Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education

Hamish Coates (Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Melbourne, Australia)

Quality Assurance in Education

ISSN: 0968-4883

Article publication date: 1 October 2006

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Keywords

Citation

Coates, H. (2006), "Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 405-406. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880610703983

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


The 2005 book Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education offers an accessible discussion about how several institutions have responded to an important, and still emerging USA standard for performance excellence. It also provides descriptions of how institutions might best represent themselves if applying for a Baldridge National Quality Award (BNQA). Unfortunately, however, the book does not contextualise or explore these issues in sufficient critical depth to produce any major fresh or powerful understandings, either of institutional processes or of the criteria.

The introductory chapter provides a very broad descriptive picture of the BNQA criteria for educational performance excellence. These criteria do provide an important USA standard for performance excellence. These could have been made clearer in the chapter, however, by moving beyond the dot‐pointed summary which is provided, thereby offering more context and analysis. Even given the book's operational intent, a few introductory comments about the criteria and about the Baldridge National Quality Program would certainly have helped the reader better understand the focus, scope and rationale for the book. No explanation is given of how many USA institutions engage with the BNQA, nor why the six sampled institutions were selected.

The six case studies are well written by senior officers at the institutions described, yet often read more like strategic and operational plans than realistic assessments of actual institutional processes. Each of the chapter‐length descriptions tend to be very general and affirmative. The lack of analytical critique means that they do not address the complexities which are an inevitable and interesting part of institutional life. Many of the organisational processes described would seem to play a normal role in contemporary higher education, although the use of the BNQA criteria to frame the discussion does assist the reader to form links between the chapters.

Process management, for instance, is one of the seven BNQA criteria, and is focused on key learning‐centred processes related to educational programs and services that create student, stakeholder, and organizational value, and key support processes. In the second chapter we learn how the University of Wisconsin‐Stout manages the development of new degree programs, the assessment of student learning and academic programs, and monitoring of educational support processes. We learn that a variety of standardised instruments are used to monitor the quality of teaching and support services, that students take part in summative and formative assessments, and that various committees are involved in overseeing review and enhancement activities. Chapter six, in terms of the same criteria, informs us that Northwest Missouri State University uses a “Seven‐Step Planning Process to determine, design and deliver educational processes and to improve existing processes” (p. 173). The seven steps include: defining and validating key quality indicators, setting goals and objectives, formulating an assessment strategy, actioning planning and deployment strategy, setting baselines and tracking trends, searching for better practices, and setting targets of stretching goals. This model is applied to improve instruction, curriculum, teaching/advising, learning environments, and student services, a different approach to that taken by University of Wisconsin‐Stout.

The National University case study stands out from the rest. The chapter begins with a brief but telling analysis of the “culture of quality” at National University, even though this is weakened somewhat by claims made about the “current president, Jerry C. Lee… [who] infused the struggling institution with an entrepreneurial can‐do spirit … ” (p. 116). The chapter recovers, however, to provide insight into the “quality journey of National University” (p. 119) and a selection of empirical data on declines in GPA inflation. Even though the example is contestable on methodological grounds, it provides a flurry of life nonetheless.

The book is targeted squarely at senior managers and leaders in USA higher education institutions. While the descriptions of institutional processes would interest readers beyond this audience, many refer to forms of research or development which are endemic to the USA. Much background knowledge is assumed, including about the BNQA itself, which limits the relevance of the text to other readers. International readers would find most value in the text in terms of understanding a particular approach to quality assurance in the contemporary USA or, more specifically, understanding how institutions may adapt or market themselves to appeal to a quality assurance structure.

The final chapter attempts to draw together themes from the preceding case studies, but is officious in tone and fails to capture the interesting complexities and dynamics of institutional life. The seven page chapter presents eight half‐page descriptions of the lessons which have been learned. These very general descriptive observations, however, do not appear to spring directly from the case studies presented in the book, are not explored in serious depth, are not clarified through reference to any example, and say little about how institutions may tune their quality assurance systems or even how the BNQA criteria themselves may be enhanced. Given the use of the criteria as an organising structure throughout the book, it would have been appropriate to at least synthesise each of the six institution's responses to these.

In summary, Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education is perhaps best considered as a series of descriptive pictures that show how a group of USA institutions have marketed themselves in response to a particular conception of quality assurance. It presents a highly descriptive and effusive justification for a particular approach to quality assurance. The BNQA is undoubtedly an important aspect of quality assurance in the USA. The lack of critical reflection on the criteria or on how the selected institutions have addressed these does not, however, convince me of this. The last paragraph states that “The Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award criteria provide a simple but effective solution to address the unprecedented challenges faced by all higher education institutions. Are you ready?” (p. 219) I am not persuaded that I should be.

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