Quality work in higher education: a multi-stakeholder study

Abstract

Quality in higher education has been at the top of the political agenda for years, motivating discussion of how to define quality and how standards and assessment can promote quality. However, the literature tends to overlook the processes and practices constituting ‘every-day’ quality. To improve quality, it is important to know how quality is perceived and enacted by the key stakeholders, namely the students, teachers, administrative staff and managers. Informed by the findings of a survey, this article aims to identify and compare the local practices of quality work at higher education institutions in Denmark. The analysis reveals that students, teachers and managers across sectors to a large extent share views on quality work highlighting practices that help develop students’ academic skills, the ability to apply these to practice and the continuous development of teaching practices. Some differences are however also apparent, for example, concerning employability orientation in higher education.