Education Quality Indicators Research Articles

Teacher education designed or framed

This chapter highlights conclusions from the previous chapters about factors impinging on the design of teacher education programs and then assembles a design brief informed by the research reviewed. It begins with economic and social factors impinging on the recruitment, preparation and retention of teachers. It then looks at overall national policy for teachers and teacher education. National indicators of teacher quality and the option of training teachers after a period in post are discussed. The focus then shifts to teacher education institutions and their staff, next to the design process itself on which several perspectives are offered. Finally it suggests that given the complexities of teacher education policy, a long-term strategic planning approach might be more appropriate than a more narrowly conceived design brief.

Quality indicators in higher education ‐ comparing Hong Kong and China’s students

There is growing concern in college management about the quality of education in tertiary institutions. For related studies, people normally encounter the problems of developing measurement indicators and identifying components of quality education. Some people use SERVQUAL, a technique making use of the gap between customers’ expectations and perceived experience as indicators of service quality, to measure quality of services offered by professionals such as physicians. Hampton applied the technique to identify and measure the significance of different components of quality education, by using the questionnaire designed by Betz, Klingensmith and Menne. Hampton’s findings sound reasonable but seem to be too simplified and confined to the characteristics of students in the USA. The expectations and perceptions of the students are often shaped and influenced by their cultural orientation and environments. Hong Kong students who are more pragmatic and instrumental may value less the significance of campus life on quality education but put more stress on assessment. This study is designed to apply the modified SERVQUAL skill to examine Hampton’s findings with reference to the students in a different social and cultural context. It is hoped that a list of quality indicators can be identified against which the performance of the higher educational institutes can be measured.

Some problems with using examination performance as a measure of teaching ability

It is commonly believed that the marks awarded at the end of a course reveal important information about the quality of teaching on that course. It is argued in the present paper that this assumption is unjustified for a variety of reasons: examinations are unreliable; standards vary across institutions and disciplines; markers may be biased; exams are a reactive measure; external examiners cannot guarantee standards; examinations are not valid; poor teaching does not necessarily lead to poor exam performance; exams may not reward desirable approaches to learning; students cheat; marks are often standardized; and marks are designed to tell us about students, not lecturers. It is concluded that the utmost caution must be exercised in using marks awarded as an indicator of teaching quality.

Prospects for change in medical education in the twenty-first century.

With Health for All as a social goal and a reference point, medical schools must create new alliances within the health sector and with other sectors bearing on health. The future role and responsibility of the medical school should reflect the likely essential features of the future health system and the aptitudes that medical practitioners will have to possess. Medical schools should be encouraged not only to shape their educational programs accordingly, but also to devote energy and resources to the considerable task of creating opportunities for this new practitioner. Quality in medical education results from a coordinated effort to ensure relevance and efficiency in the education of future doctors and to ensure these doctors' optimal fit in society. Implicit in the notion of quality is a special consideration for social accountability. A medical school shows social accountability through its commitment to addressing issues, or helping solve problems, identified jointly with society as priorities for both the present and the longer term, in the expectation that the medical school's action will benefit in part the local community and in part the country as a whole or the international community. Indicators of quality in medical education, as well as measurement tools, must be developed and tested in various sociocultural contexts. A taxonomy to assess the social accountability of medical schools is proposed.

Peer and Self‐assessment at Tertiary Level ‐‐ an experiential report

ABSTRACT One of the indicators of quality in undergraduate education is the extent to which self‐learning ability is nurtured. The authors have experimented with several approaches, some of which are reported in this paper. One part of the process of improving self‐learning ability lies in learning how to judge the quality of the work of others objectively and hence, eventually, one's own; another lies in finding and collating materials on a given topic in order to present it to others in note form, as an essay or as a brief ‘lecture’. Results are presented showing high correlations between students’ and lecturers’ assessments of individual essays and presentations. The paper addresses the need for these approaches to be made in absorbable and achievable steps, to build student confidence from experience and to give feedback to the students at each stage. Feedback concerning student opinion on the methods will be reported. The effect of students working in groups to give presentations or to make self‐ and...

Immunosuppressive early pregnancy factor (ISEPF) determination for pregnancy diagnosis in dairy cows

1. This paper argues that the most powerful, durable and effective agents of educational change are not the policy makers, the curriculum developers or even the education authorities themselves; they are the teachers. It further contends that the quality of the educational changes that teachers have the skills and opportunities to effect will only be as reliable and proficient as the teachers’ individual capacities for reflective practice and the development of self knowledge. These aspects of teacher development have, historically, been largely overlooked in the preparation and promotion of effective teachers. The emphasis has been more explicitly focused on the development and demonstration of teachers’ understanding of content knowledge and the associated pedagogies and in their capacities to understand their students as individual constructors of knowledge in diverse social contexts. Whilst the former teacher characteristics have traditionally been valued as desirable or even mandatory indicators of teacher quality, the latter are heavily impacted upon by the individual pedagogue's values, attitudes and notions of what it is to be a professional practitioner. In order for teachers to be effective in the Information Age, they need to recognize more than just their students’ background and learning preferences. They need to be able to take effective, positive action in the classroom context to improve the educational outcomes for their students. In order to do this they must have the willingness and cognitive capacities to recognize ethical dilemmas and examine their own perspectives on the issues they face critically and analytically. This requires regular, authentic reflection. The reflective process in which one teacher engaged as part of his role in a research study is documented...

Learning as an indicator of educational quality

ABSTRACT Concern over quality in higher education has been growing in Britain and the USA for the past 10 to 20 years. Yet what the students learn, which is the most critical element of educational quality, has been virtually ignored on both sides of the Atlantic. The usual indicators of quality, such as the abilities of the entering students or the reputation of the faculty, and even the judgements of accrediting and validating agencies, carry no information on what students completing a course or awarded a degree have learned. Although academic staff regularly observe their students' accomplishments, both informally and in examinations, the results of those observations are translated into grades and degree classes, which indicate only rough comparative levels of accomplishment. The substance of what was learned, the nature of the accomplishments being compared, is lost. Descriptive indicators that record the substance of student learning can be built into existing grading practices. A network of small ...

A performance indicator of teaching quality in higher education: The Course Experience Questionnaire

ABSTRACT Performance indicators (PIs) in higher education have focused chiefly on research outputs. They have largely ignored the teaching function of universities and colleges. This article outlines the development of a student evaluation instrument designed to measure the teaching performance of academic organisational units. The theory of teaching and learning that underlies the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is described. The instrument's statistical qualities and its ability to discriminate intelligibly between different courses are discussed in the context of results from national trials in Australian higher education. The principal conclusion reached is that the CEQ offers a reliable, verifiable and useful means of determining the perceived teaching quality of academic units in systems of higher education that are based on British models. Several technical and political issues remain unresolved in its application as a PI.

Tests—Fallible Indicators of Educational Quality

Tests—Fallible Indicators of Educational Quality

Is there a role for site visits in monitoring systems? A UK perspective

Abstract The paper is concerned with the part played in monitoring systems by the type of ‘site visit’ which is carried out by inspectors. The role of Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) is outlined and the efforts of the Government to extend inspection methods to Local Education Authority (LEA) monitoring is described. The contribution which inspection can make to educational monitoring systems locally and nationally is assessed against the criteria of comprehensiveness, timeliness, and acceptability. The paper emphasises the point that descriptions of inspection as a mode of evaluation constitute a major lacuna in the literature. It is argued that as inspection becomes more common place it will be increasingly necessary to clarify and make explicit the assumptions and methodology on which it is based. It is suggested that inspection also has the potential to generate performance indicators of educational quality.

Educational quality indicators in the United States: Latest developments

Educational quality indicators in the United States: Latest developments

A reassessment of the indicators of primary education quality in developing countries: Emerging evidence from Tanzania

This article seeks to identify factors affecting the quality of primary education in five regions of Tanzania by extensively reviewing relevant literature and empirical data. Some of the shortcomings emphasised by the author are: frequent staff turnover, declining financial support for primary education, ineffective curricula, shortage of teachers' guides and textbooks, and unfavourable working conditions for teachers in rural areas. Beyond this, the need for freely available material, efficient school management and regular inspections is stressed by the author.

Quality indicators in Venezuelan higher education

The development and rational use of quality indicators is a priority need for Venezuelan higher education. This assertion does not mean that such indicators are not needed at other levels of the educational system, but rather that higher education does demand them as a condition for introducing accountability criteria into the system, given the magnitude of the financial resources allocated to higher education: 37% of the 1983 total budget allocated to education (CNU-OPSU, 1984).