Performance measurement in the public sector is largely based on objective metrics, which may be subject to gaming behaviour. This paper investigates a novel subjective performance evaluation system where independent inspectors visit schools at very short notice, publicly disclose their findings and sanction schools rated fail. First, I…

This study analyzes how the world class university (WCU) project in Korea is perceived by participating international scholars and Korean principal investigators by conducting focus group interviews and utilizing semantic network analysis. While international scholars and Korean principal investigators agree that the success of WCU depends on…

This study explores responses to rankings from a group of staff working as education partnership facilitators for a professional intermediary organisation, the British Council. The study adopts an activity systems perspective from which to view the contexts in which rankings are encountered and the range of practices used to reduce tensions…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a service quality measurement scale for a secondary school setting in Mauritius. Design/methodology/approach: Research was conducted in two stages. First, a focus group method with the educators was used to identify the service quality dimensions and scale items. Study 2 used the…

This paper is an approach to the construction of a European educational space (Nóvoa & Lawn, 2002), which is due to new modes of regulation in education. The policy under consideration is the institutional evaluation of schools carried out by the Portuguese General Inspectorate of Education. The aim is to explore how concepts and policies get…

American educators are expected to be partners in the rearing of our children, with crucial roles in children's intellectual and moral development both. We therefore must find thoughtfully balanced ways of assessing school performance and engineering school reform. In this essay, a high school principal reflects on recent accountability reforms in…

This article refers to a study on how the school principal engaged in the process after a school self-evaluation. The study examined how two primary schools followed up the evaluation. Although they both used the same evaluation tool, the schools' understanding and application of results differed greatly. This paper describes and discusses the…

The short-term emphasis engendered by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has focused research predominantly on unraveling the complexities and uncertainties in assessing short-term results, rather than developing methods and assessing results over the longer term. In this paper we focus on estimating long-term gains and address questions important to…

This research explores the attainment of learning outcomes of first year seminar participants through institutional assessment and programmatic assessments methods. This research compared the lived experiences of first year seminar participants to their perceptions of leaning gains captured by the National Survey of Student Engagement. The study…

The centerpiece of the United States government's commitment to assuring that more Americans enroll in college and earn a degree is a massive system of federal financial aid that delivers billions of dollars to millions of students enrolled in accredited universities across the country. Since 1952, the federal government has relied upon…

Accreditation is a process of external quality review used by higher education education to scrutinize colleges, universities, and educational programs for quality assurance and quality improvement. In the United States, accreditation is carried out by private, nonprofit organizations designed for this specific purpose. Institutions and…

This paper attempts to provide an overview of the key assumptions underpinning the "Whole School Evaluation" (WSE) inspection policy developed in Ireland since 2003. Beginning with a documentary analysis the paper argues that the capacity to generate useful self evaluative data in schools was seen as being at the heart of the model of…

The relationships between disciplines and the institutions within which they are situated is a fertile area for researching the shaping of sociological knowledge. Applying theoretical insights from the sociology of knowledge, this article draws on an empirical study of research publications in the sociology of health and medicine to show which…

Internationalisation has transformed into mainstream strategy in higher education and is increasingly seen as adding value to the life of universities through improving its quality. But how do we assess the quality of internationalisation? This article evaluates a pilot project that aimed to qualitatively assess the internationalisation of…

The Southern Education Foundation (SEF) engaged a group of 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a study of institutional effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to: (1) identify the issues related to capacity and institutional practice that contribute to overall campus effectiveness; and (2) to understand what, and how,…