socially oriented economic development are placing greater demands on the level of people’s education. Over the recent years, the international community is challenged with a problem of assessing the quality of education due to fundamental changes in views on the education management itself.
On the one hand, we are witnessing the globalization of the world economy and hence education. On the other hand, it is quite understandable that each state, including Russia, desires to have its own national competitive system of higher education. Therefore, the problem of the quality of education in modern society is viewed both at the state level and at the level of higher education institutions themselves, thereby setting the vector of development for new areas of the pedagogical theory and practice. This background has given a fresh impetus to the research in the education sphere. “International organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development publish a variety of expert estimations and international statistical data that affect the national policy of education reforms and corresponding legislative initiatives. At the same time their analysis yields an unbiased assessment of national processes taking into account the specifics of a particular country” [1, p.14]. However, the authors are quite right to point out that the political integration makes the definition of national boundaries needed for carrying out comparative studies difficult and not to be taken for granted, because earlier there existed traditional frameworks for the internal (national) and foreign (European) policies.
What is normally understood by the quality of education? A short glossary of quality management terms for higher and
secondary vocational education gives the following definition: “The Quality of Education is well-balanced compliance of education (viewed as a result, as a process, as an educational system) with statutory needs, objectives, requirements, regulations (standards)” [3]. This definition allows better understanding of the Berlin Communique requirements for national higher education quality assurance (QA) systems which include:
— definition of the responsibilities of universities and other institutions engaged in the educational process;
— comparable criteria and methodologies for assessing the quality of education;
— external and internal evaluation of university education programs, also with students participation;
— the system of accreditation, certification and similar procedures;
— evidence of international participation in assessment, international cooperation and international scientific and educational networks [2].
No less relevant is the issue of new forms of monitoring, assessment and certification of student achievements that could take into account trends towards integration into the world educational space. Solutions are closely connected with the investigation into the problem of assessing the quality of education in the higher education system with reference to the best world standards of the QA system organization. One of possible ways might be to study the USA experience. The American system of higher vocational education is focused on the development of the individuality of a future specialist, it is diversified and has its own traditions in seeking new forms of education quality assessment. In this context, a comprehensive analysis of the experience gained in ensuring the quality of the US university training, identifying its components, revealing the most valuable ideas and results of their implementation in educational practices presents not only theoretical interest but is of practical value.
The US higher school experience is also important from the point of view of its challenges also relevant for the current Russian education system: cutbacks in state funding and withdrawal of the federal government from the higher education; excessive specialism in training; undue expansion of elective courses in the vocational training program; the need to enhance the state participation in the higher school sector while maintaining the autonomy of universities.
In the US system of the higher education quality assessment there are traditional and alternative approaches. The traditional approach uses a three-level assessment: the educational institution level, the curriculum level and the course of study level. The traditional approach to evaluating the quality of the institution and the quality of the proposed curriculum is based on existing rankings and a certain reputation; the emphasis is placed on the peer assessment by authorized persons of a university, heads of departments or deans of faculties. It should be noted that the traditional approach to evaluating the quality of education has been
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used in the United States for a long time: the ranking practice was pioneered by the famous American psychologist
J. Cattell (1910); later, quite a number of investigations on the ranking issue were performed by R. Hughes. At present, the annual ranking of the best universities according to US News & World Reports (USNWR) takes into account the following seven assessment categories analyzed by C. Conrad and D. Gupta in the “Traditional and Emerging Approaches to Assessing the Quality of Higher Educational Institutions, Programs and Courses” [5]:
1. Peer assessment (25%) — The prestige is estimated by rectors, vice-rectors and deans of the universities that fall into the same category;
2. Students (15%) — The ratio of enrolled students to applicants; the proportion of enrolled students included in top ten percent of high school graduates; SAT and ACT tests;
3. Higher Educational Institution (20%) — Financing; the percentage of faculties granting the highest academic degrees; the percentage of FTE faculties; students-to-faculty ratio; the percentage of BA degree groups with less than 20 students and more than 50 students;
4. Graduates and expelled students (20%) — The percentage of first-year students who applied for the six-year program and the percentage of first-year students who returned after expulsion a year later;
5. Finance (10%) — The average costs for a FTE student (training, research, services);
6. Donations from alumni (5%)
7. The actual and proj ected percentage of graduates on the six-year training program (5%).
Therefore, the assessment of the education quality takes into account an aggregate of components making it possible to apply a system-based approach to the education system and provide a full analysis of the quality of education at a higher educational institution.
Although such an approach has proved its effectiveness and exists for almost a century, it is still facing criticism from researchers in this field. A number of American scientists bring up the issue of biased quality assessment using of the above criteria [8, p.256-261]:
— experts may be misinformed about the quality of education in a given educational institution;
— alumni can overrate their university;
— the level of students who study at a university that is assigned a high rating is often overestimated;
— current teaching quality may be inconsistent with the rating assigned a couple of years ago;
— experts conducting the assessment may be influenced by the age or size of the institution.
According to R. Harnett, M. Clark and others, these ratings hardly reflect the quality of teaching or the level of civil and social responsibility as well as the level of students cooperation [10, p. 1310-1314]. Much more criticism is expressed by C. Conrad and D. Eagan calling such ratings “game of prestige” played by universities and colleges to
maintain their status and reputation, rather than to improve the quality of education [7, p. 5-16].
In 1986, C. Conrad and R. Blackburn [6, pp.249-266] identified four main areas required for evaluation of the curriculum: university, students, resources and learning outcomes. Thus, it was proposed to assess the quality oflearning programs taking into account the quality of the teaching staff, the quality of student learning outcomes and the quality of material and technical resources. Moreover, each component should be considered individually to achieve more reliable evaluation results, and the curriculum must be assessed by three categories — formative assessment, summative (final) assessment and assessment of the progress in mastering the curriculum — since each type of assessment pursues its own purpose [9, 11].
The purpose of the formative assessment is to improve the quality of the learning program by providing constructive information. This type of assessment helps a new program either enter the desired level or get asserted or help the existing program to try new strategies to improve its quality [9].
The summative (final) assessment summarizes the effectiveness of the program based on the results obtained in the course of the program implementation or after its completion. It determines the overall quality of the program and its advantages [12].
Along with traditional approaches to the education quality assessment there emerge alternative methods. On the one hand, alternative approaches focus on the evaluation of a higher educational institution, its curriculum and a course of studying a certain discipline, and on the other hand, the assessment system is based on the learning outcomes. Therefore, an attempt was made to get away from the summative assessment in favor of the instructional process and development of the individual educational space of students.
The most popular investigation to gauge the education quality at the educational institution level is “The National Survey of Student Engagement — NSSE)” funded by the J. Howard Pugh public charity fund and conducted under the supervision of the Indiana University. The term “student engagement” is understood by American researchers as learning in the active environment where certain conditions are created for the active cooperation of all participants in the educational process.
Contrary to traditional forms of assessment (e. g., ranking) focused on the amount of resources available for training, NSSE pays special attention to how universities engage students in the learning process. The main goal of the NSSE is getting information about the participation of students in different programs and the life of their institution. This is done to find out how students spend their time and what they receive as a result of training, all of which, in turn, is necessary to improve the quality of education.
As it happens, the main criterion in assessing a higher education institution is whether it meets the collaboration principle, while the priority of the individual becomes the
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principal benchmark in the learning process. To be taken into account is creation of proper conditions for self-realization and development of the student. The principal feature of this type of assessment is its reliance on the learning outcomes rather than on the quantity of various resources provided by the university or a certain rating.
When assessing the quality of the learning program, American experts are paying increasing attention to such forms of quality assessment that are based on indicators of the student’s learning level rather than on quantitative or ranking indicators: high quality programs are those that take into account joint activities of students, teachers and administration. Alternative systems of the higher education quality assessment in the USA address the problem in question at three levels — they analyze the activities of higher education institutions, evaluate the curriculum and the course
of study. In doing so they estimate the quality of teaching taking into account the development of knowledge and skills of students [14].
Conclusion
Thus, the quality of education has a worldwide basis. It is noted in the program of socio-economic development of Russia that the current education system does not fully meet the needs of the labor market. In connection with this fact a priority for the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of education are:
— legislative support of modernization in the field of higher education;
— bringing the content and structure of the professional training in line with current labor market needs;
— increasing the availability of educational services;
— creating an independent quality evaluation.
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