Programme evaluation is essential for quality assurance in education. In this paper, we describe our evaluation strategy for the first year of a new medical programme. Although we used multiple methods in the evaluation, the use of the focus group method was core. This paper reports our experiences of focus groups for this purpose. We describe the…

A framework is described to assist institutions in evaluating the extent to which activities described as "quality improvements" or "quality enhancements" are likely to directly improve the student experience. The framework classifies ways of improving the student experience into "coaching improvements",…

This article provides the background and describes the processes involved in establishing a national approach to benchmarking the way universities engage with their local and regional communities in Australia. Local and regional community engagement is a rapidly expanding activity in Australian public universities and is increasingly being seen as…

The proposed quality assurance framework for higher education in Australia will, for the first time since the early 1990s, introduce a process of external quality monitoring through the auspices of the Australian Universities Quality Agency. There is little research that evaluates the impact of external monitoring on the experiences of staff,…

It is argued that university policies and procedures concerning assurance of quality education are framed with little regard for significant differences among disciplines, and that some common approaches to assuring academic quality impinge on some aspects of research, undergraduate teaching, and graduate work. Focus is on England and Australia.…

Issues that affect the use of performance indicators in managing educational quality are discussed in this paper. Recent changes in public-sector organizational management include the development of strategies for the management of change itself and the changing role of the public sector. A trend within the public sector is an increase in the…

When researchers evaluate social skills programs, they essentially are measuring progress towards a goal. How they measure this progress hinges on the precision of the goal statements, the identification of valid and realistic process and outcome indicators, and the selection of appropriate data and methods for collection. This paper outlines the…

Origins of Australia's university quality improvement program are outlined, and its design is examined. Issues discussed include implications of the program for individual institutions, its proposed method of redistributing research funds, and potential problems associated with performance appraisal. (MSE)

This paper addresses the issue of service quality evaluation within the higher education sector and stresses the need to develop measures that are both psychometrically and practically sound. The paper argues that recent debate surrounding the development of such measures has been too strongly geared toward their psychometric performance, with…

This conference proceedings presents 17 papers which examine quality assurance and evaluation in higher education, including methodologies, procedures, and ideas from various nations. The papers include: (1) "Quality Assurance in Higher Education" (Malcolm Frazer); (2) "Academic Standards Panels in Australia" (Kwong Lee Dow);…

In Australia the Federal Government plays a dominant role in higher education funding. Changes to the role and structure of the higher education system in 1988 aligned the universities more closely with national economic goals and sent the message to institutions that they were expected to adopt a more managerial mode of operation in order to…

A study tested a procedure to identify and weigh various indicators of college faculty research productivity, as one measure of program quality. Eighty-six faculty in 34 Australian schools of education were surveyed. Highly valued indicators of research productivity included refereed journal articles, peer reviewed books, and major competitive…

This paper seeks to provide a rationale for evaluating Technical and Further Education (TAFE) programs by using a management system approach that is based on corporate planning. The first section reviews the sources of increased demands for accountability in TAFE (societal, economic, government, and legislative sources) and examines various…

This collection of articles of international appeal on the future of vocational and technical education and training begins with an introduction by William Hall and includes the following papers: "New Vocationalism in the United States: Potential Problems and Outlook" (Benson); "Learning within a Work Context: Training Concepts,…

This book provides an overview of vocational-technical education and training (VTET) in the 10 member countries of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SAMEO). The book begins with an introduction explaining the objectives and methodology of the cooperative research project on which the study was based. Each of the 10…