Measuring students’ performance and perceptions: empirical studies in different dimensions of quality assurance at a library school

Abstract

This paper is concerned with dimensions of quality assurance in learning. It focuses on three questions. The first concerns students’ performance in formal exams. The second question focuses on factors that influence student evaluation of teaching and the third is about the possible correlation or co‐variation between the marking of students at formal examinations and students’ perception of their profit in relation to the unit. The data consists of two sets. One is a comprehensive file of approximately 10,000 formal exams. The other set of data consists of approximately 4,000 SET evaluation forms. The marking of students at formal examinations is investigated in relation to factors such as the type of examination, the level of examination and teachers’ and external examiners’ marking patterns. The SET results are analysed in relation to factors such as the gender and experience of the teacher, the students’ efforts and workload and other educational variables. The paper also compares SET results with performance at formal exams and finds that a linear correlation does not exist.