scholarly journals Academics’ Perceptions on Quality in Higher Education Shaping Key Performance Indicators

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4752 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanouil Varouchas ◽  
Miguel-Ángel Sicilia ◽  
Salvador Sánchez-Alonso

Institutions in higher education (HE) continuously strive to develop and deliver impactful educational programs. At the same time, they should continue to fulfill their mission to educate students in basic applied subjects and in parallel respond to the need to equip students with new skills. For this reason, higher education institutions (HEI) perform periodical curricular reviews adhering to internal and external quality assurance systems. The subsequent curricular reforms are of a transformative nature, preparing graduates to tackle the challenges of globalization, unemployment and vanishing professions. For these reforms to lead to sustainable curricula, the integration of quality into educational programs is instrumental. A suggested way of achieving a transformative stance is to provide the context for the application and diffusion of quality metrics in teaching and learning. This research intends to provide a discussion of key performance indicators (KPIs) related to quality. This paper presents the second round of qualitative interviews with higher education administrators and professors as a promising vehicle for advancing towards the formulation of KPIs based on their understanding of the different independent dimensions of the quality construct. These KPIs will provide valuable insights into improving teaching, learning and assessment and will eventually lead to sustainable curricula. Research findings outline the significance of the time invested to design and update a course, indicate that technology-enhanced learning solutions are perceived as key quality drivers, and point out the need to align courses with industry requirements and real-world problems. Additionally, findings indicate that the quality and impact of teaching and learning is promoted by the multi/inter-disciplinary character of a course, the engagement of students in interactive discussions and student research as part of summative assessment. The main contribution of this research is an analytic discussion of perceptions of higher education administrators and professors about quality, leading to a significant enrichment of the relevant literature. A set of innovative generic KPIs which can be used in multidimensional quality assessment in higher education is eventually proposed.

2022 ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
Gretchen Bartelson

Student success in higher education depends on a complex set of services that must be integrated seamlessly and delivered to students. This chapter looks at the complex, and often competing, interests of students, faculty, administration, and external stakeholders as they seek to improve student success in higher education. Administrators, mid-level managers, change agents, faculty and ancillary student support services all need to understand the importance of their role in working together to make the changes necessary to improve teaching and learning. The great challenge is managing the change that this will require. Educational institutions in the 21st century need to become agile and able to manage change imposed by both internal and external pressures.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Obeua S. Persons

This study has identified two important factors, unrelated to an instructor’s teaching ability, which can affect an instructor’s teaching evaluations.  The first factor, which has never been examined in any prior studies, is the section effect.  This study finds that teaching evaluations differ significantly across sections of the same course taught by the same instructor.  This section effect cannot be explained by six student-related variables.  The second factor, which is students’ pre-course interest measured at the beginning of a course, is found to be positively related to teaching evaluations.  These findings suggest that higher-education administrators may want to consider the section effect and the students’ pre-course interest when they evaluate an instructor’s teaching effectiveness for promotion, tenure and merit decisions.


Author(s):  
Maria Cutajar ◽  
Matthew Montebello

Networked technologies are found permeating all work and life activities even in the education realm. Today’s networked technologies are changing the way we interact within the online environment and amongst themselves. Networked technologies have unleashed a plethora of possibilities for educators to take advantage of by employing them as part of their teaching practices. In this paper are presented findings related to how academics are experiencing networked technologies for teaching and their relation to learning. A phenomenographic approach and subsequently a quantitative stance was employed to shed light on the nature and the current dynamic of such practices. This paper recounts the phenomenographic outcome, but it particularly attends to subsequent quantitative findings obtained from consideration of learning experiences against the phenomenographic map of variation in teaching experiences whereby an unexpected clustering trend was exposed. The outcomes of this exploratory research provide crucial and essential insights for higher education administrators and policy makers on how to regulate themselves with regards to the adoption of networked technologies within their institution.


Author(s):  
Lam Ngoc Quynh Le ◽  
Dung The Vu ◽  
Hien Ngoc Do ◽  
Thoai Tuong Lam ◽  
Trang Thi Thuy Vuu ◽  
...  

Higher education plays a crucial role in the economic and social development. In order to fulfill its role, mission, and vision, as well as enhance competitive advantages in the global integration context, universities have to put quality as the top priority. Recently, many universities nationwide have been developing quality assurance system, conducting self assessment, and pursuing accreditation in both program and institutional levels. This process aims at developing suitable action plan for quality improvement based on determined strengths and weaknesses. However, this process requires a huge effort to collect and analyze data. In order to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency, the key performance indicators (KPIs) are proposed to evaluate the quality of higher education programs in many aspects. Those KPIs can be considered as a set of statistical measures of how higher education programs are performing. This paper, therefore, provides some general definitions and proposes some KPIs in order to measure the quality of higher education programs in engineering and technology. However, findings of this study can be used as references for other programs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olesia Tomchuk ◽  
Viktoriia Tserklevych ◽  
Olena Hurman ◽  
Valentin Petrenko ◽  
Kateryna Chymosh

The article discusses the potential opportunities for leaders of higher education to monitor and implement development management functions using a system of key performance indicators, which is often used by various business entities. The authors adapted it to the needs of higher education institutions, integrating them with their characteristics.The formation of a system of key performance indicators in the article is disclosed from the point of view of improving the management system and motivation of the management and teaching staff of higher education. Approbation of the proposed methodology was implemented in the Institution of Higher Education, where it showed its effectiveness. The new system allowed the university professors to influence directly on the bonus part of income through their own work and efficiency.


Author(s):  
Dennis Foung

Use of algorithms and data mining approaches are not new to Industry 4.0. However, these may not be common for students and educators in higher education. This chapter compares various classification techniques: classification tree, logistic regression, and artificial neural networks (ANN). The comparison focuses on each method's accuracy, algorithm, and practicality in higher education. This study made use of a dataset from two academic writing courses in a university in Hong Kong with more than 5,000 records. Results suggest that classification trees and logistic regression can be easily used in the higher education context, but ANN may not be applicable in higher educational settings. The research team suggests that higher education administrators take this research forward and design platforms to realize these classification algorithms to predict at-risk students.


Nutrients ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1646
Author(s):  
Melissa D. Olfert ◽  
Rebecca L. Hagedorn ◽  
Ayron E. Walker ◽  
Rachel A. Wattick

The sharing of college food insecurity data with higher education administrators and stakeholders is essential to increase awareness of campus-specific food insecurity outcomes. This study utilized the evidence-Based forecast C-capture, A-assemble, S-sustain, T-timelessness (eB4CAST) approach to develop campus-specific food insecurity reports for researchers involved in a multi-institutional food insecurity study. eB4CAST reports were developed for each higher education institution (n = 22). The reports were four pages of visual data that included details of the eB4CAST approach and the multi-institutional food insecurity study, campus demographics, an overview of college food insecurity, food insecurity prevalence estimates at all participating institutions, and student use and awareness of campus resources, as well as the campus-specific resources that are available. The interpretation and forecasted use of the reports were evaluated through a 17-item online survey. The survey was completed by 26 content experts and showed a favorable perception of the eB4CAST institutional report. A majority of participants strongly agreed that the eB4CAST food insecurity report was clear to understand (72%), it was easy to read (64%), the statistics were easy to interpret (80%), it shared valuable information (92%), and it was impactful to their work (80%). Further, 84% of participants found the overall information of the report to be relevant and sharable. Participants forecasted disseminating the reports primarily to administration (77%) and with other faculty and staff (85%). These findings highlight the projected usability of the visualized data eB4CAST report across many sectors of college food insecurity research, which may help disseminate rapid findings on this emerging issue and increase awareness.


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