Twenty Years of Quality Assurance in Higher Education: What’s Happened and What’s Different?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Twenty years ago, the federal government in the US first required institutional accrediting organisations, America’s principal mechanism for quality assurance in higher education, to review institutional practices with respect to the assessment of student learning outcomes. Much that affects quality assurance has changed in the ensuing two decades including a steadily increasing focus on undergraduate teaching and learning in the academy generally, transformed modalities for instructional delivery, and the fact that higher education quality assurance has become trans‐national. Impacts of these changes on quality assurance have rendered the process more intentional, more focused on undergraduate teaching and learning, and far more transparent. But the goal of providing adequate evidence of student learning remains elusive.