An Evaluation of the Impact of External Quality Monitoring on a Higher Education College (1993–98)

Abstract

ABSTRACT With the establishment, in August 1997, of a new UK‐wide Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), it is timely to reflect on the impact of the two principal forms of external quality monitoring which the QAA has replaced. First, the quality assessment by the funding councils, whose five‐year cycle of teaching quality assessment in universities and colleges in Scotland and Wales, which commenced in 1993, is now complete. Second, institutional quality audits of universities and colleges, conducted by the Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) between 1993 and 1997. This paper reports the results of a five‐year action research study conducted at a college of higher education. The particular focus of the study was on issues arising from the development and implementation of a quality assurance system at the study institution, and attempts to reconcile requirements for accountability and efforts to encourage quality improvement. The paper reviews and evaluates the impact of each of the forms of external monitoring, teaching quality assessment and institutional audit, on the study institution. Results are presented using qualitative and quantitative data drawn from external performance measures, such as the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) and HEQC quality assessment and audit reports, and internal measures of staff experience and perceptions. Lessons are drawn in relation to perceived benefits, or otherwise, of external quality assessment and quality audit, and consideration is given to the implications which the findings have beyond the study institution and the Scottish higher education sector, and in particular for the newly established Quality Assurance Agency.