There are many different approaches to the concept of "quality," which focus on both "what" defines the quality of a service and "who" defines quality. A study funded by the British Library (England) sought to define an approach to quality appropriate for the delivery and effective management of public library…

This guide describes a quality process for external and internal evaluation of the elementary school education department. The term "pathway" is used to define routes through the quality process that describe any school administrative activity in terms of the indicators and examples of good practice. There are five pathways: process…

This volume presents descriptions of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) as it is being applied at 25 institutions of higher education. It offers 25 different perspectives on use of the strategic framework, and provides numerous ways to think about issues confronting campuses that decide to embrace CQI. An introduction outlines CQI's beginnings…

This paper takes the position that shrinking resources and increasing accountability have forced counselors to reassess the role of evaluation. This new role should afford evaluation a higher priority so that it becomes as much a part of counseling as the interpersonal skills that currently form the bulk of counselor training programs. Some…

This study compared five popular instruments for assessing the quality of family child care: the Child Development Associate Competency Standards (CDA); the National Association for Family Day Care Assessment Profile (NAFDC); the Child Care Partnership of Dallas Family Day Care Home Observation Instrument; the Louise Child Care Scale for…

The Advisory Committee on Federal Workforce Quality Assessment was chartered to examine various work force quality assessment efforts in the federal government and provide advice on their adequacy and suggestions on their improvement or expansion. Objective data in recent research suggested that a universal decline in work force quality might not…

A strategic plan to strengthen and expand the nation's existing apprenticeship system contains three components: apprenticeship promotion and marketing, national registration and tracking system, and quality. Efforts to promote apprenticeship must involve a two-pronged strategy that seeks both to develop new programs and expose potential program…

This booklet explores the idea of quality and its management as it applies to providers of education in particular, but also as it applies to national standards bodies and workplaces offering on-the-job training. It explores the focus on quality in industry and education and defines quality in terms of the features of quality and their…

This paper reports on results of three years (1988-1991) of state mandated external reviews of basic credential programs (elementary and secondary) at 33 California institutions of higher education. The review used teams of teacher educators, school administrators, classroom teachers, and other stakeholders to identify common strengths and…

This paper examines the adjustment of Napier Polytechnic of Edinburgh (Scotland, United Kingdom) to educational change. Discussed are: the historical development of the school; Napier's role in today's higher education; the school's shift from external to internal quality control of Council for National Academic Awards courses; the school's…

These two papers look at international aspects of quality in higher education from contrasting perspectives. The first paper, "Higher Education Quality: A European Dimension" by John Brennan asks whether there is a distinctive European dimension to quality in higher education and, if so, what are its implications for British institutions…

During the last few years, there has been a general emphasis in higher education on quality issues and the use of outcomes measures to assess institutional effectiveness. The quality emphasis in education suggests that previously defined performance standards are met through a review of outcomes assessment. This emphasis on outcomes measures…

This report is the result of an investigation by the New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled of the Bernard Fineson Developmental Center's policies and practices concerning sexual incidents among residents. It also raises broader issues about the meaning of consent when sexual activity involves persons with severe or…

In the context of the discipline of quality control, this paper identifies many of the tools which may reinvigorate the statistical and graphical toolkits in higher education. Certain statistical and graphical issues are discussed by means of examples and hypothetical situations, and techniques are introduced that have application for the pursuit…

This report is part of a study of school districts in British Columbia (Canada), and deals with school district ethos--interest in defined focal areas--both as a measure of school district quality and as a potential predictor of student achievement. The study concentrates on one of these focal areas--holding schools accountable through monitoring.…