1997:46

L I C E N T I A T E T H E S I S

Quality in Higher EducationApproaches to its management and improvement

Robert Lundqvist

Luleå tekniska universitet

Licentiate thesisInstitutionen för Industriell ekonomi och samhällsvetenskap

Avdelningen för Kvalitetsteknik och statistik

1997:46 - ISSN: 1402-1757 - ISRN: LTU-LIC--97/46--SE

Quality in higher education – approaches to its management and

improvement

Robert Lundquist

Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences Division of Quality Technology & Statistics

Luleå University of Technology SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden

Acknowledgements The thesis you are holding is the result from attempts to come to grips with quality management in higher education. This venture begun some time in 1994, after about six years of full-time teaching. I had come to a point where the opportunity to embark on a different journey with new challenges seemed very promising.

Since then I have been able to devote half my time to teaching and the remaining part to studies. There has been periods when time has been lacking, periods of hard work and doubts. However, as these periods have passed, I can say that it altogether has been very stimulating. It has for example meant opportunities to read a number of interesting books and to meet many nice and knowledgeable individuals. My perceptions of both quality management and many other issues have been challenged. My world has simply become both more complex and more stimulating.

I would therefore like to express my sincere appreciation to all of you who have made this journey possible and so rewarding. The financial means have mainly come from Luleå University of Technology, but significant parts have also come from the Swedish Institute for Quality, SIQ. My supervisor Bengt Klefsjö has learnt me a lot by his ability to spot inconsistencies and flaws in manuscripts. My colleagues have often had to put up with obscure statements which I sometimes have had difficulties to understand myself. The conversations with Rob Carmichael at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and Bengt Hartvig, whom I first met at Linköping University Hospital, have also meant a lot for clearing up my shrouded perceptions of quality management in higher education. The opportunities to work on a more hands-on level, as for example with the staff at the university library, have also been very rewarding.

As for substantial input, I would finally like to mention my wife Regine Nordström. Every now and then we have had some difficulties to reach a common understanding in our constant discussions, but despite, or perhaps even because of this, I think she has understood what I have been trying to say better than most.

Our children, Anna and Karl, have also been very important. Having them around has constantly made me think about what really is important in life. Not that I have come to any conclusion yet, but they will presumably continue to make me think, so there is still hope.

I am grateful to you all.

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Abstract Issues related to quality have received more attention in both society at large and higher education during the last decades. Concepts such as ‘Total Quality Management’ and ‘continuous improvement’ have become prevalent terms in the discussions around quality issues.

The overall intention of this thesis is to study quality management in higher education, and more specifically, to see if and how perspectives with their origin outside higher education could provide means to improve the activities in that setting.

The first element in the thesis is an attempt to formulate a general framework for quality management as it refers to higher education. Secondly, three specific investigations into quality issues in higher education are described. The first of these is a study of how self-assessments according to criteria in the Swedish Quality Award could be used in higher education. The second is a study of the use in higher education of quality systems and the ISO 9000 set of standards for such quality systems. The third is a discussion of similarities between developments in trade and industry on one hand and higher education on the other.

As a very general conclusion, perspectives such as ‘Total Quality Management’ are argued as being both relevant and meaningful in higher education. Interpreted comprehensively, this perspective and other related concepts seem not only valid, but also a means to find possible improvements. The areas which are discussed are both administrative or support activities and academic areas.

As for results from the studies of self-assessments according to quality awards and of quality systems, both these instruments seem valid and useful in higher educational settings. The main intention with the actual kind of assessment which has been studied is that it could result in an understanding of possibilities for improvements. Even though the assessment method comprises some perspectives which are not common in higher education, it seems reasonable to assume that the intended result could be attained.

The study of quality systems indicates that this kind of instrument can also provide a basis for improvements, although from another starting point. Implementations of such systems have in several cases resulted in a structure for quality management, whereby possibilities for improvements are more easily discerned. Both studies suggest, however, that use of instruments such as those considered is not unproblematic. Underlying motives and resource issues are some examples of possibly problematic aspects.

The discussion of similarities between higher education and developments in trade and industry is finally an attempt to show that a TQM perspective is valid not only as means for improvement in areas such as administrative affairs, but also in core activities such as teaching and learning. However, even if the adoption of this perspective could result in improvements, there are obstacles to such an adoption. Change is seldom achieved in a straightforward manner in any kind of organisation. Besides any general obstacles, higher education also seems to bear a number of characteristics which may be particularly significant. Two such impediments which are discussed are the organisational structure and the use of grades.

Keywords: Total Quality Management, higher education, quality systems, self-assessments, quality awards, impediments to change.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgements...................................................................................................... i Abstract ..................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents....................................................................................................... 5

Tables and figures.............................................................................................8 1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Why study quality management in higher education? ............................1 1.2 Scope and limitations of the thesis .........................................................2 1.3 Aims .....................................................................................................4 1.4 Structure of the thesis............................................................................5

Part 1: A framework for quality management and quality improvement in higher education..................................................................... 7

2 Quality management – a general framework.................................................... 9 2.1 Vocabulary............................................................................................9

2.1.1 What is a customer?...............................................................9 2.1.2 The quality concept.............................................................10 2.1.3 Effectiveness, efficiency and change .....................................12 2.1.4 Constructs related to quality ................................................15 2.1.5 Concepts: definitions or circumscriptions?............................15 2.1.6 Vocabulary – concluding remarks ........................................16

2.2 Total Quality Management .................................................................16 2.2.1 What constitutes TQM? ......................................................17 2.2.3 Criticism of TQM...............................................................19 2.2.4 TQM – concluding remarks ................................................19

3 Higher education ...........................................................................................21 3.1 Perspectives on higher education.........................................................21

3.1.1 Learning ..............................................................................22 3.1.2 Higher education as an organisational structure ....................23 3.1.3 The student perspective .......................................................24 3.1.4 Perspectives – concluding remarks .......................................24

3.2 Common patterns in contemporary higher education..........................24 3.2.1 Mass higher education .........................................................25 3.2.2 Changing roles ....................................................................25 3.2.3 Funding restraints ................................................................26 3.2.4 Accountability .....................................................................26

3.3 Common approaches to quality in higher education............................26 3.3.1 Quality assurance .................................................................27 3.3.2 Assessment...........................................................................27

4 Total Quality Management in higher education..............................................33 4.1 Roles for TQM in higher education ...................................................34 4.2 Tools and methods..............................................................................35 4.3 Prevalence ..........................................................................................35 4.4 Problems encountered.........................................................................36 4.5 Comparisons between contemporary practice and elements of

a TQM strategy ..................................................................................37 4.6 TQM in higher education – concluding remarks.................................39

Part 2: Three studies of approaches to management and improvement of quality in higher education .......................................................41

5 Using a quality award for self-assessments in higher education.........................43 5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................43 5.2 The Swedish Quality Award ...............................................................43

5.2.1 Steps in the assessment process .............................................44 5.2.2 Underlying perspective in the evaluation .............................47

5.3 The study ...........................................................................................47 5.3.1 Assessments..........................................................................47 5.3.2 Experiences from the assessments .........................................49

5.4 Interviews...........................................................................................50 5.4.1 Linköping University Hospital .............................................50 5.4.2 The Department of Computer and Information

Science, Linköping University of Technology .....................51 5.4.3 Use of the SQA in schools ...................................................51

5.5 Results from assessments and interviews ..............................................51 5.5.1 The self-assessment method .................................................52 5.5.2 Conceptual differences.........................................................52 5.5.3 Assessments as a starting point for quality

improvement.......................................................................53 5.5.4 The quest for the award.......................................................53 5.5.5 Assessment by whom?..........................................................54

5.6 Limitations of the study.......................................................................54 5.7 Conclusions ........................................................................................54

6 Quality systems and ISO 9000 in higher education .........................................57 6.1 Introduction .......................................................................................57 6.2 Quality systems – general description ..................................................57 6.3 Standards for quality systems................................................................58 6.4 Definitions of some concepts related to quality according to

ISO 8402............................................................................................59 6.5 ISO 9000............................................................................................59

6.5.1 History and future ...............................................................61 6.5.2 Implementation of quality systems defined by a

standard ...............................................................................61 6.5.3 First-party, second-party and third-party audit .....................61 6.5.4 Certification and accreditation .............................................62 6.5.5 Prevalence ...........................................................................63 6.5.6 Criticism of ISO 9000 .........................................................63

6.6 Quality systems in higher education ....................................................64 6.7 Support for implementation in educational settings..............................65 6.8 The study ...........................................................................................66

6.8.1 The questionnaire................................................................66 6.8.2 The search for relevant institutions.......................................66 6.8.3 The institutions....................................................................66 6.8.4 Results ................................................................................67 6.8.5 Limitations in the study .......................................................78 6.8.6 Consequences of the limitations in the study........................79

6.9 Possibilities for further studies..............................................................80

6.10 Conclusions ........................................................................................80 7 Quality improvement of teaching and learning in higher education –

a comparison with developments in industrial settings.....................................83 7.1 Introduction .......................................................................................83 7.2 Developments in trade and industry ....................................................83 7.3 Important elements of TQM...............................................................84 7.4 TQM in education..............................................................................85

7.4.1 Customer needs...................................................................86 7.4.2 Process orientation...............................................................86 7.4.3 Continuous improvement....................................................87

7.5 Analogies between industry and higher education ...............................88 7.5.1 The organisational structure in higher education ..................88 7.5.2 The grading and sorting mechanism.....................................88

7.6 Could a similar development take place in higher education? ..............89 7.7 Conclusions ........................................................................................90

Part 3: Closing the circle ...................................................................93 8 Limitations .....................................................................................................95

8.1 Possible deficiencies ............................................................................95 8.2 What has not been covered?................................................................95 9 Possible directions for further studies ...................................................97

10 Conclusions....................................................................................................99 References...............................................................................................................105 Appendices ..............................................................................................................113 Appendix 1: Institutions involved in the study of ISO 9000 ...................113 Appendix 2: The questionnaire used in the study of ISO 9000...............117 Appendix 3: Internet resources used in the study of ISO 9000 ...............123 Appendix 4: Addresses to the International Organization for

Standardization 125

Tables and figures Table 1.1: Number of full-time students enrolled in public or private tertiary education

per 100 persons in the population aged 5-29 in four OECD countries during the period 1975 to 1994. From OECD (1997b) . 1

Figure 1.1: The quality chain, depicting the relation between the external customer and the supplying organisation as a chain between internal suppliers and customers. From Oakland (1993)....................................................................................10

Figure 1.2: ‘A good job’ is doing the right thing in the right way, or in other terms working effectively and efficiently. From Oakland (1993)..............................13

Figure 1.3: The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle is one way in which change and continuous improvements are described in most modern approaches to quality improvement. ...............................................................................................14

Figure 1.4: The action research cycle. From Zuber-Skerrit (1992)...................................14

Figure 2.1: Important elements in a successful TQM strategy. From Bergman & Klefsjö (1994). 18

Figure 3.1: Some possible motives for students to undertake studies in the higher educational system.........................................................................................24

Table 3.1: Total number of students enrolled in education at the tertiary level during the period 1980 to 1994 expressed in millions. From UNESCO (1996). .............25

Table 3.2: Estimated gross enrolment ratios (the proportion of the population of relevant age) for education at the tertiary level during the period 1980 to 1994. From UNESCO (1996)..........................................................................................25

Figure 5.1: Core values characteristic of successful organisations upon which the Swedish Quality Award is based. From SIQ (1995). ....................................................44

Table 5.1: The award criteria in the SQA are structured around seven aspects of the organisation. From SIQ (1995). .....................................................................45

Table 5.2: Subcriteria for aspect 5, Management of Processes in the Swedish Quality Award. From SIQ (1995). .............................................................................45

Table 5.3: Some of the specific issues to be answered in subcriterion 5.1, Development of Main Processes, in the Swedish Quality Award. From SIQ (1995).................46

Table 5.4: Dimensions used when evaluating an organisation’s assessment document according to the criteria in the Swedish Quality Award. From SIQ (1995). ...46

Table 6.1: Geographic distribution of organisations holding certificates according to some standard in the ISO 9000 set of standards. From Symonds (1995)...................63

Table 6.2: Results from a survey of the use of ISO 9000 in Australian higher education, which was carried out in 1995 at the Curtin University of Technology. ........65

Table 6.3: The four categories into which the institutions involved in the actual study of ISO 9000 in higher education were partitioned. ............................................67

1 Introduction In this thesis the overall intention is to present thoughts on and some experiences from studies of quality management and quality improvement in higher education. My hope is that the discussion will contribute to the understanding as to how higher education is working and how effective and efficient ways to improve the activities in higher education could be developed.

The objective with this particular chapter is to outline the questions which will be addressed in this thesis together with a description of motives underlying the discussion. Furthermore, a description of scope and of some limitations will be given.

1.1 Why study quality management in higher education?

Higher education has an important and seemingly increasing role in society. One expression of this is the observation that during the last decades, the proportion of the youth entering higher educational institutions has increased in most developed countries. The data in table 1.1 are one way to express this development:

1975 1985 1990 1994

Japan 4.3 – 7.1 8.5

Sweden 5.6 6.5 6.7 5.7

United Kingdom

2.5 2.9 3.4 5.3

United States 6.6 7.4 8.2 8.8

Table 1.1: Number of full-time students enrolled in public or private tertiary1 education per 100 persons in the population aged 5-29 in four OECD countries during the period 1975 to 1994. From OECD (1997b) .

At the same time, there seems to be an increasing need for further education of people already in the workforce. In short, having an academic degree has become a prerequisite for many occupations.

Besides being a system of increasing social importance, the resources spent on this system are substantial. Public expenditure on tertiary education accounted for 1.6 percent of GDP in 1995 for the OECD as a whole, but varied from 0.7 to 2.6 percent among countries (OECD 1997a).

As for issues related to quality in higher education, such issues have been considered explicitly since the very beginning of this kind of education. There have been and still are a number of

1Tertiary education denotes programmes which require that a programme at the upper secondary level has been completed. Among those there are non-university-degree programmes and university degree programmes, see OECD (1997c).

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mechanisms intended to make it possible to maintain the level of the activities, such as review of research or criteria for various teaching positions. However, the ambition to improve seems just as relevant in these settings as in other parts of society. During the last decades, there has been greater attention to quality issues in both industrial settings and other areas. Some common elements in the discussion around such issues are ‘Total Quality Management’, ‘continuous improvements’ and ‘process management’, and there have been substantial changes in the way many organisations operate with respect to quality aspects.

Consequently, following from the assumption that quality improvement is desired in higher education, approaches which directly address related issues seem to be worth investigating. Even though perspectives, approaches and methods with respect to quality management and quality improvement may have their origin outside higher education, they could be relevant and beneficial to higher education as well.

Another motive for studying issues related to quality in higher education is that there are aspects of higher education which are more or less unique, and others which are common in other kinds of organisations as well. Both similarities and dissimilarities could be worthwhile investigating, since these could shed light on how quality improvement could be achieved under other and more general conditions.

Finally, as more of a personal motive, studying this area is a challenge in its own right. Higher education is an area which has been studied from a number of perspectives, and it would be pretentious to believe that my attempts at understanding the issues addressed would reveal fundamentally novel aspects of higher education or quality management. However, having this area as the object of study has generated a number of stimulating learning experiences. One underlying assumption has been that if I could understand how quality improvement could be achieved in a setting as complex as higher education, then this might perhaps result in an understanding about related issues in other contexts as well.

1.2 Scope and limitations of the thesis When discussing scope, it is often necessary to describe both what really is the subject for the discussion and ‘negative’ restrictions, i.e. the limits are defined by statements of what has been covered and also what has not been covered. Such restrictions in this thesis will be discussed in the separate parts making up the thesis, but there are also some general aspects which lie behind most of the discussion.

The design which is chosen in a study must have a substantial influence on the final result, and the present thesis is naturally no exception. It has to some extent been written as a description of experiences drawn from working with quality management issues in higher education over some years. Two of the projects in which I have been involved are described in the thesis (chapter 5 and 6), and both content and structure of the thesis have evolved during this period. An alternative design would have been to start with more definite questions from the outset, and try to address these.

The actual design is consequently based on studies of issues which have evolved during this period. One obvious advantage with such a design is the possibility to formulate and reformulate questions along the way. This approach has clearly been beneficial to my own learning. There are naturally also difficulties, and among the difficulties which seem most likely to occur in the actual case is a possible lack of coherence. I hope that advantages have

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been exploited and difficulties avoided to as great extent as possible, but whether this has been achieved or not must be judged by the reader.

There will in many cases be no attempt to provide ‘clearcut’ definitions of terms used. This might seem annoying to some readers, but I believe that most terms are not possible to define in unequivocal ways and as isolated from other terms and their own contexts. This seems to be the way we communicate in our everyday interactions, since conversations seldom start with determining how the concepts in use should be defined. As a personal impression, discussion often seem to involve a mutual narrowing of possible meanings of concepts making up the discussion. The parties involved have to come to an often not so explicit understanding about how others use the concepts, whereafter sufficiently precise meanings emerge and the concepts can be really used. The meanings consequently depend on aspects such as the purpose of the discussion (some concepts may be more important to narrow down than others), and the subject knowledge of those taking part in the discussion (subject experts would presumably use definitions on other levels than those with limited knowledge). However, dealing with issues of ‘meaning’ and ‘communication’ is far beyond both the scope of this thesis and my own competence, so those issues will not be deliberated further.

It has simply been assumed that even though definitions often are held as core elements in academic discussions, such activities still seem to suffer from a ‘context dependence’ in the way outlined for communication in general. This thesis deals with several concepts which can be defined more narrowly than what is done, and there are presumably a number of possibilities to criticise the discussion in the thesis as ‘lax’. However, the limited efforts to provide ‘clearcut definitions’ rest on the assumptions that

a) it is still possible to provide sufficiently clear definitions to make the discussion meaningful;

b) attempts at definitions would in many cases still be superficial from the viewpoint of those with more thorough knowledge of the subject matters;

c) due to the complexity which follows from the ‘context dependence’, attempts at defining several concepts would rather become oversimplified expressions of my own ignorance rather than the opposite.

As a result, many concepts will instead of being defined rather be ‘discussed’ or ‘described’. The reasoning in the thesis simply rests upon an assumption that the terms will be sufficiently precise to allow common interpretations. It is an assumption which clearly poses some problems, but this will hopefully not deter readers from following the discussion.

The thesis is furthermore not designed as a test of whether some approach to quality management and quality improvement is better than any other approach. Instead, the framework provided by what can be denominated as Total Quality Management (TQM), which will be outlined further on, has been interpreted generally and considered as basically meaningful to higher education as well as to most other cases of organisational life. In the descriptions of specific approaches there will be such comparisons between different methods, but these comparisons are on a lower level.

There will furthermore be a number of instances where some aspect of the adoption of a TQM perspective will be claimed as difficult in higher education. This does however not imply that such aspects would prove to be easy or even easier under other circumstances.

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The vocabulary used will comprise terms which are not so common in higher educational settings, but rather have their origin in business. Terms like ‘quality management’ imply an at least partially external perspective, and having such a perspective as a basis must be considered as part of the limitations. Adopting this perspective for example makes it reasonable to discuss ‘quality systems’ or ‘continuous improvements’ as if such methods or ambitions were self-evident, but this is hardly true. The perspective consequently makes it more or less natural to raise some questions and leave others unanswered. The perspective also becomes part of the definitions in another way: concepts become defined in terms of other concepts which ultimately seem to rest upon assumptions. The thesis can therefore be seen as based on a perspective which may be accepted by some and totally refuted by others. There will however be limited explicit attempts to provide arguments for why this perspective is valid.

There are also other more practically determined restrictions: the studies upon which the thesis to some extent is constructed were primarily made during the period from 1994 to 1996. Therefore, there is presumably more recent knowledge and experience which has not been referred to in this thesis but which could have been included.

It has also been regarded as difficult to thoroughly discuss scope and limitations in advance. References to such aspects before the actual discussion would presumably be perceived as less meaningful by many readers since there would be no real question to the answers provided. As a consequence, limitations and problems are discussed further as part of the particular studies which they correspond to. Some of the issues mentioned in this section will also be deliberated in chapter 8.

1.3 Aims Given the description of underlying questions and limitations in the previous section, the intention in this thesis is to

• provide a general background for the discussion of quality management and quality improvement in higher education;

• provide more detailed accounts of some issues related to quality management and improvements in higher education:

1 Would self-assessments according to criteria in quality awards be possible and meaningful in higher education? The discussion will be based on a study of how the Swedish Quality Award could be used for self-assessments.

2 Are so-called quality systems in general, and the kind of quality systems defined by the ISO 9000 set of standards in particular, possible and useful to implement in higher education? The discussion will be based on a study which comprised: a) attempts at locating units which have received a certificate to some of the standards for quality systems in the ISO 9000 set of standards; b) an attempt to find out how and why a quality system had been implemented in the organisations which were found; and c) what were the experiences in those organisations.

3 Are there any particular ways in which the teaching and the learning processes in higher education could be enhanced by a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach? The discussion will to some extent be based on a

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comparison between developments in trade and industry and common approaches in higher education.

1.4 Structure of the thesis The thesis consists of three parts:

• Part 1, which comprises an attempt to construct a framework for quality management and quality improvement in higher education;

• Part 2, comprising three chapters corresponding to the questions mentioned in the previous section: chapter 5 which is a description of findings in a study of the Swedish Quality Award and its use in higher education; chapter 6 in which the study of ISO 9000 in higher education is described; and chapter 7 which is an attempt to point at possible positive effects to teaching and learning in higher education from the adoption of a TQM perspective;

• Part 3, where the discussion in previous sections is summarised and some personal remarks are made.

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Part 1: A framework for quality management and

quality improvement in higher education

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2 Quality management – a general framework The concept of quality has in many parts of society received widespread and increased attention during the last years. In both higher education and other areas, concepts as ‘Total Quality Management’ and ‘continuous improvements’ make up the vocabulary of an ongoing discussion, and there is generally in many countries a greater emphasis on issues related to quality in higher education than has been common.

In this chapter, the intention is to develop a framework upon which the subsequent discussion of quality matters as they pertain to higher education can be elaborated.

2.1 Vocabulary Many of the concepts used in the ongoing discussion around quality issues have their origin in business settings and might therefore seem inappropriate in higher education. However, if the concepts are interpreted inclusively, most of them seem possible to use in higher education as well. As for terms used in this thesis, the discussion will mainly focus on the terms ‘customer’ and ‘quality’. The main reason for this selection is that these terms are considered as core elements of any discussion of quality and also mutually dependent and impossible to isolate from one another.

2.1.1 What is a customer? Fundamental to the discussion about quality is the concept of customer. Defining the customer is essentially defining the purpose of an actual activity. This equivalence stems from the impossibility to imagine some abstract customer without reference to the purpose of the relation between this customer and some supplier. One description of these relations is given in Oakland (1993), given in figure 1.1. The concept of customers is nevertheless not unproblematic. In everyday language, customer often connotes ‘purchaser’ or something similar to “one that purchases a commodity or service”2. It implies a commercial stance which may be present in business, but not so evidently in areas such as education or health care.

2“Customer”. Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?keywords=customer&hits=10&DBase=Dictionary. [Aug 20 1997]

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CUSTOMERUPPLIER

USTOMERUPPLIER

CSUSTOMERUPPLIER

SUSTOMERUPPLIER

CCSSCUSTOMER

UPPLIERS

Figure 1.1: The quality chain, depicting the relation between the external customer and the supplying organisation as a chain between internal suppliers and customers. From Oakland (1993).

Usage of the term customer has consequently been a common stumbling block in these settings. However, there are other and more general definitions of customers, such as the one provided in ISO (1994b):

[customer]: a “recipient of a product provided by the supplier”, which may be “the ultimate consumer, user, beneficiary or purchaser”, and also either “external or internal to the organization”.

This definition rests on the concept of ‘product’ which is defined as ISO (1994b):

[product]: “result of activities or processes”, which “may include service, hardware, processed materials, software or combinations thereof”, and also can be “intended” or “unintended (e.g. pollutant or unwanted effects)”.

These two definitions make it possible to include more in a supplier–customer relationship than merely the supplier ‘selling some product’ to a customer. Besides making it possible to make customer mean more than only the purchaser, it also makes it possible to include transactions between ‘internal suppliers’ and ‘internal customers’. This is also a possible result from defining customers as ‘those who are served’: irrespective of whether a transaction includes an exchange of a product for money, the transaction includes someone serving somebody else.

Due to a fairly common tendency in higher education to perceive customers as an unsuitable concept in higher education, there has been attempts to circumscribe or rephrase the concept with terms such as ‘stakeholders’ or ‘clients’. Such rephrasing might be deemed as necessary in a given situation, but in this thesis the term customer will be used throughout and interpreted in the general sense following from the definition previously given.

2.1.2 The quality concept

The word quality itself stems from the Latin qua litas which means “of what kind”3. The concept is also often used in this sense: the quality of a particular fabric could be a statement about what kind of material it consists of.

3“quality”. Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:195/cgi-bin/g?keywords=quality&DBase=Dictionary&hits=

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Another way of using the concept is to consider quality as ‘good’ as opposed to ‘bad’, i.e. as an inherently positive aspect of the object.

Other descriptions common in the contemporary discussion are:

“Quality should be aimed at the needs of the customer, present and future” (Deming 1986).

“Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs” (ISO, 1994b).

“The quality of a product (article or service) is its ability to satisfy or exceed the needs and expectations of the customers” (Bergman & Klefsjö 1994).

These and other attempts, see for example Juran & Gryna (1988), to define the concept might be delimiting the number of possible interpretations, but they still rest on other assumptions and undefined concepts. As noted in section 2.1.1, the concept of customer is not entirely clear. Besides determining who the customer is, there is also the issue of finding out what the customer needs. Should it be what the customer says he or she needs, or should the needs be determined by some supplier to be ‘true needs’ of which the customer knows only little? The basic approach to these issues throughout this thesis is that the supplier must try to strike a balance between customer needs as they are expressed by the customer and needs as they are perceived by the supplier. The latter is in possession of some knowledge or ability which the former does not possess and in many cases cannot know so much about. This perspective is in line with the following arguments given by W. E. Deming:

“There is much talk about the customer’s expectations. Meet the customers expectations. The fact is that the customer expects only what you and your competitor have led him to expect.” (Deming 1994a.

“We must keep asking What product or service would help our customers more?” (Deming 1994a).

Some consequences of this perspective in teaching are further discussed in chapter 7.

Finally, a distinction which could be used in the context of education is the difference between production of goods on one hand and of services on the other, see for example Bergman & Klefsjö (1994). As more of a personal impression, there are authors who seem to find a fundamental difference between quality as it relates to goods on one hand and services on the other. There are naturally differences between goods and services and production of those respectively, but as far as the concept of quality is concerned, such differences have not been considered so significant as would make this dichotomy necessary to discuss further. The discussion rests upon an assumption that there are more similarities than dissimilarities between goods and services, and that too much emphasis on this dichotomy could even hinder an understanding of essential aspects of quality which are common to both goods and services.

10&context=all.html. [Sept 26 1996].

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2.1.3 Effectiveness, efficiency and change Considerations of customers and customer needs must be based on some conception of the ultimate purpose with serving the customer. Some possible perspectives on purpose are:

• to maintain and increase profits;

• long-term survival of an organisation;

• fulfilment of some general and public need.

Such perspectives on purpose cannot be said to be ‘wrong’, but rather more or less suitable. The concerns of someone involved in short-term matters could be quite different from the concerns of someone engaged in long-term issues. This can of course not be reduced to a general relativism where ‘anything goes’, since there are certainly occasions where the perspectives lead to incompatible solutions. One extreme example would be to consider activities such as pollution which in a short-term perspective might be economically sensible, but which in the long run could be not just costly but also a threat to us as human beings. In such situations, it should be easy to tell which perspective should have priority.

Regardless of which perspective is demarcating our outlook in a particular situation, most people try to carry out their activities in such a way as to have some positive and ‘good’ characteristics for someone. Even when the output does not satisfy explicit requirements, there are probably other criteria which are met. A lazy person who is not doing a good job by some external standards is perhaps making the job tolerable to herself. A bureaucratically inclined person could define a ‘good performance’ as adhering to the rules rather than to serve other people. The criteria for judging our actions might not be known and might therefore evoke an impression of these actions as irrational.

What constitutes performing ‘a good job’? Two important aspects are effectiveness and efficiency, which make it possible to rephrase the question of what constitutes a good job in the following way:

• Are we doing the right thing? Are we able to serve our customers and provide what they need? Are we working effectively?

• Are we doing the right thing in a smart way? Are we able to serve our customers with a minimum amount of resources? Are we working efficiently?

In Oakland (1993), these aspects are combined as in figure 1.2.

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Right

Wrong

Things wedo

The waywe dothem

?

? ?

Right Wrong

!

Figure 1.2: ‘A good job’ is doing the right thing in the right way, or in other terms working effectively and efficiently. From Oakland (1993).

It is noteworthy that in Swedish there are no simple translations of effectiveness and efficiency. Instead the Swedish word ‘effektiv’ is often used to denote both ‘effective’ and ‘efficient’. A better usage might perhaps be to translate ‘effective’ into ‘ändamålsenlig’ or ‘verksam’ and ‘efficient’ into ‘effektiv’ or ‘resurssnål’.

Another parallel is found in HSV (1996), where it is stated that “Quality and efficiency have become key concepts in this connexion”4. This way of using the terms ‘kvalitet’ and ‘effektivitet’ implies that ‘kvalitet’ has taken the meaning of the English word ‘effectiveness’ and ‘effektivitet’ means ‘efficiency’5.

There is however at least one additional aspect of ‘good jobs’ which should be considered. Effectiveness and efficiency must be striven for, but it is still a relatively static perspective. Reality is dynamic and changing, so there is also a need to address the question of change and development. This aspect is presumably just as fundamental to our activities as effectiveness and efficiency, but it does seem to happen that activities and organisations do not adapt and change. Instead they succumb to the changes in the environment, eventually to be replaced by something else which addresses the underlying needs more effectively and efficiently.

In this thesis, the situations which are studied are assumed to be such that change should be mastered rather than something which merely happens. There may be other situations, but the assumption that change should be dealt with in a conscious manner seems reasonable. In most cases we wish to change rather than be changed.

4In the Swedish original, this was expressed as “Kvalitet och effektivitet blir i detta sammanhang nyckelbegrepp” (HSV 1995).

5Another interesting parallel could be made by comparing this pair of concepts with two other pairs: validity/reliability and unbiasedness/efficiency, the first pair used in general measurement and the second for properties of estimators in statistical theory, and both pairs denoting ‘being on target’ with a method that is ‘trustworthy’ respectively.

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Change, evolution and dynamics are thus important in the contemporary discussion around quality and quality management. One expression is the Plan-Do-Study-Act–cycle (PDSA) (see figure 1.3). The PDSA cycle is often attributed to W. E. Deming who actually called it “the Shewhart cycle”, referring to W. A. Shewhart who has had a substantial influence on modern approaches to quality management. Such cyclical descriptions of change are naturally not unique to quality matters, and there are a lot of similar representations. One interesting parallel stems from a description of so-called ‘action research’ which has been claimed to be an approach worth using for development within higher educational settings (Zuber-Skerrit 1992). The action research cycle is given in figure 1.4. According to Schön (1983), both the ability to do and reflect on what you are doing are fundamental elements of personal competence. This ‘self-reflection’ could be regarded as the closing of the loop, learning from what has happened in order to develop future approaches.

Act Plan

Study Do

Figure 1.3: The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle is one way in which change and continuous improvements are described in most modern approaches to quality improvement.

Plan

Act

Observe

Reflect

Plan

Act

Observe

Reflect

Figure 1.4: The action research cycle. From Zuber-Skerrit (1992).

Barnett (1992) in his description of quality improvement in higher education calls for the need to establish ‘institutional self-reflection’ which could be part of an institution’s competence. This line of argument is also taken up in Rolf et al. (1993), who argue that know-how impels praxis and reflection over praxis generates improvements of praxis. Fur-thermore, they point to the need for ‘coordination’ as a link between existing praxis and reflection. The model is meant to be valid for individuals as well as organisations, such as an

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institution within higher education. What this coordination consists of is not further developed by Rolf et al. (1993), but it must to a great extent rely on measurement in a broad sense. It is hard to imagine reflection without measurements of the object for the reflection.

To conclude, adding change and dynamics to effectiveness and efficiency makes up a set of questions fundamental to quality matters:

• Are we doing the right thing?

• Are we doing these things in a smart way?

• Will we be able to do the right things in smart ways not just today but also tomorrow?

2.1.4 Constructs related to quality Besides using terms as quality or customers, there are also a number of constructs based on these. ‘Quality Management’, ‘Total Quality Management’ are quite common, and if quality has to be left as at least not fully defined, then neither these constructs could be expected to be completely defined.

However, this is assumed as not too great a difficulty, since the discussion can be developed without establishing clear-cut definitions of these terms, leaving room for different interpretations. There will even be combinations of terms which are based on the derivatives of quality, such as ‘TQM approach’, ‘TQM implementation’ or ‘TQM strategy’. Hopefully, the flexibility this renders will not be at the expense of lucidity.

2.1.5 Concepts: definitions or circumscriptions? The approach in this thesis will be that concepts such as customers or quality cannot be defined in a definite manner. The definitions, or perhaps rather descriptions, do limit the number of possibilities, but do really result in paraphrases. Such a rephrasing could be used in a more direct way:

“Quality is what makes it possible for a customer to have a love affair with your product or service”. (Tribus 1990)

This description might seem odd, but it uses a concept (‘love’) which is not defined further. If this description is meaningful, then the notion of comparing quality with love could make quality understandable in the same way as love: impossible to define, but still perceptible.

Tribus also uses the same kind of reasoning in describing quality in education:

“Quality in education is what makes learning a pleasure and a joy.” (Tribus 1995)

There are obvious drawbacks in this description as well. Learning is not solely a pleasure and a joy. It could for example be stimulated by anxiety or traumatic events. We might learn from such experiences and perhaps also appreciate the learning despite its basis. The definitions are perhaps mainly pointing at the need for circumscriptions of an inherently undefinable concept, at least when it is considered isolated from its context.

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2.1.6 Vocabulary – concluding remarks As was stated in the introduction (section 1.2), the refusal to attempt defining the concepts could be annoying to some readers. However, many of the concepts seem so vague that different interpretations seem possible. I could personally prefer some definition of a particular concept, but others could use the concept differently and it might not be possible to say that one or the other is ‘right‘ or ‘better’. An example could be if ‘customer’ were used in an argument in favour of the introduction of ‘market oriented’ mechanisms in higher education, i.e. the term would be based on the commercial definition. Even though there are other definitions with more general scope, attempts to claim that this particular employment of the concept is wrong would be erroneous. As a result of the vagueness, the terms cannot be isolated from the context in which they are used and from the intentions of the one using the terms.

One conclusion which hopefully has become sufficiently clear is that many of the concepts need not be interpreted bearing their everyday meanings, but that they can be interpreted in an inclusive manner. This makes it possible to use the concepts when discussing concepts such as ‘customer-supplier chains’, even where there are no customers paying for a product provided by the supplier.

2.2 Total Quality Management A basic assumption in this thesis is the universal nature of the relation between supplier and customer, where the former provides the latter with some entity. The relation is based on an attempt to satisfy some ‘customer need’, because if there was no such need, there would be no interaction between supplier and customer. The existence of this relation itself does not make it necessary to place a greater emphasis on any part in the relation, since the parts are mutually defining each other. Without an entity, the notion of both customers and suppliers becomes meaningless, and there could be no customer if there is no supplier.

This customer-supplier chain, see figure 1.1, does not imply that the relation always results in the customers’ needs being fulfilled. In section 2.1.3, effectiveness, efficiency and change were claimed to be fundamental concepts in the discussion of quality. Achieving a relation between supplier and customer characterised by these fundamental aspects is however not likely to occur at random. It could naturally happen that a supplier without any particular premeditation just happens to satisfy some customer who is unaware of his or her needs. However, a relation determined by coincidence would presumably not be lasting. In general, the relation between customer and supplier must comprise steps as formulation and communication of needs, decisions as whether the actual supplier is capable of delivering that which could satisfy the needs. These steps may not be evident but rather taken for granted, as when I ‘know’ what is available at the local shop, but the decisions will still have to be made. Consequently, fulfilment of the customers’ needs must rather be achieved by consciously addressing these aspects, i.e. quality must be created.

This relation is assumed to be universal, and consequently not invented in the contemporary discussion around quality issues. Still, quality has come into focus more markedly than before. One expression of this development is to some extent apparent from the number of named approaches which are supposed to explain how quality can be ‘created’ in the sense previously used. One such approach is Total Quality Management (TQM), but there are others such as Company Wide Quality Control (CWQC) and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI). There are differences between how these approaches are described, but these differences have

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for this thesis not been regarded as significant. Instead, TQM will be used as a collective denomination of approaches which are supposed to address questions as how quality in the sense previously outlined should be achieved. Such a scope is clearly risky, but has still been assumed to be valid since TQM seems not to be that precisely defined as would exclude other approaches such as CWQC or CQI.

2.2.1 What constitutes TQM? Assuming that the ambition is to achieve customer-supplier chains characterised by effectiveness and efficiency as regards the interests of suppliers and customers of today and tomorrow, how can this be made to happen? TQM is alleged to provide an answer to this question, but what does TQM mean?

It could be considered as special cases of ‘management’ or ‘quality management6’, areas which could be investigated in their own right. This has however seemed to lie outside the scope of the discussion in this thesis. ‘Management’ has simply, just as has been the case with some other concepts, been assumed to be sufficiently precise to allow readers to follow the subsequent reasoning.

One description of TQM is given in ISO (1994b):

“management approach of an organization, centred on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society”.

There are other descriptions emphasising different aspects but with many common elements, such as for example Oakland (1993) and Lewis & Smith (1994). Another way to outline what constitutes TQM is given in Bergman & Klefsjö (1994). They list a number of elements in a ‘TQM strategy’, which is graphically described in figure 2.1.

6[quality management]: “all activities of the overall management function that determine the quality policy, objectives and responsibilities, and implement them by means such as quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement within the quality system” (ISO 1994b).

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Improvecontinuously

Let everybody becommitted

Focus oncustomers

Base decisionson facts

Focus onprocesses

Top Management Commitment

Create holistic view

Figure 2.1: Important elements in a successful TQM strategy. From Bergman & Klefsjö (1994).

In an outline of “TQM strategies”, Kennerfalk (1995) claims that he has found six key elements in such strategies:

• focus on customer satisfaction;

• focus on processes;

• continuous quality improvements;

• employee involvement;

• fact-based management;

• management commitment.

The status for TQM, whether it is best represented as a ‘philosophy’, ‘paradigm’ or ‘strategy’, seems to be an unresolved issue and will not be discussed any further in this context. The assumption will rather be that TQM is a response to some underlying questions, or caused by developments external to the formulation of any particular framework for quality management. Understanding why TQM has come to the fore could provide a perspective by which the emphasis on quality becomes more reasonable. These underlying questions or causes could presumably be discussed from a number of aspects, but some which seem relevant in this context are the following:

• In a system of production where the level of sophistication is not so high, quality may not be possible to focus. When production is more a question of satisfying a demand for quantity, quality could not be expected to be important. Due to an increasingly developed productive apparatus, more aspects of the customer-supplier relation have been possible to address. In the interplay between customers and suppliers, the level of what can be expected from most products has become higher.

• As will be further discussed in chapter 7, the emphasis on quality in industry has to a large extent been a response to the apparent successes of many Japanese companies. The formerly common way of production in Western industries was based on mass production of large series of identical products. Furthermore, the production systems also encompassed screening of non-conformances, rework and eventual scrapping. This kind of operation has simply become increasingly non-competitive.

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• Connected to the former aspects is the need for integration of knowledge transcending the usual subject limits. Subject expertise is not enough in most production processes, since both the productive apparatus in itself and society at large has become more complex. Effective and efficient production of any product has become increasingly dependent on not only individuals’ subject expertise, but also on the ability to integrate different areas and effectively achieve team work.

This rather unsubstantiated outline suggests that it has become both more difficult and necessary to address effectiveness, efficiency and consciously achieved change in the customer-supplier chains. TQM as well as other approaches could be regarded as responses to these underlying questions. Despite any differences between the descriptions of what constitutes TQM, these descriptions are consequently assumed to be sufficiently general and similar, and also pointing at the same underlying problems.

2.2.3 Criticism of TQM Total Quality Management has not entered the stage of organisational life without being criticised. It has been asserted as being a ‘fad’, see Jackson (1995), and as something which is merely a repackaging of already known approaches, see Boaden (1996). There is also not any single interpretation of what TQM should mean, so the number of different TQM formulations itself invites criticism. Several of the individuals who have become most associated with TQM, such as W. E. Deming or J. M. Juran, have not used the term themselves. Deming is quoted in Boaden (1996) as having said that:

“The trouble with total quality management – failure of TQM, you can call it – is that there is no such thing. It is a buzzword. I have never used the term, as it carries no meaning.”

There are even elements of different approaches to quality management which are in conflict. One example is the concept of ‘zero defects’. This has for example been emphasised by Crosby (1996) and repudiated by Deming (1986, p. 141), Deming (1994, p. 11). The former uses this concept to counter the argument that quality would be too costly, and to point at the need for prevention rather than sorting. The latter criticises this approach because of defects necessarily being defined by specifications, which he claims are used mistakenly. An entity is declared as conforming when a measured characteristic is within specifications and as non-conforming when the characteristic falls outside those limits. This is an approach which according to Deming takes no account of the inherent variation in any system. It should however be noted that neither Deming nor Crosby has denominated their particular approaches to quality management as ‘TQM’. Still, both approaches have often been associated with TQM by others.

2.2.4 TQM – concluding remarks TQM has been criticised, but this has in this thesis not been considered as so crucial. Since the suggested descriptions of TQM which have been encountered during the studies underlying this thesis have been considered as not particularly well-defined, the suggested alternatives are aiming at an indefinite object. Assuming that TQM is interpreted in a broad way, most alleged problems seem to disappear. If it is possible to subject TQM to empirical testing, then this has to be done on the basis on well-defined comparisons, and such seem so far to be absent.

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One basic assumption in this thesis is that quality as a fundamental aspect in the customer-supplier chain needs to be created or managed. Another assumption is that an organisation which is characterised by the elements of TQM strategies listed in section 2.2.1 would presumably be able to address customer needs both effectively and efficiently. The status for TQM has been resolved in a definitional way by simply assuming that TQM is one way to address fundamental issues regarding quality. Whether other alternatives would provide better answers to these issues has been considered as lying outside the scope of this discussion.

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3 Higher education Education in general, as well as higher education, has been the subject of a great deal of study. Historically, there are few institutions in society with a longer history than higher education, even if the system has gone through some major changes. Education is an important part of society, and both affects as well as is affected affected by society at large.

This chapter is meant to provide an outline of possible perspectives on higher education. However, this outline should not be considered as an attempt to find mutually exclusive and exhaustive aspects of higher education or as some definition of higher education. The intention is rather to discuss some perspectives which are regarded as relevant to the subsequent discussion of quality issues in higher education. Furthermore, there will also be an attempt to discuss trends and patterns in contemporary higher education, and then especially common approaches to quality issues.

3.1 Perspectives on higher education One way to define higher education would be to use a ‘formal’ or organisational definition as for example in the definition of ‘university tertiary level of education’ used by OECD (1997d):

“These programmes are intended for students who have successfully completed prerequisite programmes at the upper secondary level and who continue their education in a programme that generally leads to the awarding of a first university degree or recognised equivalent qualification.”

This definition is based on organisational boundaries between different educational levels. However, this definition seems lacking, since it does not say anything about what is unique with higher education or what kind of activities take place there.

As stated in Swedish law (SFS 1992), higher education is supposed to deal with teaching, research and transfer of knowledge7. These are obviously activities being performed, but this does not suffice as a definition, since both teaching and research are activities which are performed in other organisations as well.

Instead of trying to find definitions, another approach could be to describe higher education. Barnett (1992) suggests the following as common perspectives on the purpose with higher education:

• production of qualified manpower;

• training for a research career;

• efficient management of teaching provision;

7SFS 1992:1434, 2§: “Staten skall som huvudman anordna högskolor för 1. utbildning som vilar på vetenskaplig eller konstnärlig grund samt på beprövad erfarenhet, och 2. forskning och konstnärligt utvecklingsarbete samt annat utvecklingsarbete. Högskolorna skall också samverka med det omgivande samhället och informera om sin verksamhet.“

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• extending life chances.

However, these are not the only perspectives which could be assumed. One example of another perspective is the one discussed by sociologists who have been studying education and its relation to society. Some accounts of ‘sociology of higher education’ are for example given by Ballantine (1993), Hammack & Heyns (1992), Lewis (1977), Williams (1992), Wolthuis (1992). Recurrent themes in these sociological perspectives include such functions of the university as for example

• training for technical and white-collar occupations;

• certification or the provision of some signal of expert skill to be used by employers as a filter screening out at least some applicants;

• sorting and selection, a process needed in a stratified society and which is begun long before higher education;

• transmission of knowledge, attitudes and values, the latter two elements constituting what is also called ‘socialisation’.

The debate among sociologists about the rationale for higher education, what really is achieved within the system and the relation between the system and its environment, includes a number of perspectives which have been regarded as impossible to study further in this thesis.

3.1.1 Learning Even though higher education could be regarded as fulfilling a number of functions, one result which indisputably must be considered as fundamental is learning. One attempt to define learning is given by Fincher (1994):

“[Learning is] a process of acquiring and integrating through a systemized process of instruction or organized experience varying forms of knowledge, skill, and understanding that the learner may use or apply in later situations and under conditions different from those of instruction.”

Learning and teaching are obviously not equivalent. ‘Education’ is defined in OECD (1997d) as “organised and sustained communication designed to bring about learning” where the latter is defined as “any change in behaviour, information, knowledge, understanding, attitudes, skills, or capabilities which can be retained and cannot be ascribed to physical growth or to the development of inherited behaviour patterns.”

Teaching is consequently done in order to bring about learning, and people do learn and acquire knowledge about specific subjects, and about how to use their knowledge. As implied by the definition above, this learning includes many components, and Barnett (1992) states in a description of what should take place in higher education that:

“students on courses of higher education should be encouraged to enter into a continuing conversation…, be prepared to take on the point of others and become comfortable in conducting that critical dialogue with themselves. To do that seriously will require the acquisition of high-level concepts and a breadth of frameworks so that critical evaluation can be conducted from a variety of perspectives. In turn, developing the intellectual strength to offer a

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point of view but modifying it in the light of counter-evidence or argument calls for a range of higher order intellectual abilities…It is, therefore, through a combination of higher order thinking and higher order cognitive abilities that students acquire the intellectual autonomy that is associated with a genuine higher education.”

Another description of learning is provided by Ramsden (1994), who restates learning as

“taking a deep approach: trying to understand, relating evidence, ideas and data. It means trying to make sense by relating parts of the material to the whole, using previous experience and knowledge to make sense of the new material, and taking a vigorous and active approach to learning the content.”

Ramsden (1994) also gives a description of what learning is not, contrasting the “deep approach” just mentioned with a “surface approach” which would

“imply that students do not remember what they have studied, can’t apply it to the real world, can’t use their knowledge to solve new problems, and don’t enjoy learning.”

3.1.2 Higher education as an organisational structure The way the educational system is organised in any country depends naturally to a great extent on national tradition. At the same time there seem to be some general features. Some of the characteristics which distinguish higher education from bureaucratic or business organisations are according to Ballantine (1993) the following:

• There are two distinct structures in the university: the flat academic structure and the hierarchical administrative structure.

• Many of the employees are knowledge specialists, professionals who by tradition expect autonomy and academic freedom; they may have only temporary loyalty to the institution but permanent allegiance to their disciplines.

• Colleges are to a large extent detached from the community and larger society in pursuing their primary activities – transmitting knowledge and conducting research.

• Teaching and research require individual faculty autonomy over the end product.

• Policy decision making is spread throughout the organisation, and students sometimes have a substantial voice in the issues.

These aspects could be regarded as present in many or even most institutions, but still they seem to be more valid for the traditional ‘élite’ institution which constitutes only part of the actual spectrum of higher educational institutions.

Besides the organisations delivering the education, there are in most countries a number of other agencies directly occupied with higher educational matters. In Sweden there are for example the Ministry of Education and the National Agency for Higher Education (Högskoleverket). These agencies often have a substantial influence on the educational institutions, and should therefore perhaps be included in the ‘higher educational system’.

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3.1.3 The student perspective Higher education could be described from some ‘macro’ perspective, emphasising either organisational aspects or processes as learning. The student perspective could be seen as the ‘micro’ level, and is perhaps complementary to the previously mentioned perspectives. What would a student want from the educational experience? Some of the possible motives are given in figure 3.1.

Intellectually stimulating experience?

Upholding family traditions?

Useful credential?

Developing competence?

Entering new layers in society?

Socially stimulating experience?

Figure 3.1: Some possible motives for students to undertake studies in the higher educational system.

A student’s motives are often complex, and also possibly contradictory. One example is the possibility that a student who mainly is interested in passing a course or getting a useful credential could consider the possible learning or intellectual development as less important. It even seems possible that motives may change during a short time period: the scope of a student in the beginning of a course may be more extensive than when the same student near the end of the course has to find a way to pass the course. This naturally makes the question of customer needs correspondingly complex.

3.1.4 Perspectives – concluding remarks The perspectives which have been outlined – learning, the organisational structure and the student perspective – are far from complete as a description of contemporary higher education. Instead they are regarded as pointing at issues which are particularly relevant to the discussion of quality in higher education. Considering quality without reference to the learning that is supposed to take place seems of limited avail. The organisational structure is to a great extent typical to higher education, and as will be discussed in chapter 7, the impli-cations of this structure with reference to quality issues seem significant. As for the student perspective, it is primarily the student who is supposed to learn and who also must be considered as one of the major customers in the educational system.

3.2 Common patterns in contemporary higher education

In this section, an attempt to discuss some common traits within contemporary higher education will be made. The aspects do not cover all important issues, but are rather intended

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to provide a description which has implications for the enterprise of improving quality in higher education. The aspects are hoped to be fairly general in the sense that they could be traced in the higher education in developed countries at least. Higher education in other countries seem to go through a similar development, but this is mainly a personal impression rather than a substantiated fact.

3.2.1 Mass higher education Education and higher education is today to a great extent a system for mass education, involving a large proportion of the population. This could for example be expressed as in table 3.1 and 3.2.

1980 1985 1990 1993 1994

Developed countries

34 35 40 42 42

World 51 60 68 76 77

Table 3.1: Total number of students enrolled in education at the tertiary level8 during the period 1980 to 1994 expressed in millions. From UNESCO (1996).

1980 1985 1990 1993 1994

Developed countries

36.1 38.7 44.2 47.4 48.0

World 12.2 12.8 13.7 14.9 15.3

Table 3.2: Estimated gross enrolment ratios (the proportion of the population of relevant age) for education at the tertiary level during the period 1980 to 1994. From UNESCO (1996).

3.2.2 Changing roles The development towards mass higher education has meant a shift from traditional ‘élite’ systems, where the aim might not have been the training of qualified manpower, but more to foster social skills expected within the social ‘élite’. An interesting description of the development of science principally in the European countries during the 19th century is given by Liedman (1977). He describes the development of science and the universities in general, and one interesting detail is the discussion of higher education in England where a utilitarian view on education was resisted for a long time. As a consequence, universities such

8‘Tertiary level’ is just as in table 1.1 defined as programmes requiring completion of a programme at the upper secondary level. Among those there are non-university-degree programmes and university degree programmes.

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as Oxford and Cambridge in England were not involved in research in natural sciences until well into the 19th century.

During the last decades there has also been a shift from higher education primarily as a means to provide the public sector with civil servants towards a situation where the private sector demands are meant to be met (Neave (1994). It seems as if higher education has attained the status of a possible remedy to ailing economies. The belief in many countries seems to be that new products and lines of business will be created by an increase of the average educational level of the population and of innovation and research.

3.2.3 Funding restraints In most developed countries, the increase in student numbers has been accompanied by increasing restraints on available funds. In an outline of the development in higher education in Western Europe during 1992-1994, Neave (1994) claims that the staff/student ratios declined significantly during the 1980:s in Britain from 8.5:1 to around 16:1; in France from 26:1 in 1980 to 29.4:1 in 1992. Higher education has had to do more with less resources.

Another aspect of the finances of higher education is the costs for students. In the USA where students have to pay fees for their education, tuition and fees in constant dollars grew at a rate of 3.1 to 5.6 percent per year between 1980 and 1990, while the median family income in constant dollars fell during the same period, see Alsalam (1996).

3.2.4 Accountability Another current issue which seems to be prevalent in most countries is a demand for accountability. This is often, see for example Seymour (1993a), maintained to be related to the increase in costs, since the funding bodies, either governmental agencies or students, want to get ‘value for money’. A more general approach is taken by Scott (1995), who argues that these demands for accountability are caused by the fact that norms for organisations and individuals have to be “constructed, and frequently reconstructed, in the light of the inter-action between abstract systems and actual environments”. A more direct expression of this development is the statement made by Seymour (1993a): “Higher education no longer has the luxury of using narrow definitions of quality.”

This tendency should perhaps also be considered in the light of changes in relations between governmental agencies regulating the system and the system itself. In many countries, there seems to be a tendency towards less regulation from such external agencies, and the price for this increase in autonomy has been the demands for increased accountability, see Sizer (1992).

These demands might seem justifiable, but as stated by Seymour (1993a), the external agencies demanding this accountability could not be expected to be driven by true selflessness, but rather “on the basis of self-interest, whether that is politics, personal frustration, well-meaning oversight, or self-aggrandizement.”

3.3 Common approaches to quality in higher education There are a number of activities which since long have been used to ensure that the characteristics of the activities performed within the higher educational system are on a sufficient level. However, during the last decade, quality issues in higher education have received greater attention than before. A significant amount of resources is spent on activities

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which, at least in words, are motivated by some concern for quality. There are three such areas of activities which will be further discussed:

• quality assurance;

• assessment;

• Total Quality Management.

The terms used in these activities and motives for undertaking these activities are often drawn from business or industry. The discussion will to some extent be based on comparisons of how terms are commonly defined and used within business and higher education.

3.3.1 Quality assurance Partially because of the previously mentioned demands for accountability, ‘quality assurance’ has become perhaps the most salient trait of activities concerning quality in higher education. Mechanisms for assuring that the qualities of certain aspects of the activities performed within the system are meeting requirements have however been an inherent part of higher education since its infancy. Despite differences between national systems for higher education, there have usually been some mechanisms for regulating who could work within higher education, how and by whom credentials could be issued, and other procedures meant to ensure that the system can be trusted.

One problem with the concept of quality assurance is however that it has been used bearing several meanings. One definition of quality assurance is given by Frazer (1994), who claims that quality assurance has four components:

1. Everyone in the enterprise has a responsibility for maintaining the quality of the product or service.

2. Everyone in the enterprise has a responsibility for enhancing the quality of the product or the service.

3. Everyone in the enterprise understands, uses and feels ownership of the systems that are in place for maintaining and enhancing quality.

4. Management (and sometimes the customer or client) regularly checks the validity and reliability of the systems for checking quality.

According to the definition of quality assurance in ISO (1994b), this means:

[quality assurance]: all the planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system, and demonstrated as needed, to provide adequate confidence that an entity will fulfil requirements for quality.

There are other definitions, but the one given in ISO (1994b) is presumably a fairly suitable definition of activities denominated as quality assurance in industry.

3.3.2 Assessment As a consequence of the demands for increased accountability, systems for assessment or measurement including performance indicators, peer review, internal and external assessments have been designed, see Franke-Wikberg (1992), Nilsson (1993), Ornander (1995). This is

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also a seemingly justifiable claim, since the institutions should by any standard be run in an effective and efficient manner.

There are also, in at least most countries in Western Europe, some agencies with the duty to drive these assessments. Some examples are the Department of Evaluation and Quality Audit at the National Agency for Higher Education (HSV) in Sweden, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) in the UK.

This development with a greater emphasis on assessments is described by Neave (1994), who also states that the ‘supervisory layers’ are expressions of demands external to higher education, and that the future development is not obviously beneficial to higher education despite such claims from the agencies, governments or other parties.

Assessment also has become strongly linked to quality assurance. Most approaches to quality assurance rely on some mechanism for assessment, or more generally, to measurements of some aspects of the institutions’ activities. Using a broad interpretation of the term, assessments could for example be undertaken with the following motives:

• checking whether requirements have been fulfilled;

• assessing the system for provision of products and services in order to see whether the system can be trusted;

• assessing the characteristics of a given product or service in order to get

a) a basis for making priorities between improvement alternatives;

b) a basis for evaluation of the results after an actual attempt at improvements.

These motives aim at different aspects of the activities in an organisation. Checking requirements could be in the interest of external parties, whereas assessments as means to find improvement possibilities might be more of an internally motivated activity.

Just as was the case with quality assurance, there is no single definition of the concept as regards the use in higher education. Assessment is in ISO (1994b) described as another name for ‘quality evaluation’ which is defined as

[quality evaluation]: systematic examination of the extent to which an entity is capable of fulfilling specified requirements.

Such evaluations are thus based on some requirements held by someone. It should be noted that ‘entity’ is meant to be a comprehensive term for “that which can be individually described and considered”, accordingly a general concept including entities such as activities, products and organisations. The definition does furthermore not restrict evaluation/assessment to either external or internal examination.

Another kind of measurement is the activity called ‘quality audit’, which again using ISO (1994b) is defined as:

[quality audit]: systematic and independent examination to determine whether quality activities and related results comply with planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives.

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This type of activity is focusing on:

a) the consistency between what is planned and actual completion of these plans;

b) more on procedures than on the actual results;

c) not so much on requirements on products.

Finally, the concept of ‘quality control’ could also be worthwhile to discuss. According to Frazer (1994), this would mean the checking of products with reference to requirements or standards. This is more in line with the ‘inspection’ or ‘evaluation/assessment’ as they are defined in ISO (1994b) where quality control is far more general:

[quality control]: operational techniques and activities that are used to fulfil requirements for quality.

The purpose with this comparison is not to claim that the definitions given by Frazer (1994) are generally used in higher education or that they are inaccurate. However, Frazer’s definitions suggest that seemingly innocuous terms could be used in rather vague and indefinite manners, at least when compared to their use outside higher education. It is also clear that Frazer’s definitions, contrary to his claims, do not reduce this confusion as to the meaning of terms.

Assessments: underlying perspectives

The design of assessment systems tells at least something about what underlying perspective on quality they rely on. Who should assess, for what, and how?

One question is whether the assessments are characterised by an ‘internal’ or an ‘external’ motive? Even if most commentators on assessment claim that the purpose with such activities is improvement, there seems to be a possible difference between internally and externally motivated assessments. With a basis in external motives, assessments often seem to be perceived as not helpful to institutions by those who are assessed. One example is given by Livingstone (1996), who expresses doubts about the Teaching Quality Assessment process carried out by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council: “Is this done with and for the institutions or done to them?”9.

Improvements seem more likely to follow from an assessment when there is a clear internal motivation for it. A perception of the assessment as an aid in finding possibilities for improvements is very much in line with a self-reflective perspective. Externally motivated assessments on the other hand might not evoke such a perspective so easily. One particular aspect which could result in difficulties is the connection between assessments and resource allocation:

• If the assessment results will be used for resource allocation, then there will presumably be a tendency to adjust to the assessment criteria in order to maximise the share of the allocated resources. The greater the role of the assessment results are, the less candour should presumably be expected. This could possibly distort the allocation which should pose a problem to those allocating the resources, but it is also contrary to the internal need for ‘self-reflection’.

9 Livingstone’s emphasis.

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• Another problem is the type of feed-back or reinforcement which seems to be a common aspect of systems for allocation of resources which are perceived as scarce. A common approach is to use so-called ‘positive’ feedback in the sense that good results lead to a reward and bad results do not. This could widen the gap between good institutions and less good ones, since the good ones get an advantage relative to the less good ones. ‘Negative’ feedback would mean that the resources should be allocated to less good institutions so these could develop and improve. This might lead to a situation perceived as stimulating mediocrity rather than excellence, since there is no reward for being good.

There are also problematic aspects with internally motivated assessments, of which the most important presumably is the possibility that these may not be perceived as valid or relevant by external agencies, at least if these for some reason try to compare institutions. Assessments based on internal motives might lead to absence of a basis for comparison between institutions.

Besides the question of internal or external motive, another question is whether the method for measurements is based on an internal or an external perspective. It has become rather common to use so-called ‘peer review’ as a measurement method. This does in general mean that an institution is assessed by one or more ‘peers’, who are meant to have the ability to assess important aspects of the institution’s activities. This ability could be founded in a special background, both from the institution’s own field or from outside.

Perhaps the most obvious advantage with this approach is that an outsider’s scrutiny could unveil aspects which could be hard to find with an internal perspective. Given that the peer is regarded as competent, the findings could also be regarded as more likely to be trustworthy by external agencies.

More problematic is the inevitable subjectiveness in the peer’s assessment. The findings can to a large extent be regarded as dependent on the actual peer, an aspect which is discussed by Ornander (1995).

Finally, irrespective of how these aspects are resolved, it is not so evident what should be measured. This is a problem which ultimately is caused by the difficulty to determine what really constitutes quality. Even given measures which would be generally accepted as valid, which institution is the best, the one which attracts the best students (an input measure), the one with the best graduates (an output measure), or the one where the enhancement of students competencies is the greatest? One example where this issue has been considered is the discussion of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in American higher education. According to Seymour (1994), this instrument puts greater emphasis on the ability to link processes to results than on available resources. A possible outcome could therefore be that an “Inner City Technical College” could outscore well-funded, prestigious institutions. Which type of institution is the ‘best’ is to a large extent dependent on the measurement criteria, and there seems to be no generally accepted set of such criteria.

Another perspective on assessments which to some extent runs parallel to the issues previously discussed is the one given by Rolf et al. (1993). They claim that the distinction between ‘control’ and ‘process’ is important. These two aspects are furthermore held as independent of each other, and some relevant questions with reference to assessments would be the following:

• How is the ownership or control of the assessment process balanced between administrators and academics?

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• What form does the process take? Is the assessment process based on professionals’ values or is it rather a ‘bureaucratic exercise’?

These aspects can be combined in several ways: an assessment ‘owned’ by academics where the results are intended to be used by academics rather than administrators can still be achieved as a ‘bureaucratic exercise’.

The Swedish assessment model

The literature on assessment in higher education is vast, and a general outline of assessment systems has been considered as peripheral to the context of this thesis. Therefore, instead of trying to provide a general description of assessment models, only one specific example will be discussed: the model issued by the National Agency for Higher Education in Sweden (HSV 1995, 1996). This system is based on an ongoing process of assessments where each seat of learning is meant to be assessed every three years. The assessments are performed by exter-nal assessment groups, and they are meant to be founded in the specific conditions for each seat of learning, hereafter called institution.

In the assessment system there is not any set of predefined criteria. Instead the assessments are supposed to be based on a set of aspects, according to which “good higher education” will be characterised by:

• self-regulation and learning;

• long-range planning;

• an international perspective;

• incisive leadership;

• co-operation with external interested parties;

• equality;

• focus on the student.

The approach can be compared with the structure in criteria for quality awards as the Swedish Quality Award (SQA) or the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award used in the USA, see chapter 5. In the SQA, there is a similar set of “core values, characteristic of successful organizations”.

The assessments are supposed to put a special emphasis on the following aspects:

• strategy for quality implementation;

• leadership;

• co-operation among interested parties;

• universal participation in quality enhancement;

• integration;

• evaluatory and follow-up systems;

• external professional relations.

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A basic element in the assessments is the documentation with regard to these aspects, which is carried out by the institution itself. The documents should include a self-assessment, a program for quality improvement and possibly other sources of relevance.

Thereafter a process of information and dialogue between the institution and a group of external examiners takes place. The group of examiners appointed by HSV are supposed to “initiate discussions, spur self-examination and provide the basis for problem-solving” (HSV 1996).

The intention with this system would probably be appreciated as appropriate by most of those involved, but there are still a number of possible problems:

• The method includes a group of external examiners, but they are not supposed to prescribe what should be done in the institutions. Their part of the process is rather to assess and comment on the procedures chosen within the institution. The method is thus founded on an internal perspective, and there are no national criteria comprising some definition of quality. In case there is a great demand for external accountability, will this procedure be perceived as trustworthy by parties outside higher education?

• If and to what extent the results will be used by governmental bodies in their resource allocation seems not clear.

• The system is run by the National Agency for Higher Education, and the institutions have to comply with the agenda determined by the agency. Are the assessments going to be perceived as valid within the institutions as instruments to facilitate further improvements or will they be regarded as external impositions? The intention is that the institutions should have their own interest in going through the process, but will there be such internal motivation?

• In the assessments, measures which are held as relevant by the institutions should be collected and presented. Finding such measures is usually not so easy, mostly because it will always be difficult to find unambiguous operational definitions of such vague processes as learning. Student numbers, faculty workload are examples of quantity which should be measurable, but not even these are so easily defined. Aspects of the learning process are naturally even more difficult to measure.

These aspects are not intended to be arguments against the assessment procedures, but rather to use this example to highlight some possible problems which could occur. Some problems which actually have been encountered are discussed in HSV (1997), where the experiences from assessments of the five first institutions with this instrument are described. One particular problem which is discussed there is the tendency within the institutions which are assessed to perceive the assessment as a measurement of their ‘level of quality’ rather than providing a perspective on their efforts to improve the activities: “There is a recurrent problem in the reports [from the audit groups] concerning the identification of the assessment object, namely the difficulty to distinguish between the qualities of the activities and the efforts to improve quality.” Whether this is due to the overall design of the instrument or merely an expected response in light of previous experience of assessments as externally imposed measurements of levels rather than efforts is hard to say. However, it seems as if the aim to stimulate the institutions to embrace a self-reflective attitude towards their own activities has not been generally attained.

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4 Total Quality Management in higher education Quality assurance and assessments have become, as has been previously discussed, the most widespread approaches to quality in higher education. However, these approaches have been criticised as being inappropriate. One strand of critique comes from those who seem to conceive higher education as basically sound. Neave (1994) argues that the universities “have nothing to fear from quality evaluation systems but every reason to be sceptical of those who devise them in the full knowledge that such measures will rarely apply to themselves.”

Another basis for critique against the emphasis on quality assurance is expressed by those who advocate a TQM approach. These critics seem to perceive TQM as a means to address necessary improvements, but also that TQM is more or less incompatible with the contemporary emphasis on quality assurance and assessments. Dill (1993) states with reference to the situation in the USA, that assessment “is a technique unique to educational that emerged in the United States in the schools accountability movement of the early 1980s and has been applied, often under legislative mandate, to colleges and universities” and that “our current applications of assessment in higher education may be seriously flawed.” He summarises his arguments by stating that “unless assessment leads to the collective design and improvement of core academic processes by those responsible for them, we are in genuine danger of assessing our way to educational decline.” MacBryde & Bititci (1996) argue that quality assurance encourages “short termism in the institutions, which in fact endanger true quality.”

Quality assurance has by some authors been interpreted broadly, even encompassing quality improvement, see section 3.3.1. Such an overlap does not seems really appropriate. There is in any organisation a need for assuring that the production system can be trusted as regards its ability to fulfil requirements, but assurance is a necessarily defensive stance. Improvements might be easier to achieve in a situation where the production system could be trusted, but that is no argument for confusion of the concepts.

Assuming that quality assurance and assessment is not sufficient, how should improvements be achieved? There are a number of suggested approaches for quality improvement in higher education which have been denominated in different ways. Some examples are Total Quality (Roberts 1995b), Total Quality Management, Total Quality Care (Barnett 1992), Continuous Quality Improvement and Strategic Quality Management (Seymour 1993a).

There are authors who criticise TQM as flawed and inappropriate. Besides those who reject TQM on the basis that there is no need for change or improvement in higher education, there are also some authors who advocate alternative approaches. Harvey (1995) claims that “In higher education, TQM has nothing new to offer than reminding us of established procedures and responsibilities.” His alternative is a to “encourage the development of open, self-reflective collegialism rather than the importation of expensive, bureaucratic, unwieldy, alienating managerialist approaches from industry.” Holmes & McElwee (1995) state that “the criteria favoured by managerialism represented by TQM is not only inappropriate in higher education but that, more importantly, it limits the productive activity of individuals.” Their alternative is “soft” human resource management (HRM) as opposed to “hard” HRM which together with TQM is alleged to focus on “cost effectiveness and market-led goals”.

There might also have been proponents of TQM who have used this concept with the ambition to introduce “managerialist approaches”, so it is not evident that the quoted interpretations are wrong. However, using a sufficiently broad interpretation of TQM makes

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it possible to avoid such connotations. Furthermore, the proposed non-TQM alternatives seem possible to align in a not so restricted TQM approach.

4.1 Roles for TQM in higher education Assuming that there is ‘improvement potential’ and that TQM is a way to address such matters, what could be achieved with such an approach? There seems to be some common ways in which TQM has been approached:

• teaching of TQM;

• TQM in organisational development;

• TQM as a means to enhance the teaching and learning.

Teaching of TQM

TQM could be introduced in the curricula, which could be motivated by the use of TQM in business. Such elements could be particularly beneficial for students who are likely to become employees in organisations where TQM has been adopted. Suggestions as to what should be taught are given by Evans (1996).

There are a number of institutions world-wide where TQM has been included in the curricula. See for example Klaus (1996) who lists such institutions, mainly American, but also institutions in some other countries.

TQM in organisational development

Administrative functions in higher education are not so different from counterparts in business or elsewhere in the public sector. Therefore, it is logical that there are a number of cases where TQM has been used as a framework for improvements in administrative areas, see Assad & Olian (1995), Hillenmeyer (1992), Nagy et al. (1993).

TQM in teaching and research

Roberts (1995a) argues that faculty have a self-interest in “Total Quality”, since it could make it possible to root out “the wastes that pervade organizational and individual work processes, including teaching and research processes”10. There are basically three ways in which teaching and learning could be enhanced as a result from adoption of a TQM approach:

a) reduction of the amount of non-productive time and resources spent by teachers could make it possible to deal with activities such as teaching or research more efficiently, see also Batson (1992), Strickland (1992);

b) the effectiveness of the teaching could be enhanced by addressing issues as customer needs more thoroughly than what is common;

c) an explicit TQM approach in teaching could stimulate students to embrace a self-reflective attitude which is an integral element in continuous improvement and consequently a core aspect of TQM.

10Roberts’ emphasis.

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These aspects together with a more direct comparison between some characteristics of higher education and developments in industrial settings are discussed further in chapter 7.

4.2 Tools and methods There are a number of tools and methods which have become common in quality improvement work. Several of these have been developed without specific reference to quality matters, but due to their use for quality improvement, they are often labelled as ‘quality tools’ or ‘TQM tools’.

Tools for structuring of data and for problem solving

There are a number of methods which have proved to be useful in the collection and analysis of data, structuring of problems and corresponding solutions. One set of tools which were compiled by Ishikawa (1984) is often called the ‘7 Quality Control tools’. These were mainly intended as tools which could be useful in attempts to deal with fairly well-defined problems, and some of the tools are based on numerical techniques. Another set also originating from Japan is the so-called ‘7 Management tools’. Their purpose was more to be of aid in attempts to structure less well-defined problems and based on handling verbal information. Such toolboxes have been compiled by a number of authors, and the set of tools contained in them can differ, see Brassard (1989), Brassard & Ritter (1994), Straker (1995). The use of teams is also a important element in this context, see Brassard & Joiner (1995), Scholtes (1988).

Self-assessments according to quality awards

A method which can be perceived as directly aiming at stimulating self-reflection is self-assessment according to the criteria in some quality award. These are intended to provide an instrument by which an organisation can assess its ability to function and develop in a conscious and systematic manner. There are a number of awards, both national and regional such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the USA, the Swedish Quality Award (Lundquist 1996) and the European Quality Award (Zink & Schmidt 1995). A description of a study of how the Swedish Quality Award could be used in higher educational settings is given in chapter 5.

Quality costing

The use of so-called quality costing is quite common in business and industry, and it could be perceived as another perspective on assessment or measurement. There are cases where such costing exercises have been used in higher education, see for example Beecroft (1994). These cost measurements are usually based on some model which could be adapted to include not only financial measures but any process measure. For a description of some models and a dis-cussion of their use in higher education, see Lundquist (1995).

4.3 Prevalence There are a number of cases where a TQM approach has been used within higher education in all three areas described in section 4.1, see for example Harris & Baggett (1992), Roberts (1995b). Another source of interest is Seymour & Collett (1991) who studied the adoption of TQM at 22 colleges and universities in the USA. From this study they concluded that

“As the pioneering institutions in this study show, there are plenty of healthful benefits that are derived from a TQM approach. There are also more than a few serious questions that remain unanswered.”

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So far TQM has mainly been adopted as a perspective for improvements in higher education in the USA, with a number of cases in Europe and Australasia.

Seymour & Collett (1991) also discusses a pattern as to what kinds of institutions seem to be most inclined to adopt a TQM approach:

• There are only a few cases where entire universities or “seats of learning” have taken this route, and among these, the smaller ones are more frequent.

• TQM is usually assumed as an approach to quality improvement in some subunit, and then especially support functions as administration, libraries or similar.

• Units in academic areas where a TQM perspective have been adopted seem to be most prevalent in areas as engineering, business studies or further education.

As for the development during the last few years, TQM seems to be receiving less attention in higher education in many countries. Whether this is more than a personal impression, and the possible reasons for such a development have not been dealt with in this thesis.

4.4 Problems encountered Improvement of quality generally comprise some change, and change is seldom simple and straightforward. As a consequence, adoption of TQM could not be expected to escape facing problems and obstacles.

There are reports of problems from adoptions of TQM. Seymour (1993b) reports on a study of ‘hurdles’ and ‘hurdle-clearing strategies’. The study was based on the responses from 73 individuals from 21 institutions engaged in quality management in some way. Most of these hurdles seem to be of the same character as would be expected in many other kinds of organisations: low level of leadership commitment, restraints on time, general scepticism in the institutions, not so evident results. There were also some hurdles which seem more typical of non-business settings: difficulties with acceptance of the approach as a whole and with acceptance of the language.

There are also other accounts of how TQM has been perceived within higher education. Horine & Hailey (1995) performed a study of what was perceived as “the greatest challenge to implementing TQM throughout the school system” by distributing a questionnaire to 425 colleges and universities in the USA out of which 160 responded. The responses were grouped into the following problematic aspects ordered with respect to importance:

1. Organisational culture, which was often characterised by aversion to change, scepticism and the belief that there is no need for TQM.

2. Lack of senior leadership commitment.

3. Lack of faculty support: the respondents reported on apathy, resistance and scepticism.

4. Insufficient implementation time: faculty were already experiencing overload with current workloads.

5. Insufficient training: the respondents reported that there had been a need for substantial amounts of training and education.

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Just as in the study described by Seymour (1993b), most of these aspects seem to be not solely confined to higher education.

4.5 Comparisons between contemporary practice and elements of a TQM strategy

Assuming that TQM would be a relevant approach to quality improvement in higher education, to what extent does the contemporary system exhibit characteristics of TQM? As a basis for the discussion, the description of a TQM strategy which was outlined in section 2.2.1 will be used.

Top management commitment

One difficulty in higher education is that the notion of management or top management is not unambiguous. Explanations to this could be the dual structure mentioned in section 3.1.2. This structure implies that the relations between people involved in the decision-making are characterised by a necessary ‘consent’ rather than ‘enforcement’. Neither is the notion of ‘commitment’ clear. Even if people within higher education could be ‘committed’, they often do not seem to be committed to the same thing.

Focus on customers

As discussed previously, customers are not so easy to define in education. Interpreted in a general way, the customers might not be so readily definable in any situation, but there seems to be a widespread conception of inherent difficulties in education. Still, using a fairly general definition such as the one given in ISO (1994b), where a customer is defined as “recipient of a product provided by the supplier”, there are clearly customers in higher education. One reason for the resistance towards the concept of customers seems to be that this suggests a commercial and rather simplified relation between teachers and students. A personal impression is that this issue in some cases has come so much into focus that the entire discussion about quality and quality improvement has become stranded, even if a more inclusive perspective on customers makes the whole issue seem fairly insignificant. Furthermore, there seems to be limited consideration of other possible customers than students.

Base decision on facts

Nobody would ever disagree on the necessity of basing decision on facts. Using a thorough basis in decision making could perhaps be expected to be more common in higher education than elsewhere, but such a claim seems questionable. Due to the diffuse authority in higher education, there are a number of different parties involved in the decision-making processes. These parties may have diverging perspectives, as for example when a researcher’s perspective might be different from a teacher’s or an administrator’s. However, all of them would maintain their perspective as being based on facts.

Improve continuously

The educational system does not change too easily. The system has gone through major changes, but there are still elements which could be traced back to the medieval universities. Such a stability could be regarded as a strength, but does also suggest a conservatism which could hinder the ability to improve. This rigidity can be found on a number of levels, ranging from organisational structure to individual perspectives. With reference to the latter, Hull (1992) states that

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“A great deal is made of ‘critical thinking’ by which we learn to evaluate ‘objective’ evidence, but little attention is given to ‘creative thinking’ by which we develop the capacity for intuition and liberate the imagination to explore the frontiers of the not-yet-known.”

Let everybody be committed

This might seem to be a naïve statement, since the question of commitment could not be expected to be solved by merely allowing for such an attitude. Still, everyone’s commitment is naturally worth striving for. On certain levels of the higher educational system, the amount of commitment is also perhaps not especially problematic. There is perhaps more commitment than could be expected in many other organisations. Individuals active in teaching or research often devote much of their time and energy to their work. The problem is more what people are committed to. There is as mentioned a tendency to be loyal to one’s own speciality in the first place, and not to the organisation and its goals. Deming is quoted in Neave (1990) as saying: “We are being ruined by best efforts.” Furthermore, even if there are committed individuals, this does not pertain as a characteristic common to all activities and individuals.

Seymour (1993a), as an advocate of an approach which he calls ‘strategic quality management’, claims that:

“The trick then would seem to be to retain the strengths of a loosely-coupled system while developing means or methods to ameliorate the problems of innovation and coordination.”

Focus on processes

Most activities in any organisation can be regarded as elements in at least one process. A focus on processes would mean a perspective where everyone is trying to explicitly treat their activities as customer-supplier relationships and as elements in the overall process.

Within higher education there is generally not much of such a focus on processes. As for educational activities, an ordinary student will during the time of the studies encounter a number of more or less related courses. Which these courses are depends on the design of programmes, since there is a varying degree of freedom of choice for the students. Irrespective of differences as to who decides which courses should be taken and their sequence, the courses are usually given with little or no reference to the educational process as a whole. The units providing the courses are working more or less independently of each other. The degree of independence might not be worse than in many other organisations, but the consequences seem to be perhaps more substantial: knowledge growth and learning depend to a great extent on integration. Higher education could not be claimed as permeated by an ambition to stimulate such integration.

Create holistic view

This aspect is clearly related to the former, but implies a heavier emphasis on the systems view which is believed to be necessary. Here again, higher education seems to have some particular difficulties. Due to the organisational structure and to the ambiguousness about purpose, what such a holistic or systems view would be is hard to say.

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4.6 TQM in higher education – concluding remarks There are not so many institutions in higher education where TQM has been used as an approach to quality improvement. Furthermore, these institutions often seem to have encountered some problems, of which some seem to be fairly general and some more dependent on the specific conditions in higher education. TQM provides a perspective on organisational change which is different from common practice, and as such it cannot be expected to be other than questioned.

This does however not imply that this perspective would be irrelevant, meaningless or even inappropriate. There are cases, ranging from courses, projects and support activities to entire institutions, where TQM has been adopted with positive results. Even if this does not ‘prove’ that TQM would be relevant or beneficial, it still does provide support for such claims.

How should relevance be decided? What are the criteria for determining when an approach such as TQM is successful? These questions are considered to be of such an extensive scope that they are mainly left out of this thesis. In this context it has been considered as sufficient that there are people who not only believe in the relevance, but also have been able to adopt at TQM perspective and have experienced positive effects.

However, the common approach to quality in higher education has usually meant an emphasis on quality assurance and assessments rather than on quality improvement. One general question which has come to the fore is why it seems to be harder to work with quality improvement than with quality assurance and quality assessment?

One reason why systems for assessment or quality assurance are so much more of current interest than attempts to adopt an approach to quality improvement could be that assessment and assurance can be administered. It is possible to design a program for the administration of an assessment system. Quality improvement according to a TQM perspective cannot be administered or enforced in the same manner, since it relies so heavily on an internal perception of necessity. In order to have effect, it must to a greater extent than assurance be based on the participants’ own self-reflection which perhaps could be stimulated by the explicit use of a ‘program’. Self-reflection and willingness to change does however not necessarily follow from the use of such programs.

As has been previously discussed, one underlying assumption throughout this thesis has been that the adoption of a TQM perspective could have beneficial effects on higher education. Despite such possibilities, there still seem to be some obstacles to such an adoption in these settings. These obstacles are in some cases common to most other organisations, but there are aspects of higher education which seem to be more apparent in this kind of organisation. The organisational structure with an diffuse leadership and units comprised of professionals with incoherent loyalties may not constitute unsurmountable difficulties, but it would also be naïve to disregard such aspects.

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Part 2: Three studies of approaches to management and improvement of quality in

higher education

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5 Using a quality award for self-assessments in higher education

5.1 Introduction The use of quality awards has spread to many countries. The Deming Prize in Japan, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the USA, and the European Quality Award are perhaps the most well-known, but there are a number of similar awards. The Swedish Quality Award was established in 1992 by the Swedish Institute for Quality, and this award is similar to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. It has been used in many parts of Swedish society. There are also several awards for certain companies or sectors of Swedish society. Some examples are the award for the state-owned telecommunications company, Telia, the award for schools (“Kvalitetsutmärkelsen Svensk Skola”) and an award for health care (“Qvalitet, Utveckling, Ledarskap, QUL”).

This chapter consists of a description of the findings in a study to see if the principles behind the Swedish Quality Award could be used in higher education. The study was made in 1994 by the author and Britt-Marie Olsson, who worked at the division at the time. The study is also described in Lundquist (1996).

5.2 The Swedish Quality Award One of the intentions with the Swedish Quality Award is that it will be of assistance in analysing the activities within an organisation so as to encourage continuous quality improvement. Primarily it is an instrument for self-assessment. The award criteria11 are founded on a set of core values meant to be “characteristic of successful organizations”, see figure 5.1.

11 The criteria have been revised annually, but the description has still adhered to the versions available when the study was made. Readers interested in later versions could contact SIQ.

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LeadershipManagementby fact

Competence Prevention

Partnership

Long-termperspective

Customerorientation

Processorientation

Continuousimprovement

ParticipationPublicresponsibility

Learningfrom others

Fasterresponse

Figure 5.1: Core values characteristic of successful organisations upon which the Swedish Quality Award is based. From SIQ (1995).

5.2.1 Steps in the assessment process The award criteria are meant to be used in a process consisting of three steps:

1) Description

An organisation describes itself by answering a number of questions which fundamentally are directed at some basic aspects of the activities:

• How are we working?

• To what extent are we working this way?

• What are the results achieved?

• How do we evaluate and improve our work?

These questions provide a general framework for focusing on “seven aspects of the organisation”, see table 5.1.

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1. Leadership

2. Information and Analysis

3. Strategic Planning

4. Human Resources Development

5. Management of Processes

6. Results

7. Customer Satisfaction

Table 5.1: The award criteria in the SQA are structured around seven aspects of the organisation. From SIQ (1995).

The seven main aspects are further divided into 29 subcriteria. One example could be seen in the following excerpt from aspect 5, Management of Processes which is divided into the subcriteria given in table 5.2.

5.1 Development of Main Processes

5.2 Management of Main Processes

5.3 Support Processes

5.4 Cooperation with Suppliers

5.5 Environmental Responsibility

5.6 Quality Assessment

Table 5.2: Subcriteria for aspect 5, Management of Processes in the Swedish Quality Award. From SIQ (1995).

The purpose of the first subcriterion, 5.1, Development of Main Processes, is to find answers to the following questions:

“Describe how the main processes are managed. Also describe how you ensure that the results of the main processes will correspond to customers’ requirements and the overall operational requirements.”

To further specify what is asked for in these over-arching questions there are a number of questions related to specific issues, see table 5.3.

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5.1A Describe the main processes and the external customers’ most important requirements.

5.1B Describe how the main processes are developed.

5.1B.1 Outline how requirements regarding goods, services and processes, together with the overall operational requirements, are translated into requirements regarding main processes.

5.1B.2–5B.5

...

5.1B.6 Outline how customers and suppliers participate in the development of main processes.

5.1C Describe to what extent the above-mentioned approaches are deployed.

5.1D Describe how the development of main processes is evaluated and improved.

Table 5.3: Some of the specific issues to be answered in subcriterion 5.1, Development of Main Processes, in the Swedish Quality Award. From SIQ (1995).

These questions are subsequently answered in writing and compiled in an assessment document.

2) Evaluation

After the self-assessment is concluded, the assessment document is evaluated. This is often done by examiners from other units within the organisation. Another way is to take part in the award process, which begins with submitting the assessment document to the Swedish Institute for Quality, which appoints a group of examiners. One intention with the evaluation is to assess to what extent the core values permeate the organisation. This is done by studying the document with a perspective provided by three dimensions, see table 5.4.

Approach Deployment Results

100% Systematic, constantly being improved

Always, in all relevant processes

First-class, consistent

⎯ ⎯ ⎯

0% Anecdotal Not deployed Not reported

Table 5.4: Dimensions used when evaluating an organisation’s assessment document according to the criteria in the Swedish Quality Award. From SIQ (1995).

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Noteworthy is that it is not the characteristics of the output, as defined by the examiners or other external bodies, which are studied. Instead it is the document written as a result from the self-assessment which is reviewed. The examiners write a feedback report, where both general impressions and detailed descriptions of ‘strengths’ and ‘possibilities for improvements’ are given. They also measure the results by assigning points to each of the subcriteria. Each subcriterion can give a certain number of points, and the sum of these is 1000 points.

3) Improvement

The feedback report can then be used within the organisation as a basis for quality improvement.

5.2.2 Underlying perspective in the evaluation The perspective is thus delimited to quality issues, but given this restriction, the intention is not to prescribe what constitutes quality, how it should be achieved and measured. The purpose is to see if the intentions as they are expressed in missions and vision and goals are well thought out, and to trace the consistency between what is intended and how this is carried out. Issues such as what constitutes quality must be answered within the organisation. This is further illustrated by the evaluation, where the examiners take the assessment document as the basis for a study of the consistency between stated approaches and statements of mission and vision, to which extent chosen approaches are deployed and if the results follow from the deployment of approaches. This construction is meant to make the award criteria possible to use in various types of organisations.

5.3 The study The study comprised two parts, a) some assessments of institutions in Swedish higher education, and b) some interviews with people representing organisations where the SQA had been used.

In our study we tried to answer the following questions:

• Is use of the award criteria relevant for higher education?

• Given that the award criteria would be relevant in higher education, how should the award criteria be used and how should they not be used?

5.3.1 Assessments In the attempts to use the SQA for assessments the following institutions were involved:

• the Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences at Luleå University of Technology;

• the Division of Manufacturing Engineering at Luleå University of Technology;

• the Education and Research Office at Luleå University of Technology;

• the Department of Business Administration, Computer Science, Economics and Statistics at the University College of Örebro;

• the Department of Technology and Science at University College of Halmstad.

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These units were selected mainly on the basis of personal contacts with the ambition to find institutions of different sizes and types of activity. They had also shown some interest in what often is called TQM, even if none of the institutions had initiated any explicit TQM program.

The assessments were performed in two ways:

a) as interviews meant to provide a basis for external assessments;

b) by taking part in and facilitating discussions within a group of people representing the unit at hand, in which case the assessments were performed by the staff of the unit.

The purpose with studying these different cases as well as using different methods was to cover as many ways as possible of performing self-assessments according to the SQA criteria.

Division of Manufacturing Engineering, Luleå University of Technology

The division consisted at the time of 12 employees, and the main activities were teaching of both undergraduate and graduate students and research.

The assessment was performed as a general discussion about the criteria after which individual responses to these criteria were given. Instead of giving answers in writing, a form designed by SIQ for grading the responses in a five grade scale was used. The first level should correspond to “We have no consciously chosen approach” and the fifth level should be used when “We achieve first class results as a consequence of the deployment of systematic approaches throughout the organisation”. During the first session, which took one day, there was not enough time to go through all criteria, so all individuals continued on their own. Finally, all completed forms were compiled and discussed.

Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Luleå University of Technology

The department consisted of 9 divisions, employing totally about 100 people at the time of the study.

A group of five people representing different divisions and activities were gathered, and after a general discussion about quality issues and the SQA as a tool for assessment, these individuals were interviewed. The questions were based on the award criteria, and the results were analysed and reported back to the group.

Education and Research Office, Luleå University of Technology

The unit functions as an administrative support in matters of teaching and research: registration of students, student support, planning and administration of matters common to several bodies engaged in teaching or research.

About 35 people were working in the office at the time of the study, and during two sessions they formed groups to assess the unit with respect to parts of the award criteria. The intention was that everyone should continue with their own assessments using the simplified five grade scale to answer the criteria, but for different reasons this was never completely done by everyone.

Department of Business Administration, Computer Science, Economics and Statistics, University College of Örebro

At the department about 80 people were active at the time of the study. The head of department and a person who had been active as a quality co-ordinator within the university

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college were interviewed during half a day, and the questions were as far as possible based on the criteria. This interview was not followed by any actual assessment, since the level of detail which could be attained was not considered as sufficient.

Department of Technology and Science, University College of Halmstad

The department’s staff consisted of about 50 people, and the main field of activity was teaching of undergraduate students.

A group of five people representing different parts of and activities in the department were gathered by the head of the department, and during two sessions of half a day each, the criteria were discussed and used for assessing the department. The judgements were made in the same way as at the Division of Manufacturing Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, namely with a five grade scale to represent the individual responses to the criteria.

5.3.2 Experiences from the assessments The award criteria were generally regarded as being relevant to the activities in the institutions involved. On several occasions people involved expressed that the assessment shed light on aspects of their activities which rarely had been regarded, but which still were meaningful. Even so, some particular aspects of the assessment process were in general perceived as unfamiliar:

• Usually assessments had been performed as measurements of either the qualities of the output or of other aspects of the system meant to be measurable. In such assessments the aspects under consideration were defined and measured in terms relevant to some external body. Performing an assessment where concepts and purpose were determined within the units was perceived as unfamiliar.

• Use of terms as ‘leadership’, ‘customers’ and ‘processes’ had not been common practice within the institutions involved.

• It had not been common practice to question the extent to which activities had been designed as consequences of carefully chosen approaches. A common impression was that things seem to ‘happen’ instead of being ‘caused’.

In some cases, criticism against both TQM as a whole and against concepts like ‘customer’ and ‘leadership’ was raised. In spite of such opinions, the people involved were in general taking part quite actively.

Furthermore, it became clear that this kind of assessment requires a substantial amount of resources. The first step in all assessments was discussion about the core values and some training in how to use the instrument, and these activities required more time than expected. After this step came the actual assessments, in which a considerable amount of time also was required.

Working with the award criteria also provided a means to communicate and discuss quality issues. Both the discussions about quality issues and about the method itself became ways to reach a common understanding about issues rarely discussed before.

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5.4 Interviews Some interviews were made with representatives from organisations where the SQA had been used, and where the activities to some extent were similar to activities in higher education.

At Linköping University Hospital the SQA had been used in several clinics since 1992. An interview with the project leader, Bengt Hartvig, was made. Another interview was made with Anders Haraldsson, head of the Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University of Technology. The SQA had been used in this department in an assessment performed by students of quality management as a course project.

At the time of the study there was ongoing work to establish a quality award for schools. Interviews were held with Lars-Ove Hagman and Agneta Jörbeck, who both were principals in schools (Sundsta/Älvkullegymnasiet in Karlstad and Näsbyparksskolan in Täby respectively) where the SQA had been used. Mats Söderberg as a representative of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities, one of the bodies involved in establishing the award, was also interviewed.

5.4.1 Linköping University Hospital The main reasons for studying the use of the SQA at Linköping University Hospital were that the SQA had been in use since 1992, and that the activities in such an organisation have many aspects in common with other institutions in higher education. Besides running a hospital, the activities at the hospital include teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and research.

The SQA had become an integral part of the work with quality development at this hospital, and after a start with two clinics in 1992, about half of the around 40 units were at the time of the study annually performing self-assessments based on the SQA.

Their work had been organised as a process comprising both internal training for examiners and an internal evaluation process. In a unit taking part in this process, a group of people was trained as examiners, and this group performed an assessment of their own unit. The group also evaluated other units. This procedure had made it possible to keep the overall costs fairly low. Especially the costs for hiring external trainers or consultants had been low since the work had been performed by people within the organisation. The units involved had to apply for taking part in this process, so it was based on voluntary participation.

The use of the award was the first step in what was called their ‘quality development process’. After studying the units with the perspective provided by the award criteria, the intention was to work with quality improvement. In this step there had been a substantial amount of training and supervision by facilitators. After implementing new approaches, a new round of assessment was meant to be performed.

One of the most important experiences at the hospital seems to be the raising of the unit managers’ awareness about the activities and possible problems within the units. Even if most activities had been conceived as based on ‘well-tried experience’, such conceptions had in many cases been found as fairly unfounded. Another aspect was how this new understanding had been a prerequisite for successful work with quality improvement. Prior attempts to organise such work had failed partly because of lack of managers’ support and commitment,

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which could have been a consequence of insufficient understanding of activities and problems within the units.

Another effect was the dissemination of approaches through the examiners. These were in the position to study the activities in other units, and when good approaches had been found, they had often been implemented in the examiners’ own units as well.

5.4.2 The Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University of Technology

In 1992 a student team assessed the department as a course project. The team interviewed staff and compiled material of relevance during some months to get a basis for an assessment according to the award criteria.

The project was primarily a task for the students, even if the staff had agreed to take part in the work. As far as could be understood from the interview with the department head, the assessment did not seem to have had any lasting effects within the department. More important were the experiences from the assessment process, in which one negative result was that the results had not been accepted as relevant by some members of the staff. There seemed to be two major reasons for this. First of all was the use of external examiners, which had lead to a perception of the assessment as an attempt to grade the department rather than being an opportunity to find possibilities for quality improvement. Secondly, the student team had not been able to acquire such a detailed understanding of the activities as was deemed as necessary by the staff.

With terms previously used in section 3.3.2, the problems could be described as a question of ‘control’ and ‘ownership’: the people assessed did control or own the assessment process or the results. This had made them question being graded by people who were perceived to lack sufficient knowledge as to the activities within the department.

5.4.3 Use of the SQA in schools Interviews were made with representatives from two schools where the SQA had been used. One of the schools is a nine-year compulsory school (‘högstadium’), Byleskolan in Täby Kyrkby, where Agneta Jörbeck was principal, and the other, where Lars-Ove Hagman was principal, is a comprehensive upper secondary school (‘gymnasium’), Sundsta/Älvkullegymnasiet in Karlstad. An interview was also made with Mats Söderberg from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (“Svenska Kommunförbundet”). This organisation was responsible for developing the award for schools, “Kvalitetsutmärkelsen Svensk Skola”.

These interviews showed that in these settings, the award criteria were often perceived in about the same manner as in our assessments. The people interviewed claimed that the award criteria had been perceived as relevant in school settings and that the assessments provided a basis for further quality improvement. They also reported on some common problems such as difficulties in attaining general acceptance for the assessment with respect to purpose and con-cepts used.

5.5 Results from assessments and interviews The assessments together with the interviews suggested that certain aspects of the award criteria and its use were particularly worthy of attention:

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• Both the self-assessment method and language in the award criteria are meant to be generic and possible to use in any organisation. Does this also apply to higher education?

• Could assessments based on the SQA criteria be a starting point for an institution in its work with quality improvement?

• What is the role of the award?

• Who should ‘own’ the assessment process?

5.5.1 The self-assessment method The assessments which were made were not full-scale self-assessments according to the description given in section 5.2.1. Still, even if the study comprised different approaches, there was nothing which suggested that the self-assessment method or the criteria would not be valid in higher education. Furthermore, the method suggested in the award guidelines was possible to adapt to the actual conditions.

However, use of different methods had an important consequence which had not been anticipated. An assumption during the early stages of the study had been that the assessments would result in comparable descriptions, but such comparisons seemed unfeasible. The assessment results simply seemed to depend on the chosen method to a great extent.

5.5.2 Conceptual differences The vocabulary used in the award criteria comprises concepts such as ‘customers’, ‘suppliers’, ‘processes’ and other concepts which may be more common in trade and industry than in higher education. One question underlying the actual assessments was consequently whether it is necessary to translate the criteria so as to make them more in line with terminology common in higher education, and if so, would such translations be possible? As for the last question, our study indicates that translations were possible. One example was the interviews made in the Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences at Luleå university of Technology which were based on questions adapted so as to make oral questioning and answering possible. This does however not imply that such a translation would be necessary or desirable. In this study we did not found any decisive arguments for such translations being needed, but rather that the criteria should not be translated. The following arguments against translations are in part based on statements made by individuals involved in this study:

• The general impression was that the criteria and the award did provide valid and meaningful descriptions of the activities within the institutions involved.

• Finding generally accepted translations will not be easy for any kind of activity.

• The perspective on quality which lies behind the award will in most organisations require a major change of culture and accustomed perspectives. Most organisations will subsequently need to begin thinking in new ways, and this could be difficult if accustomed concepts are used. Even if it takes time to accept new concepts, this time would probably be necessary in any case.

• There is often a tendency to perceive one’s own organisation as substantially different from other organisations. Such attitudes can, despite any factual similarities, make changes

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and improvements more difficult to attain. The use of general concepts and terms could make comparisons with other organisations easier.

As a comparison, the awards intended for use in health care and in schools could be mentioned, because in those cases, the original criteria have been kept almost unchanged. The use of these award criteria has instead been simplified by formulation of accompanying ‘glossaries’ giving examples of how the terms could be understood in the actual settings. There is also material specifically designed for both schools and health care to be used in the training of examiners.

This could be compared with the approach chosen for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, where there are several versions of the criteria designed for different sectors of society. One of these is the Education Pilot Criteria, see NIST (1995).

5.5.3 Assessments as a starting point for quality improvement Since none of the units involved in the study had initiated any explicit TQM program, the assessments became in several cases an initial step in their discussions about management and improvement of quality. Even if this effect could be regarded as valuable, it meant that the actual assessment and mapping of possibilities to improve became less important.

The discussions which proceeded from the assessments were perhaps valuable as means to initiate continued attempts to address quality issues. However, this does not imply that use of the SQA is the best way to start such efforts.

5.5.4 The quest for the award Assigning points is a method to compel the examiners to give further attention to their findings, and the points given to each of the subcriteria are summed up. This sum corresponds to one out of seven intervals which describe different levels of the organisation. One example of such a description is the following SIQ (1995):

“Appropriate approaches initiated. Coordination among functions is insufficient. Approaches deployed in only a few areas. There are signs of a quality culture. There are a few positive results in important areas. The results show no particular links with approaches.”

This description corresponds to the second level in which those organisations with a total sum of between 101 and 250 points are categorised.

In the study there was a tendency to give this final sum much weight from the institutions involved. There was no attempt to reach such a measure, but the question of what the result would have been was still raised. Experiences from Linköping University Hospital and from my own work as examiner within Telia suggest that the final sum should be de-emphasised. The level of an organisation cannot be described by a single figure, even if the corresponding description in general can be regarded as a rough but fair description of an organisation. Still, people involved often tend to emphasise the numerical score, and a result in the lower half of the scale seems almost inevitably to be perceived as unfair.

This is also related to the tendency to emphasise the contest for the award. Given the prospect of winning the award, getting the commitment for the efforts required in the assessment process could be simplified. However, with such motives it could prove to be hard to mobilise a lasting willingness to continue the never-ending work with quality

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improvement. The self-assessment must be regarded as a means and not as an end in itself, but too much emphasis on the award could make people view the assessment process as such an end.

5.5.5 Assessment by whom? The experiences from our own assessments suggest that self-assessments should be made with limited or no use of external examiners. This is also supported by the assessment of the Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University of Technology, which was done by students. External assessors cannot be expected to find all relevant details, and even if they did, their findings could have a limited impact on the institution. To use the full potential in the findings, these have to be regarded as controlled by the institution and its staff. Such an ownership is hard to reach if the assessment is not made by people within the organisation. This also implies that assessments to a great extent should be carried out by managers rather than for them. The use of external bodies for this kind of assessment might be seen as an unnecessary step at best and as diminishing the possible impact of the assessment at worst. Self-assessments, including the instrument, the measurement process, and the results, should belong to the units at hand.

5.6 Limitations of the study One obvious limitation in the study is that there was no full-scale assessment. It seems reasonable to assume that such full-scale assessments would be valuable. Another limitation is the kind of institutions involved: they were generally ‘technical’, i. e. medicine, natural sciences, administrative affairs or engineering. If use of the award criteria would work in a substantially different way in ‘non-technical’ areas as humanities is still an unanswered question.

The people involved could also be seen as ‘biased’, since the general attitude towards both the assessment exercise and Total Quality Management as a whole was, if not always positive, at least fairly neutral.

5.7 Conclusions The main result is that the criteria in general were considered to correspond to important aspects of the units involved. The language and the concepts may have been perceived as more or less familiar, but nothing suggested that self-assessments according to the award criteria would be irrelevant or unsuitable for use in higher education. Instead, most of the people involved expressed on several occasions that they regarded the instrument as valid to their institutions. The descriptions resulting from the assessments were regarded as focusing on aspects which perhaps were unfamiliar, but still rewarding. Especially the dimensions of the evaluation, ‘Approach’, ‘Deployment’ and ‘Results’, suggested that final approaches often were not clearly thought-out approaches based on clearly thought-out intentions.

Using the SQA for assessments requires both time, energy, and financial resources. Training examiners, assessing and describing an organisation, evaluating the assessment document and using the findings are all demanding exercises.

The findings in the study did not suggest that translations of the criteria into more familiar terms would be worthwhile or even suitable. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to emphasise

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the use of the award criteria for self-assessment and to de-emphasise motivating its use by referring to the competition for the award.

The assessment in its entirety should be also be ‘controlled’ by the institution itself, since ‘control’ and ‘ownership’ in general must be considered to be a prerequisite for the necessary self-critical attitude to be expected.

Use of the award criteria is neither simple nor a general solution to all the problems facing an organisation engaged in quality improvements. It could be a means to stimulate the discussion about quality improvement, but primarily it is a method for measuring the actual state of affairs regarding some aspects of an organisation. These aspects could be considered as important for continuous quality improvement. Such measurements are needed in different phases in the life of an organisation, and could probably not be performed without consider-able efforts.

As was discussed in section 2.1.3, Barnett (1992) argues that there are connections between an individual’s competence and an organisation’s competence in the sense that both need to achieve some ‘self-reflection’. As a conclusion on a general level, self-assessments according to criteria in the SQA could be a means to achieve such self-reflection.

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6 Quality systems and ISO 9000 in higher education

6.1 Introduction One element in the contemporary discussion about quality, quality management and quality improvement is the use of ‘quality systems’. Such systems are now common in manufacturing industry, and have gained much attention in other sectors as well. The most widespread and well-known system is the ISO 9000 set of standards for quality systems.

There are some institutions within higher education where quality systems have been implemented. A study to investigate the use of these systems was done during 1995-1996 by the author. The intention was to study the following questions:

• Where have ISO 9000 or equivalent systems been implemented in higher education? Have certificates to some part of the ISO 9000 set of standards been gained?

• Why have quality systems been implemented?

• How have the implementations been achieved?

• What are the experiences from these implementations?

In order to address these questions, a general background both to quality systems and to ISO 9000 will be provided. The terminology given in ISO 8402:1994, Quality management and quality assurance - Vocabulary (ISO 1994b) will to a great extent be used, primarily since the terminology used in the ISO 9000 set of standards conforms with the definitions given in ISO 8402.

The description is limited to the period when the study was made. As a consequence, there are a number of details which today have become outdated, such as figures on the prevalence of certificated quality systems.

The study is also described in Lundquist (1997).

6.2 Quality systems – general description Using the terminology in ISO 8402, a ‘quality system’ is defined as an

[quality system]: “organisational structure, procedures, processes and resources needed to implement quality management”.

It should be noted that according to this description, the term does not focus on the outputs from an organisation. It does not provide requirements on the output, requirements which must be met if this output is to be considered as having high quality. Instead the terms are referring to the system for managing activities related to quality within an organisation.

A description of quality systems and the relation between systems and the processes within an organisation is given in ISO 9000-1 (see the description given later in section 6.5):

“The quality system is carried out by means of processes, which exist both within and across functions. For a quality system to be effective, these

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processes and associate responsibilities, authorities, procedures and resources should be defined and deployed in a consistent manner.”

6.3 Standards for quality systems The term ‘standard’ is not a clear-cut concept. Two encyclopaedic definitions12 are

• something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example

• something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality

The concept is fairly common in the contemporary discussion around quality in higher education. A discussion of the concept is given by Green (1994):

“The specification for a product or service comprises a number of standards. The quality of the product or service is measured in terms of its conformance to the specification. Quality control in this context relates to testing the product or service to see whether it meets the standards set and rejecting those that do not conform.”

“The use of the term ‘standard’ causes other difficulties in relation to higher education, as it is often used in a different sense to that defined above: it is used to mean excellence or a high standard.”

Another way of approaching the concept is to start from the verb ‘standardise’, by which usually is meant the use of a ‘standard’ to which several cases should comply. Common examples are standards for measurement systems, providing operational definitions for concepts as length, voltage or other technical aspects. Standards for quality systems could be seen as similar to such measurement standards, since the standards in this case provide rules and a structure for quality systems. The rules and the structure do not necessarily have to result in ‘excellence’, since part of the strength of a standard lies in the possibility to reach common operational definitions of difficult and elusive concepts.

There are a number of standards for quality systems. In many countries there are organisations holding a national responsibility for standardisation. One example of such a national system is the British standard for quality systems, issued by the British Standards Institution (BSI). It was previously designated as BS 5750, but has been replaced by BS EN ISO 9000. This denomination should be interpreted as a national British standard, equivalent to the standard issued by the European Committee for Standardization13 (hence the EN) and also by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO)14.

12“standard” Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?keywords=standard&DBase=Dictionary [March 11, 1997]

13This organisation is perhaps more known under its French name, Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN).

14The letters ISO, as in ISO 9000, are originally not intended as an acronym for the International Organisation for Standardisation even if this often is believed to be the case.

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6.4 Definitions of some concepts related to quality according to ISO 8402

Several of the concepts have already been discussed, but for a hopefully more consistent line of reasoning these are included in this context as well. One example is ‘quality assurance’ which is defined in ISO 8402 as

[quality assurance]: “all the planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system, and demonstrated as needed, to provide adequate confidence that an entity will fulfil requirements for quality”.

Another concept of importance is ‘quality audit’ which is described in ISO 8402 as

[quality audit]: “systematic and independent examination to determine whether quality activities and related results comply with planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives”.

The notes in the standard take this description a bit further by stating that audits typically are applied to quality systems, to processes, to products or to services. It should, according to this terminology, not be confused with ‘quality inspection’ which is to be understood as

[quality inspection]: “activity such as measuring, examining, testing or gauging one or more characteristics of an entity15 and comparing the results with specified requirements in order to establish whether conformity is achieved for each characteristic”.

Inspection could thus be interpreted as comparing an entity with some standard, where this later term then should be understood in the sense of some “required, expected or accepted level of quality” as defined in the dictionary previously referred to.

The term ‘quality assessment’, which is frequently used within higher education, is in ISO 8402 held as synonymous to ‘quality evaluation’, which is defined as

[quality evaluation/quality assessment]: “systematic examination of the extent to which an entity is capable of fulfilling specified requirements”.

The notes further state that the results of an evaluation or assessment may be used for qualification, approval, registration, certification or accreditation purposes.

6.5 ISO 9000 The ISO 9000 set of standards has been taken as the basis for this investigation for several reasons:

• It has been used in a number of countries.

Instead it was derived from the Greek word ‘isos’ which means equal, see e.g. Majerczyk (1994) or Bergman & Klefsjö (1994).

15According to ISO 8402 an ‘entity’ may for example be an activity, a process, a product, an organisation, a system or a person or any combination thereof.

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• Most other national standards for quality systems share both structure and scope with ISO 9000.

Even so, it should be noted that using ISO 9000 is not the only structure for building a quality system, and some other examples are described in section 6.6. As previously described, the terminology in ISO 8402 defines a quality system as an “organisational structure, procedures, processes and resources needed to implement quality management”, which could be achieved in many ways.

It must also be noted that the ISO 9000 set of standards may not have the general scope following from the definition of quality systems given above. These particular standards explicitly describe systems for ‘quality assurance’ which is a more narrow scope than ‘quality management’. Reasons for this possible inconsistency have not been found in this study.

The set of standards is according to ISO 9000-1 (ISO 1994a) intended to be used in four situations:

• guidance for quality management;

• contractual, between first and second parties;

• second-party approval or registration;

• third-party certification or registration.

Some of the parts16 in the standard denominated ISO 9000 are:

• ISO 9000-1, Quality management and quality assurance standards - Part 1: Guidelines for selection and use.

• ISO 9000-2, Quality management and quality assurance standards - Part 2: Generic guidelines for the application of ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003.

Depending on type of activities within the organisation, one of the following standards could be chosen according to the structure given in ISO 9000-1 and ISO 9000-2:

• ISO 9001, Quality systems - Model for quality assurance in design, development, production, installation and servicing.

• ISO 9002, Quality systems - Model for quality assurance in production, installation and servicing.

• ISO 9003, Quality systems - Model for quality assurance in final inspection and test.

Besides these standards there is also a set of guidelines to be used in the implementation of a quality system: ISO 9004, Quality management and quality system elements, which in turn contains four parts.

16Other parts are ISO 9000-3, Quality management and quality assurance standards Part 3: Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001 to the development, supply and maintenance of software; ISO 9000-4, Quality management and quality assurance standards Part 4: Guide to dependability programme management.

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6.5.1 History and future Standards for quality systems have been in use during the last four decades. In countries as the USA and the UK, primarily military standards such as the American MIL-Q-9858, issued in 1959, were developed, following earlier American Airforce and NATO standards.

In 1976 the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) set up a technical committee, ISO/TC 176, which began to work on standards for quality management, quality assurance and quality systems. In 1987 the ISO 9000 set of standards were issued, and they were to a great extent influenced by the British BS 5750 which in its turn was influenced by the MIL-Q-9858.

The series of standards is continuously under evaluation and revision, the last version being issued in 1994 and the next one perhaps around the turn of the century. Coming changes are hoped to make the system generic, see Forsberg (1995).

6.5.2 Implementation of quality systems defined by a standard There is no single way to implement a quality system. However, two common approaches are described in ISO 9000-1 as “management motivated” use or “stakeholder motivated” use. In the first case the implementation is initiated by the organisation’s own management, and in the latter case it is implemented in response to immediate demands by customers or other stakeholders. The same source further states that:

“The stakeholder-motivated approach is the predominant practice in many nations and industry/economic sectors. The increasing use of quality system certification/registration is a factor in the spread of this approach.”

“The quality system implemented in this management-motivated approach will normally be more comprehensive and fruitful than the model for demonstrating the adequacy of the quality system.”

Another aspect which is comparable with this distinction is the question of whether it is the standard or the existing structure within the organisation which should be taken as the starting point. The implementation could be achieved by trying to adapt the organisation to the standard. However, assuming that a “management motivated” implementation is preferable, a better way would presumably be to begin with the existing structure and activities, and build a quality system around these elements. Following this second strategy could result in a structure not totally in line with the structure in the appropriate standard. This would generally not pose any greater problems, since it usually is possible to match the elements in the existing system with the required elements in the standards. The relevant counterparts in the system must be cross-referenced in the case of a subsequent audit.

6.5.3 First-party, second-party and third-party audit In many organisations there is a perceived need for evaluation of the quality system. In such evaluations, the following questions should be addressed according to the description in the standard ISO (1994a):

• Are the processes defined and their procedures appropriately documented?

• Are the processes fully deployed and implemented as documented?

• Are the processes effective in providing the expected results?

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Evaluations of the system along these lines could be performed by different bodies, the organisation itself (‘first-party audit’), its customers (‘second-party audit’) or some independent body (‘third-party audit’).

The ‘second-party’ audit is often done by a purchasing organisation, where they make their own evaluation of the supplier’s quality system. This audit could be based on requirements on quality systems as held by the purchasing organisation, or on some standard for quality systems.

‘Third-party’ audit is a similar procedure where the quality system is examined by an independent organisation, a third party. If the quality system is found to comply to the requirements in an appropriate standard, then this examiner can issue a certificate showing this result. This process is often called ‘certification’. The organisations issuing certificates also maintain registers of the certificated organisations, which is why this procedure sometimes is called ‘registration’.

A quality system can be implemented without a certificate being wanted, which is an approach chosen by several organisations. Some reasons against trying to attain a certificate could be the following:

• if the emphasis is on building a structure to be used within an organisation as opposed to achieving a marketing advantage, then a certificate might be considered as being less important;

• the costs associated with the certification could be discouraging;

There are also several reasons for an organisation to strive for gaining a certificate:

• a customer could require that the supplier should hold a certificate, so as to lessen the need for a second-party audit by the customer;

• holding a certificate could be perceived as a marketing advantage;

• there could be a need to show the staff involved that their efforts resulted in something tangible.

6.5.4 Certification and accreditation It seems as if the term ‘accreditation’ in some countries has been used to describe the process called ‘certification’17 described previously. In this study the terms ‘certification’ or ‘being registered to’ are used to denote the result from passing an audit performed by an examiner, either a purchaser or some independent body. Similarly the term ‘accreditation’ has been used to denote the procedure of examining the examiner. The examining organisation could be ‘accredited’, i.e. they have then passed an audit performed by an accrediting organisation. Being accredited is not a requirement for issuing certificates, but many organisations wishing to be audited by a third party wants this audit to be performed by an organisation which can provide some sign of their ability to audit.

17A direct translation of the Swedish term “certifierad” could be “certified”, but one common interpretation of this word in English is “mentally ill” and consequently, it could not be recommended.

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6.5.5 Prevalence Up to March 1995 at least 95,476 certificates had been issued in 86 countries world-wide. The geographical distribution of the certificates at that time is given in the table 6.1. It is also important to note that there are a number of organisations where quality systems have been implemented, but which are not certificated.

Region Share of certificates, March 1995 (%)

UK 46.2

Rest of Europe 29.1

North America 7.6

Australia/New Zealand

6.8

Far East 6.3

Rest of the world 3.9

Unallocated 0.1

Table 6.1: Geographic distribution of organisations holding certificates according to some standard in the ISO 9000 set of standards. From Symonds (1995).

6.5.6 Criticism of ISO 9000 Despite its widespread use, ISO 9000 has been criticised for several reasons, see for example Bergman & Klefsjö (1994). Some arguments against the system are:

• It might become a bureaucratic and costly structure with all requirements on documentation of the activities within an organisation. This could have a conservative effect instead of stimulating continuous improvements.

• The system represents a minimum of efforts which are believed to be conditions for the ability to achieve products of high quality. Such a set of conditions could become a minimal level, stimulating efforts to become ‘good enough but not better’.

• The system is oriented towards manufacturing and the language and structure could be perceived as less relevant for organisations of other types.

Another expression of possible difficulties with the use of ISO 9000 standards is the comment made by Tito Conti, formerly chairman of the European Organization for Quality. He states that

“It is acceptable to continue talking about ‘quality system’ within the context of ISO 9000 standards, if it means ‘product quality management/assurance sub-system’. Too many people use the two terms [quality assurance and quality management] synonymously and therefore confuse quality assurance with total quality.” (Conti 1995).

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Besides these general remarks, one direct reference to the use of ISO 9000 standards in higher education is made by Tannock (1991). He states that standards for quality systems draw on a traditional management approach which separates between “checkers” and “doers”, and that such an approach would be in conflict with “most recent thinking in quality, which is concerned with TQM”.

6.6 Quality systems in higher education There are a number of higher educational institutions where some kind of quality system has been implemented, both systems following some of the ISO 9000 standards and other systems.

Among the latter category are the systems developed at the Department for Industrial Management at Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven18, Belgium (Gelders et al. 1993) and at the University of LaVerne, USA (Cook 1996). There is also a model called the EPC Model (Tannock & Burge 1994) designed by the Engineering Professors’ Conference (EPC) in the UK, but if and where this system has been implemented in higher education is not known by the author.

At the Department of Industrial Engineering at Katholieke Universiteit, the first approach was a conscious choice of not implementing an ISO 9000 system. Instead they chose to design a system which was intended to fit their internal needs better. Subsequently, they proceeded with the implementation of an ISO 9001 system, resulting in the department gaining their certificate in 1995. This process is described by Gelders et al. (1995), where the authors state that the gaining of a certificate towards ISO 9001 required less effort, since the new system could be built upon the basis provided by the first system. This was made possible by matching the internally defined system against the standard through the cross-referencing previously described.

At LaVerne University, USA, a “heuristic quality system” for “off-campus degree programs” was developed, see Cook (1996). The system was a means to define whose responsibility it is to determine what constitutes quality in a course or a program, and how and by whom the activities should be monitored and evaluated. According to William Cook, Vice President for Academic Affairs, the system was mainly restricted to off-campus activities where the effects had been substantial, but the structure could easily be used in other settings (Cook, personal communication).

As for the EPC model which was previously referred to, Tannock & Burge (1994) claim that the implementation of ISO 9000 systems in higher education could lead to “distortions and anomalies into the administration of an institution”. The authors advocate the EPC model as an alternative, which is based on the same principles of quality assurance as ISO 9000, but is also meant to include elements of TQM.

Documented examples of implementations of quality systems following either some of the ISO 9000 standards or some other similar national standard are given by Ellis (1993) who describes how BS 575019 was used at the University of Ulster; Doherty (1993) describes the

18This department was involved in the actual study.

19 The BS 5750 set of standards was, as has been previously commented, very similar to ISO 9000, and has been replaced by ISO 9000 in the UK.

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implementation of a TQM and BS 5750 approach at the University of Wolverhampton; the process at Leeds Metropolitan University is outlined by Solomon (1993); the implementation of a ISO 9000 system to the Business Information Systems courses at Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong is described by Elliot (1993); the realisation of a quality system at the Department for Interchangeable Manufacturing and Industrial Metrology at Technische Universität Wien is described by Osanna & Prostrednik (1996). Another example is the implementation of a BS 5750 system at the Department of Mechanical Engineering a the University of Leeds (Harris & Owen 1994). In this case there was a choice between implementing a system based on BS 5750 and the EPC model. An interesting comparison of the approaches is given by the authors, who believe that BS 5750 actually is a better system than the EPC model despite the latter being designed for higher education.

At Curtin University of Technology, Australia, a survey of the use of ISO 9000 in Australian higher education was carried out in 199520. The results from this survey are summarised in table 6.2.

Number of universities surveyed 36

Number of replies received 35

Number of institutions taking active steps for certification 16

Number of institutions considering certification 19

Number of institutions taking active steps for ISO 9001/2 in teaching areas

8

Number of institutions taking active steps for ISO 9001/2 in non-teaching areas

19

Table 6.2: Results from a survey of the use of ISO 9000 in Australian higher education, which was carried out in 1995 at the Curtin University of Technology.

6.7 Support for implementation in educational settings Besides the basic set of standards there are a number of guidelines designed for education and training. Some examples are ANSI/ASQC Z1.11 Quality Assurance Standards – Guidelines for the Application of ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001 or Q9002 to Education and Training Institutions issued by the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC). There is also material issued by the British Standards Institution (BSI), Guidance notes for the application of ISO 9002/EN 29002/ BS 5750: Part 2 to education and training, and Guidance notes for the application of ISO 9002/EN 29002/ BS 5750: Part 2 to the management systems of schools.

Some other sources discussing the implementation of quality systems in higher education are Freeman (1993), Freeman & Voehl (1994).

20The results of this survey were sent to us by Dr Colleen Liston at Curtin University of Technology.

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6.8 The study The study was based upon two parts:

1) location of institutions within higher education where ISO 9000 systems had been implemented;

2) distribution of a questionnaire to these institutions in order to find out more about their specific experiences.

6.8.1 The questionnaire The questionnaire (see appendix 2) was designed as a fairly simple and small set of questions. The questions were meant to focus on the following areas:

• type of institution: questions about for example activities and size;

• reasons for implementing a quality system;

• how the implementation was accomplished: questions about support from guidelines, consultants, amount of resources and similar issues;

• the connection between the implementation of a quality system and Total Quality Management;

• experiences and possible recommendations to others.

The intention was that the questionnaire should easily be distributed by e-mail, which meant some restrictions in the structure. The reason for this channel of distribution was primarily the simplicity in distribution of both questionnaire and response. Not all of the respondents could be contacted by e-mail, so the questionnaires were in such cases distributed by means of facsimile or postal service.

6.8.2 The search for relevant institutions The search for institutions was done during several months and by several means. The search for published material of relevance resulted in some hints, but the primary sources for information were informal channels such as so-called listservers on the Internet (see appendix 3), personal contacts and contacts with several national organisations for standardisation21 .

Several institutions were also suggested by people responding to the questionnaire, so there has not been any specific time point when the questionnaires were distributed. In all, the first questionnaire was sent out November 1995 and the last one was received in May 1996.

6.8.3 The institutions In the fairly informal search for institutions, around 30 questionnaires were distributed. In total, 23 replies were received, out of which 19 had direct experiences from quality systems, (see appendix 1). These 19 were partitioned into 18 institutions where quality systems had been implemented and 1 institution considering implementation. The group of 18 was in

21Addresses to such organisations could be provided by the International Organization for Standardization, see appendix 4.

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turn been partitioned into 12 institutions defined as ‘higher education’ and 6 ‘other’ institutions. The definition of ‘higher education’ was simply based on the kind of students: in the case of a teaching institution, if the students were not undergraduates or graduates, then the institution was defined as ‘other’. This means that there are institutions which were defined as ‘higher education’ where the teaching is given for both undergraduates, graduates and other types of students. Besides these teaching institutions, the library at University of Central Lancashire also was defined as ‘higher education’.

These distinctions were made retroactively after the questionnaires were returned, and the main intention was to discern those institutions which belonged to an academic environment. The group of institutions which was defined as ‘higher education’ does consequently comprise not just teaching but also other non-academic support activities.

Type of institution Frequency

Higher education, implemented quality system

12

Higher education, considering implementation

1

Other level than higher education, implemented quality system

6

Table 6.3: The four categories into which the institutions involved in the actual study of ISO 9000 in higher education were partitioned.

The remaining respondents represented 4 institutions engaged in higher education where implementation might have been considered but not attempted. The comments from these respondents were valuable and worthy of attention. They were still not considered in the study so as to be able to view the results as expressions of direct experience from quality systems in higher education.

There were other institutions which should have been included in this study, a fact which is highlighted by the survey performed at Curtin University of Technology, which was mentioned in section 6.6. Regrettably, these additional institutions were either not found during the search for institutions or impossible to establish contact with. Furthermore, within education at levels other than universities there are probably more institutions holding certificates.

6.8.4 Results In the following section, the results which were obtained from the completed questionnaires are displayed in tabular form. The numbers correspond to answers given by respondents from the 12 institutions defined as ‘higher education’. Results from all questions in the questionnaire are given. In some cases, comments made by the respondents will be included. Finally, there will also be some interpretations of questions and results. As previously described, the remaining institutions were partitioned into 6 institutions not defined as ‘higher education’ and 1 institution considering implementation. These are together fairly few, but both since their experiences seem to be substantial and since their answers did not

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seem to differ in any significant way from the group of 12, their comments have in some cases been included together with the comments given by the former group.

Institutions defined as higher education

Angus College, UK Centre for Industrial Management, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium Centre for Language Study, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Cranfield University, UK European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, UK Inter University Centre for Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Technische Universität Wien, Austria Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, UK Sandwell College of Further and Higher Education, UK Swinburne University of Technology, Australia University of Central Lancashire Library, UK University of Wolverhampton, UK Waikato University, New Zealand

What are the main activities in your organisation?

Frequency Library 1 Teaching 5 Teaching + Other activities 1 Teaching + Research 3 Teaching + Research + Other activities

2

Total 12

These last two tables can be combined in order to give a more comprehensive description of the institutions involved. The following codes have been used in the subsequent table:

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T: Teaching L: Library R: Research O: Other

Activities

Institution T TO TR TRO L Total

Angus College, UK 1 0 0 0 0 1

Centre for Language Study, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

1 0 0 0 0 1

Centre for Industrial Management, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium

0 0 1 0 0 1

Cranfield University, UK 1 0 0 0 0 1

European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, UK

0 0 0 1 0 1

Inter University Centre for Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Technische Universität Wien, Austria

0 0 1 0 0 1

Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, UK 1 0 0 0 0 1

Sandwell College of Further and Higher Education, UK

1 0 0 0 0 1

Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

0 1 0 0 0 1

University of Central Lancashire Library, UK 0 0 0 0 1 1

University of Wolverhampton, UK 0 0 0 1 0 1

Waikato University, New Zealand 0 0 1 0 0 1

Total 5 1 3 2 1 12

If teaching is a main activity, what are the actual kinds of students?

Frequency Undergraduate 3 Graduate 1 Undergraduate + Graduate + Other 5 Undergraduate + Other 2 Total 11

This question was, as explained before, used as the definition of ‘higher education’. This does only mean that the institutions at hand provided teaching for undergraduate and graduate students, so they could also have had other kinds of students such as trainees and business clients. One example is the Centre for Language Study at Leeds Metropolitan University, where only the provision of teaching for business clients was registered under a ISO 9001 standard.

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How many people work in your organisation (counting every person)?

Frequency 1-10 1 11-50 1 51-100 2 101- 8 Total 12

This question was naturally not especially well-defined, since there was no indication of how the respondents interpreted ‘your organisation’: was it the subunit or the entire university? Is your organisation to be considered as part of a larger organisation? (For example a language centre within a university)

Frequency Yes 7 No 5 Total 12

Has your organisation implemented the ISO 9000 system?

Frequency Yes 12 Total 12

Has your organisation gained a certificate to any part of the ISO 9000 series?

Frequency Yes 12 Total 12

If you have a certificate, to which part of the series does the certificate pertain?

Frequency ISO 9001 6 ISO 9002 6 Total 12

If you have a certificate, how long did it take to gain a certificate ?

Number of years

Frequency

0.75 2 1.5 1 1.75 1 2 2 3 1 Total 7

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These estimates obviously suffer from lack of precision in the definition of the concepts used. What should be counted as starting point, the first attempts to implement a quality system or rather the time when the decision for aiming at certification was taken? Two respondents commented upon their answers and explained that they had been working with the implementation of quality systems before aiming at certification.

If you have a certificate, when did your organisation gain the certificate?

Frequency 1991 1 1992 1 1993 3 1994 4 1995 3 Total 12

What were the major motives for the implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

Before distributing the questionnaire to the respondents, this question was considered as one of the most important. Why had the implementations taken place, and had they been motivated by “stakeholders” or was it “management-motivated use” in the terms of ISO 9000-1? In the following table, codes for the given answers have been used as a means to make the table legible:

1 The expected marketing value

2 Explicit customer requirements

3 Implementation was motivated internally and believed to be beneficial to the organisation’s internal affairs

4 Implementation has been recommended by superior levels within the organisation

5 Other

Frequency 1+3 3 1+3+5 1 2 1 2+3 2 3 4 3+4 1 Total 12

This means for example that there were four respondents who answered that “Implementation was motivated internally and believed to be beneficial to the organisation’s internal affairs” (code 3).

Answers coded with 2 should be considered as expressions of a “stakeholder-motivated approach”, and such motives were given by three respondents. The rest had one or more of internally determined motives.

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What amount of resources on a yearly basis is spent on the maintenance of the system? (Answers could preferably be given as e.g. 1/2 full-time employee.)

Frequency 1/4 2 1/3 1 1/2 3 1 1 1 1/2 1 2 3 20 1 Total 12

Interpretation of these figures is obscured by the lack of precision in the question: what is maintenance? That as many as 20 full-time employees were busy with the maintenance in one institution is striking, but this answer was given by a representative of the only entire university involved in the study, namely the University of Wolverhampton. The comment given to this answer stated that this figure included “fractional time for auditors, local quality managers etc.”, which might imply a wider interpretation of the quality system than some other respondents had in mind.

Have specific documents with guidelines for implementation of the ISO 9000 system in education and training been used?

Frequency Yes 7 No 5 Total 12

There are guidelines (see section 6.7) which also had been used to some extent, but the comments to the question often mentioned that these had been of limited benefit. As stated by one of the respondents:

“You really need to do it your own way for your own translation of quality system.” (Swinburne University of Technology)

Have external consultants been hired for the implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

Frequency Yes 5 No 7 Total 12

If external consultants have been hired, what have been the consultants’ main tasks?

T Training of people within the organisation

W Writing the documents required in the system

O Other

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Frequency T 2 O 1 T + O 1 W + O 1 Total 5

Besides the factual information as to the role of consultants which the answers to these questions provide, these particular questions were also thought of as means to see if the implementations had been ‘management motivated’ or ‘stakeholder motivated’ in the sense previously described. It seems reasonable to assume that an implementation initiated primarily by stakeholders could be thought of as a process in which the organisation itself should not necessarily play an active role. As for a management motivated implementation, there would presumably be less reason to use external consultants, at least in activities such as writing the documentation.

According to the answers given, consultants had been used by five of the twelve institutions, and their duties had mainly consisted of giving advice on the implementation, training of staff and pre-assessment audit. Given that the underlying assumption about the connection between motives for the implementation and role for consultants is correct, these answers also seem to be consistent with the answers given to the question about “major motives for the implementation”: they had mainly been internally motivated.

How many of the people working in the organisation have been involved in implementing the ISO 9000 system?

Frequency 1-5 3 6-10 1 11-50 4 51- 3 Total 11

This question, like those about time needed and the amount of resources for maintenance, was not particularly well-defined. What should be regarded as ‘involvement’? Several of the comments mentioned that a smaller number of people may have been involved directly, but that most or all staff had been involved indirectly, engaged in writing of procedures. One example is the comment given by one of the respondents:

“All staff to some extent; an implementation steering committee of 10 staff representative of college interests; all heads of departments and managers were responsible for discussion of draft procedures with their staff, for recommending changes and subsequent implementation.” (Norfolk College of Arts and Technology)

Another comment given by one of the respondents mentioned the use of internal auditors:

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“N.B. small no. of staff involved directly in implementation. However ALL staff contributed to writing work instructions and procedures and 8 staff are used as internal auditors.” (University of Central Lancashire Library)

Has the work with the ISO 9000 system been regarded as part of working with Total Quality Management?

Frequency Yes 9 No 3 Total 12

Has your organisation performed assessments according to any of the following quality awards:

QA The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award or The European Quality Award

O Other quality award:

Frequency QA 1 QA + O 1 O 1 No 9 Total 12

These last questions about the connection to TQM and whether quality awards had been used for self-assessments were motivated by the discussion about the role for ISO 9000 systems in quality management. Some authors do not hold a particularly positive stance towards ISO 9000 as mentioned in section 6.5.6.

The use of quality awards for self-assessment has also received widespread attention in many countries. Since these instruments for self-assessment generally hold Total Quality Management as a basis, institutions using such awards could be seen as having attained a fairly advanced level concerning consciousness regarding quality development. This is naturally not more than an indicator, since the use of any instrument, quality awards or standards for quality systems, cannot be held to correspond to some specific level of consciousness.

The answers showed that the use of the quality awards mentioned in the question have not become common within higher education. Several of the institutions in the UK had used an instrument called “Investors in People”, and there are a couple of institutions which either had used some quality award or planned to do so.

Have you experienced any particular difficulties in the implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

Frequency Yes 9 No 3 Total 12

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Most respondents had experienced difficulties, but it is naturally impossible to tell how the term ‘difficult’ had been interpreted by the respondents. Some typical comments were:

“Understanding requirements in the early days - now it’s fine.” (Centre for Language study, Leeds Metropolitan University)

“The motivation of staff to what they initially saw as a system which was not relevant to an educational establishment .” (Norfolk College of Arts and Technology)

“Documentation of procedures additional work for staff already very busy.” (European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey)

At the same time there were comments mentioning that the difficulties, though existing, were not unexpected:

“All new ideas are difficult to implement for numerous reasons.” (Sandwell College)

Have you experienced any demonstrable effects of working with the ISO 9000 system?

Frequency Yes 12 Total 12

All respondents answered the question affirmatively. Some typical comments were:

“Staff awareness of quality improvement opportunities.” (Swinburne University of Technology)

“Better communication of basic work procedures, involvement of staff in each other’s areas as a result of internal audits, tighter documentation and management control.” (University of Central Lancashire Library)

“Many advantages: clarification of rules and responsibilities of staff; spreading of good practice and academic standards; rationalisation, improvement and availability of forms and records; management confidence that agreed procedures are being followed and standards met; a ‘vehicle’ for the planning and implementation of change (discuss and develop procedures to include the required change and audit to see it is working); etc.” (Norfolk College of Arts and Technology)

“Initial difficulties of interpretation but once overcome very rational system; quality records provide an excellent source of evidence for a wide range of external quality bodies; internal quality audits is a very valuable instrument and need not be confined to ISO 9000 - it is transferable; discipline (not always popular); commercial advantages; less wasteful processes (eventually).” (University of Wolverhampton)

Do you consider your implementation of the ISO 9000 system worth the effort?

Frequency Yes 12 Total 12

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All respondents answered the question affirmatively. It must be remembered though, that these were the responses from persons who often had been directly responsible for the implementations. Had other persons been asked, then their opinions might not have been so positive. This calls for more thorough investigations as to the effects of implementation of quality systems as experienced by people holding other positions within the institutions than the respondents in this study.

What do you consider to be the main effects of working with the ISO 9000 system?

In a previous question the respondents were asked to report on whether they had “experienced any demonstrable effects” from the implementation of a quality system. The motive for having both that question and the one at hand was that there might be institutions where effects had not become evident, but where the respondents still had some conception of the possible effects. Since several respondents reported on actually having experienced demonstrable effects, they often just referred to their previous answers.

Three fairly typical comments were the following:

“Clearer procedures, guidelines more readily available, clearly documented policies, teamwork consistently taking place, measurable outcomes from the teaching process.” (Sandwell College)

“Formalises existing procedures; standardises procedures across the college; encourages questioning of existing procedures.” (North Trafford College22)".

“Change mentality easier to maintain; confidence of workers/teachers; stable organisational platform for change.” (Marlborough Boys’ College)

What advice would you give to other organisations in higher education on their way to begin implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

Some comments:

“Do it slowly your own way and don’t expect instant solutions. In Higher & Further Education ISO 9000 must be put into a broader educational and management quality framework. At Swinburne this is provided by the SQMS [Swinburne Quality Management System] framework.” (Swinburne University of Technology)

“Senior management is essential; be clear about motivation and objectives; consider implementation for the organisation as a whole and other systems; give careful consideration to communication and gaining commitment of staff.” (Angus College)

“Make sure there is commitment from senior management; educate/involve all staff to achieve sense of ownership; make sure you are clear as to why you

22North Trafford College was according to the definition of ‘higher education’ used in this study not regarded as such an institution. Other institutions in this group were Blackpool & The Fylde College, North Tyneside Training Services, South Tyneside College, West Cheshire College and Marlborough Boys’ College.

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are implementing ISO 9000; see ISO 9000 as laying foundation for continuous improvement not as end of process.” (European Institute for Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey)

“Write procedures based on what you do, then ensure they fix to ISO 9000. Don’t start with the standard itself.” (West Cheshire College)

“Create as few procedures as possible; reference existing documentation as opposed to restating it in the procedures; involve staff in writing their own procedures.” (North Trafford College)

“Make sure they have 1) strategic commitment; 2) the commitment of professional staff.” (Marlborough Boys’ College)

Several of the respondents indicated that they are offering their services as consultants:

“Use us as consultants and avoid the learning curve by having a proven system to base your own system upon!” (Blackpool & The Fylde College)

“Seek external help from those having achieved certification.” (South Tyneside College)

“Ask Sandwell College: we do offer a consultancy service for a fee.” (Sandwell College)

Other comments about the ISO 9000?

“Obtaining ISO 9000 certification by itself is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to ensure achievement of educational quality, but it can provide a very useful basis on which to move forward for continuous improvement. (Swinburne University of Technology)

“Can be dangerous if you view it is a goal rather than within a total quality framework. You can’t be complacent and have to work to improve the systems, otherwise the only quality you can guarantee is of a minimum level.” (Strategic Quality Management Institute, Erasmus University)

“It is not vital to go to the last step to obtain certification. The system is good in itself ... but it [i.e. certification] does prove you have done it!” (Blackpool & The Fylde College)

“It is important to involve staff in the development of the system both during implementation and later! There is significant development required, after certification, to keep the system up to date and provide ‘quality improvement’.” (Norfolk College of Arts and Technology)

Institutions not engaged in higher education

The institutions which were not included in the group of ‘higher education’ are the following:

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Blackpool & The Fylde College, UK

Marlborough Boys’ College, NZ

North Trafford College, UK

North Tyneside Training Services, UK

South Tyneside College, UK

West Cheshire College, UK

The answers given by the respondents in these institutions did not in any apparent way differ from the ones given by representatives of the group previously described. However, because of the limited number of institutions and the desire to focus on institutions engaged in ‘higher education’, only the comments given by the respondents in this group have been taken into account.

Institutions considering implementation

There were four institutions where the respondents reported that they were considering implementation, but out of these, only the Strategic Quality Management Institute, Erasmus University in the Netherlands reported that the issue had been seriously discussed. Therefore only these answers were included in the study, even though the other respondents also had valuable comments.

The comments given by the respondent from the Strategic Quality Management Institute have been included in the compilation of comments given for the group of ‘higher education’ institutions where quality systems have been implemented.

6.8.5 Limitations in the study In this kind of study there are a number of possibilities for problems concerning the results received. The most apparent shortcomings were coverage problems, lack of precision in the questions and what could be called ‘absence of control group’.

Coverage problems

Two central concepts in statistics are ‘universe’ and ‘frame’, where the first term denotes the set of all elements that might be drawn into a sample, and the second denotes a list of elements in the universe from which a sample is drawn. In this actual study, the universe consisted of all institutions in higher education world-wide where a quality system had been implemented with or without certificates. As it turned out, the frame became far more restricted: mainly those institutions where quality systems according to one of the ISO 9000 standards had been implemented and certificated were possible to locate. There were probably both institutions where other kinds of quality systems had been implemented, and where ISO 9000 systems had been implemented without the institution having received any certificate. This observation is highlighted by the survey of Australian universities described in

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section 6.6, since there were a number of institutions in Australia alone which might have been included in this study. The universe was not covered by the frame.

Lack of precision in the questions

As mentioned in the comments to the questions, there were several questions which were not possible to state in an unambiguous way. With a critical perspective, several concepts suffer from such shortcomings, such as ‘time’, ‘resources’, ‘number of people involved’, ‘TQM’, ‘difficulties’ and ‘demonstrable effects’.

Absence of control group

The institutions involved in the study all had implemented some quality system. They had found that this kind of system had been relevant and suitable, and even if other approaches could have been just as good, the respondents were likely to be biased and to have a positive opinion on quality systems.

In the study there was not any attempt to study the effects from quality systems through comparing institutions where quality systems have been implemented and institutions where other approaches have been chosen. It is possible that the stated effects could have been reached without a quality system. We cannot really say whether the positive effects result from the quality system or from some more elusive aspects such as strong leadership or general commitment towards the institution. One the other hand, this does not imply that quality system would not be worthwhile for other institutions.

6.8.6 Consequences of the limitations in the study In the study the intention was to find where, why and how institutions within higher education have implemented some part of the ISO 9000 set of standards. The design of the study made this result unattainable, since the way the search for institutions was conducted primarily made it possible to find institutions which had been certificated to some standard for quality systems. The question of where quality systems had been implemented was only answered partially, and the objective to find where quality systems had been implemented was consequently not reached. A more appropriate formulation of the objective might have been ‘finding where implemented quality systems have been certificated’.

The questions have been interpreted differently by the respondents, but such differences were hopefully small. One argument supporting this assumption is that all respondents were acquainted with the language and structure in a standard for quality systems, and their interpretations of the questions could therefore be hoped to be fairly similar.

The results do not imply that there would be any significant differences between different types of institutions with respect to implementation of quality systems and effects thereof. This conclusion is supported from the observation that there was no significant difference between those institutions which had been defined as higher education and those not defined as higher education. Should more institutions have been found and studied, then their responses would probably not differ from the ones given. The major effect of problems with non-response and coverage is most likely that the list of institutions does not contain all insti-tutions which should have been included in the study.

The study does not make it possible to discriminate between different approaches to quality development. The conclusions could therefore not be used as definite arguments regarding

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the effect of implementing quality systems as opposed to other approaches to quality development.

6.9 Possibilities for further studies Drawing on both the previous discussion of limitations in this study and on a general discussion about how issues related to quality could be dealt with, there seem to be three major directions of relevance for further studies.

The first is some extension of the study which has been described here. What is really happening within the institutions where quality systems have been implemented? The respondents were perhaps biased in favour of the implementations, and it could be interesting to learn about other individuals views. The effects over a longer term are not clear, so the future development could be another aspect worthy of further investigations.

The second direction is of a more general character concerning different approaches to quality management. Quality systems could be regarded as one approach to quality issues, whereas TQM or even absence of an explicit attempt to address such issues could be considered as alternative approaches. To what extent are these approaches justifiable and effective as means to manage higher education? These fairly general questions call for further investigations based on questions such as: How do institutions where quality systems have been implemented compare to those institutions having neither quality systems nor a TQM perspective? What are the effects from implementing quality systems as compared with the effects from adopting an explicit TQM perspective?

A third possible area which might be interesting to study is the use of quality systems as instruments to regulate higher education from a governmental level. There seem to have been attempts in some countries to make the implementation of some quality system a requirement, but whether this would be appropriate or at all effective as means to regulate higher education seems still uncertain.

6.10 Conclusions The questions raised in the introduction concerned “where”, “why” and “how” quality systems had been implemented. The respondents’ answers could be summarised as follows:

• Most of the systems had been implemented in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The list of institutions cannot be regarded as complete, since the institutions found were such that they held certificates. Institutions where systems had been implemented without a certificate having been gained were not possible to locate.

• There are several kinds of institutions where quality systems have been implemented. Most certificates are held by institutions being some part of a university: examples are the Language Centre (Leeds Metropolitan University), a Centre for Industrial Management (Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven), or some support unit within a university (Cranfield University).

• Since the concept of ‘higher education’ does not provide any clear definition of the activities within a higher educational institution, it is not surprising that the institutions involved in the study represented a number of different activities. However, universities of technology, some former polytechnics in the UK, institutions engaged in further

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education and support units within universities seem to be the institutions most inclined to embark on this journey.

• There were some cases where a certificate had been required by external clients, but implementation had mainly been motivated by internal decisions. These internal motives were generally some combination of the supposed marketing value and hopes for beneficial effects on the organisation. This approach is in the standard itself called a “management motivated use” which is advocated as more comprehensive and fruitful than the so-called “stake-holder motivated use”.

• The implementations had largely been performed with limited support from consultants. Still the respondents recommended other institutions to take advantage of the experiences from those institutions which have gone through the process.

• The comments displayed a certain tendency to stress the effects on the internal aspects of the activities and not a more ‘customer oriented’ approach such as possible and evident effects for the students or clients.

• The implementations had in most cases been regarded as part of a Total Quality Management strategy, but how such strategies had been put into practice and what they comprised was not possible to find out in this study.

• The implementations had required substantial amounts of time and other resources, and above all, commitment from managers as well as from staff.

• The overall effects of implementing quality systems were generally perceived as positive.

A concluding interpretation of these results suggests that quality systems in general seem to be relevant in higher education, and that implementation has positive effects.

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7 Quality improvement of teaching and learning in higher education – a comparison with developments in industrial settings

7.1 Introduction As has been previously discussed, quality has become a common element in the current discussion in higher education. Assessments, quality systems and Total Quality Management (TQM) are some concepts making up the vocabulary of these discussions, and there are a number of institutions where a TQM perspective has been adopted. Most of these examples are found in non-academic activities, such as administration or other support functions, see Harris & Baggett (1992), Lewis & Smith (1994), Morris & Haigh (1996), Nagy et al. (1993), Seymour (1993b), Seymour & Collett (1991). There are also examples from teaching, see Burgar (1994), Hansen (1993), Harris & Baggett (1992), Hillenmeyer (1992), Meeter & Smith (1994), Presutti et al. (1995), Roberts (1995b), Romero-Simpson (1995), Turner (1995), Welch (1994). One reason for the preponderance of non-academic examples is presumably that TQM with its origin in trade and industry has been more readily accepted in similar settings. However, the intention in this section is to further strengthen the claims that

1) there is no substantial discord between educational activities and processes on one hand and a TQM perspective on organisational development on the other;

2) there is potential for improvements of teaching and learning processes in a development similar to a particular development in trade and industry, namely the transition

a) from specialisation and hierarchical organisational structures towards integration and process orientation;

b) from monitoring of non-conformances, rework and eventual scrapping towards more emphasis on design of fault free products and processes;

3) a development in the direction implied by the previous point still seems difficult to fully attain, since the corresponding aspects in higher education - the organisational structure and the use of grades - seem to have become integrated in the higher education system;

4) even though this development may not be easily attained, there are methods by which it may be facilitated.

The discussion in this chapter is to a large extent based on Lundquist (1998).

7.2 Developments in trade and industry There is in most areas of society today a greater emphasis on ‘quality’ issues than before. The contemporary emphasis on quality issues has its origin in industry, and could be regarded as a response to the evident success of many Japanese companies which have been able to produce high-quality goods at competitive prices.

Traditionally, a great deal of Western industry has been working along the lines of mass production in systems characterised by specialised and relatively isolated units, by goods

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designed with limited consideration of customer needs, by screening of non-conformances, sorting, rework and scrapping. Such a mode of operation has simply become non-competitive, since it is often both costly and ineffective. It requires substantial resources to screen large numbers of complex products, and the screening is often not correct. Products not conforming to requirements pass and non-faulty products are classified as defects.

Satisfying customers’ needs has become more difficult to achieve in the complex organisations of today. To meet a customer’s needs often requires more than considering quantity and price. Instead, aspects such as punctuality of delivery or availability of service must be considered, which requires the combined and coherent efforts of many parts of an organisation. It has become increasingly necessary to achieve integration of the different units involved and to design fault free products and stable production systems.

7.3 Important elements of TQM Accompanying the development which was previously described, there are a number of authors who have formulated ‘frameworks’ for quality management, see section 2.2.1. These frameworks could be regarded as attempts to capture the essence of this specific development which these authors have believed is valid not only in industrial settings, but meaningful as frameworks for organisational development in general. The discussion in this section will however not focus on either any particular description of TQM or discuss all elements of any particular description of TQM. The discussion will instead focus on three elements:

• focus on customer needs;

• process orientation;

• continuous improvements.

These elements have been selected on a mainly subjective basis. Following the discussion of concepts as ‘quality’ and ‘customers’ in section 2.1.1-2.1.2, these elements are perceived as belonging to a more fundamental level than other common elements in TQM descriptions. One example of less fundamental elements could be found in the set of core values “characteristic of successful organisations” upon which the criteria in the Swedish Quality Awards is based (see chapter 5). This set comprises elements as “learning from others”, “public responsibility” and others which may be important, but without which organisations still are possible. Such elements are simply not necessarily present, even though they could be desired. Customers, processes and change on the other hand seem to be present in most or even any organised activity. The people performing a given activity may not be addressing the needs of their customers particularly well, the activities may not be thought of as processes, and there may be limited concern for change. However, there are still customers, processes and change. Customer needs, process orientation, and continuous improvements as a way to deal with change seems to be one way to express those fundamental elements. Furthermore, they have direct implications for the discussion of teaching and learning in higher education. It should still be noted that the descriptions of TQM generally comprise more, and this selection is a restriction which may seem dubious. However, the elements which have been selected are still assumed to be sufficiently comprehensive to make the discussion meaningful.

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7.4 TQM in education There are, as was previously reported, cases where a TQM perspective has been adopted in teaching. These cases often comprise use of special methods such as Quality Function Deployment. Despite such examples, TQM has still not been generally accepted as valid in higher education but has rather been received with scepticism. There are presumably a number of reasons for this resistance, but one aspect which seems to have made academic staff sceptical is difference in language. With its origin in trade and industry, the vocabulary making up the TQM descriptions comprises terms such as ‘customer’, ‘suppliers’ and ‘processes’ which are not common in higher education. One example of the gap between how TQM is presented and how it is often interpreted could be illustrated by considering the concept of ‘customers’. Most TQM descriptions comprise a focus on ‘customer needs’, where the customer generally is thought of as similar to the definition given in ISO (1994b):

[customer]: “recipient of a product provided by the supplier”, which may be “the ultimate consumer, user, beneficiary or purchaser”, and also either “external or internal to the organization”.

This definition rests on the concept of ‘product’ which in ISO (1994b) is defined as :

[product]: “result of activities or processes”, which “may include service, hardware, processed materials, software or combinations thereof”, and also can be “intended” or “unintended (e.g. pollutant or unwanted effects)”.

A ‘process’ is further defined as a

[process]: “set of inter-related resources and activities which transform inputs into outputs”.

These definitions are fairly general and not solely restricted to business settings. The everyday interpretation of ‘customer’ on the other hand is usually something like “one that purchases a commodity or service”23. It seems possible to consider for example students as customers in the general sense described above, but in the classroom, they are not customers if the definition is restricted to monetary exchange. There are however cases where students pay tuition, where the inclusion of the purchasing aspect also may be relevant.

Other concepts, such as ‘suppliers’, have also been formulated more generally than how they usually are interpreted. This kind of formulation which extends the scope for concepts beyond their everyday meaning is somewhat risky, since the result can become too general. Whether this is the case with the TQM descriptions which have been formulated so far will not be considered further in this context. Instead, the conclusion is that concepts commonly used by TQM advocates are possible to interpret in such a way as would make them meaningful in higher education and that there seems to be no reason to repudiate TQM in education on the basis of language.

However, even if these concepts are possible to use in higher education, this still does not imply that a TQM perspective would have something to offer higher education. As

23“Customer”. Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?keywords=customer&hits=10&DBase=Dictionary. [Aug 20 1997]

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previously mentioned, an intention in this context is to try to show that there are substantial connections between what follows from a TQM perspective and what are generally held as desirable outcomes in higher education. These connections are centred around the previously mentioned elements: focus on customer needs, process orientation and continuous improvements.

7.4.1 Customer needs As for customer needs, these must always be based on some conception of who the customers are. The students could be defined as customers, but there are also others, such as for example future employers and people from other subject areas providing courses which the student will follow. Neither does focusing on needs imply that the task of the teacher would be to satisfy explicit expectations from any category of customers. It must rather be a question of trying to find out what the customers really need, to reconcile possibly conflicting needs and to decide how these needs should be addressed. This is also the approach taken in the example described by Burgar (1994), where the linking of needs of future employers with the design of a course in production/operations management was achieved by use of so-called Quality Function Deployment. There are also a number of other interfaces where teachers could be considered as customers, such as when students are supplying teachers with written essays or in interfaces between support staff and teachers. Considering the needs of the one receiving a certain entity may result in less delays and corrections and other aspects which in all are costly and time-consuming.

This kind of focus is obviously not novel in educational settings, since there is presumably in most cases of course and curriculum design some concern for what is the desired outcome, for students’ qualifications and for available resources such as teachers, facilities and other means. The main difference between what should follow from a TQM perspective and the common kind of ‘customer focus’ is that with a TQM perspective, such considerations should become integrated in all activities and systematically practised.

7.4.2 Process orientation The educational processes could, based on the definition of process previously given, be perceived as sets “of inter-related resources and activities which transform inputs into outputs”. By means of inputs (the student’s competence), resources (such as teachers and libraries), activities (such as teaching in class and assignments outside class), the student’s competence is transformed. These processes often comprise courses covering several subject areas, and the total time of study can be substantial. The courses making up programmes are usually meant to be inter-related, both in and between subject areas. Most cases of course or curriculum design must comprise some consideration of such processes. Desired aims, resources and student qualifications are elements which in one way or another are taken into consideration. However, from a TQM viewpoint, such aspects would receive further attention.

As has often been the result in trade and industry, considering the processes may result in efficiency gains such as less delays and corrections and other costly and time-consuming aspects. As claimed by Roberts (1995b):

“The potential gains from total quality come not from working harder, but from rooting out the wastes that pervade organizational and individual work

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processes, including teaching and research processes. Waste includes process flaws and mistakes, and process steps that are unnecessary.”

Explicit attempts to consider the inter-related elements in and between courses could also result in less resources spent on covering topics which could have been covered in previous courses.

Furthermore, there is a direct correspondence between focus on customer needs and process orientation, since the ‘customer-supplier’ relationship must be the fundamental element in any process. Explicit attempts to stimulate students to embrace such a ‘customer-supplier’ perspective could make them more inclined to view their own education as a process in which they themselves must play an active role.

7.4.3 Continuous improvement Change seems fundamental to most of our activities. However, it seems to happen that activities and organisations do not adapt and change. Instead they succumb to the changes in the environment, eventually to be replaced by something else which addresses the underlying needs more effectively and efficiently. An assumption in this context is that change should be mastered rather than something which happens. Change as a fundamental aspect of reality has become part of TQM as a strong emphasis on continuous improvement.

The way in which improvements should be achieved as a systematic approach is often described by the Plan-Do-Study-Act-cycle which was given in figure 1.3.

As was discussed in section 2.1.3, this cycle is almost equivalent to the ‘action research cycle’ given by Zuber-Skerrit (1992), see figure 1.4, who describes this cycle in a way that holds for the PDSA-cycle as well:

“the plan includes problem analysis and a strategic plan; action refers to the implementation of the strategic plan; observation includes an evaluation of the action by appropriate methods and techniques; and reflection means reflecting on the results of the evaluation” which may lead to “a new cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting”.

Learning seems important in all these stages, but especially so in planning and reflection: planning and reflection without learning seems almost inconceivable.

Another account of the similarities between improvement and learning is given by Box (1997), who claims that:

“the quality practitioner’s never-ending improvement is, in essence, the scientific method – analyzed, democratized, and institutionalised”.

Box’s claim also highlights a fundamental aspect of this approach: the ambition to improve should be an integral part of the everyday activities. This could be compared with an approach which seems very prevalent: changes happen rather than being caused. The emphasis on continuous improvements consequently seems to be desirable in any organisation including higher education.

The adoption of this particular perspective could thus result in beneficial effects on both organisational matters and the direct teaching provision. However, there is also a connection between this ‘improvement cycle’ and learning. The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle or its relatives

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comprise a self-reflecting approach. As has been discussed elsewhere in this thesis, see section 2.1.3, such self-reflection could be regarded as constituting a fundamental part of ‘professional competence’. An explicit emphasis on continuous improvements in learning could for example be achieved by making the students openly discuss their efforts. The purpose of such discussions should then not be measurements for grading, but rather self-reflection from which future study efforts could benefit. This improvement perspective could consequently be one way to stimulate students to embrace a desirable self-reflective perspective.

7.5 Analogies between industry and higher education There are some striking similarities between industry and the educational system. First of all is the observation that contemporary higher education is a system for mass production. An increasing share of the youth in most countries attend some tertiary education. The structure in higher education is also similar to a structure which formerly was common in yesterday’s industry: specialised units with limited contacts between them. Furthermore, a significant part of the activities within higher education seems to focus on monitoring student results, sorting out those who do not meet requirements, rework to make them do so, and eventually perhaps “scrapping” those who never reach requirements.

7.5.1 The organisational structure in higher education Most organisations could be thought of as means to achieve some goal through integration within a system for division of labour. There must be some balance between specialisation and division of labour on one hand and integration on the other.

In the case of higher education, specialisation is generally more apparent than integration. One characteristic of contemporary higher education is, according to Ballantine (1993), professionals who by tradition expect autonomy and academic freedom, and who may have only temporary loyalty to the institution but permanent allegiance to their disciplines.

This characteristic can be compared with the structure in trade and industry. There are naturally still many organisations which are made up of isolated subunits, but there are a number of successful organisations where the processes surpassing unit borders rather than the optimisation of each subunit are emphasised.

The consequences for teaching and learning seem substantial. Students not only study a number of courses in a specific subject area, but often they also encounter a number of subjects. Integration of subelements in courses and integration of courses must be considered as an integral part of the learning process. An organisational structure where the perspectives of faculty and students in a given moment are delimited to the actual discipline seems to imply difficulties in attaining the necessary integration.

7.5.2 The grading and sorting mechanism As is the case in industry, screening, rework and scrapping are costly and not necessarily effective. In a discussion of weaknesses of grading systems and the tendency to cheat, Francis (1977), claims that:

“...the monitoring practices needed to hold such cheating to a minimum are expensive and diminish the quality of the academic atmosphere.”

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Furthermore, traditional exams often do not necessarily measure understanding, but rather the ability to display evidence of lower-order intellectual skills such as memorising. In a description of assessment in statistics courses, Hubbard (1997) with reference to the use of so-called “stylised questions” of a standard type claims that:

“It is not possible to distinguish a correctly memorised response from a response that arises from an understanding of statistical theory and procedures.”

Hubbard (1994) states in a description of the implementation of TQM at Northwest Missouri State University that:

“In higher education, most assessments are inspection at the end of the assembly line for purposes of ranking and sorting; relatively little diagnostic testing is done. Further, the primary beneficiary is the instructor who uses the results to assign grades, not prevent failures.”

The effects on learning of assessments could also be further discussed. Besides being instruments to sort students, they are also intended to function as ‘rewards’. There are authors as for example Kohn (1993), who contest the idea of such ‘rewards’ on the basis that they are detrimental to creativity and inner motivation, but this thread will not be further elaborated in this context.

7.6 Could a similar development take place in higher education?

The present system in higher education seems to have some characteristics which are common with the situation in yesterday’s industry: mass production, reliance on screening and sorting, and lack on coherence between subunits within organisations. Education is part of a greater societal context comprising existing structures and traditions, which bring about restraints. There is for example a general societal need for sorting and selection, which has to be made on the basis of some criteria.

Consequently, there do not seem to be any simple alternatives to either the organisational structure or the use of grades. Teachers who are directly involved in the students’ learning processes have a fairly limited influence on the structure of the organisation. It also seems hard to imagine a system where teachers could refuse the use of grades, since it would surely be questioned by others within the educational system as well as by students and employers. Assuming that the conditions for the adoption of a perspective characterised by focus on customer needs, on processes and on continuous improvements are not optimal, what can be done?

One answer, however obvious, is that even if there are limits, this does not imply that changes in the teaching process would be impossible to achieve. Students do learn and integrate, even if the conditions are not optimal. As for integration, students may have difficulties in reaching a meaningful whole from the parts which make up their courses, but at least some students are successful. There are degrees of freedom within the system’s limits which should be exploited. It is possible to further emphasise the design of courses and curricula in such a way as to strive for integration. It also seems reasonable to assume that methods which have proven to be useful in trade and industry, such as process mapping,

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quality improvement teams or Quality Function Deployment would be useful in higher education as well, see Brassard (1989), Brassard & Ritter (1994), Straker (1995).

Another method which could be used in order to address customer needs, but with its origin in education is the study of students’ ‘learning styles’, see Fincher (1994), Kaha (1995), Sims & Sims (1995). Teachers with an understanding of their students’ learning styles could presumably address the needs of the students more effectively. Students with knowledge about their own styles could perhaps exploit some aspects of their own learning process and avoid others.

When assessment and grading are considered, these activities are naturally not totally detrimental, since students actually learn despite any detrimental influence from grades. Students naturally need feedback about their progress, and teachers also need measurements of the students’ achievements in order to decide about their contribution to the learning process. Measuring and giving feedback is however not equivalent to grading, which naturally comprises both measurement and feedback. That is however not all there is to it: assessments could not be regarded as neutral measurements of understanding, since they are the basis for grades which are used as motivators and criteria for subsequent events. Feedback and measurement could be achieved without these additional attributes. Tribus (1995) claims that:

“The only legitimate purpose of an examination is to enable the teacher and learner to decide what to do next.”

Assessments can be organised with the ambition to be of assistance for the individual’s own improvement. As stated by Romero-Simpson (1995):

“The facilitator has to induce the students, as early as possible, to understand the relationship between grades and learning. Because the present educational system is deeply rooted in grading, the instructor’s role in reconciling both is key.”

As for specific methods intended to provide both teachers and students with meaningful information, a number of examples are given by Angelo & Cross (1993).

7.7 Conclusions The present system in higher education seems to have some characteristics which are common with the situation in yesterday’s industry. Mass production, reliance on screening and sorting, and lack on coherence between subunits within organisations appear to be common characteristics.

Naturally, the observation that focus in industry has changed from monitoring of non-conformances to design of stable and faultless processes does not by itself imply that such a development would be desirable in higher education. There are substantial differences between producing goods and services, and there are also differences between production of services. Such differences have however not been regarded in this context, since the implications from considering them seem to be less substantial than what follows from considering the similarities.

The point I am trying to make is not that industry is functioning, while higher education is not. It is rather a question of trying to find out whether there are possibilities to improve the

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educational system by adopting perspectives and methods which have become common in many parts of trade and industry.

My own conclusion is that the development in trade and industry and the way in which problems related to quality have been resolved within these settings, seem to imply both a need and possible direction for change in higher education. Assuming that concepts such as ‘customers’, ‘processes’, ‘continuous improvement’ making up the vocabulary of TQM are interpreted in a general way, these concepts seem valid and relevant in higher education. A greater emphasis on customer needs, processes and continuous improvements could result in substantial effects on teaching and learning in higher education.

A development in higher education similar to the one that has taken place in trade and industry consequently seems possible, but would presumably not just happen spontaneously. The organisational structure is far from based on processes, and the activities related to the monitoring of student results have become integrated in the educational system. However, the existence of obstacles has never implied that change would be impossible.

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Part 3: Closing the circle

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8 Limitations The intention in this chapter is to sum up the discussion in the previous sections, with respect to both possible deficiencies and interpretations of the findings previously discussed. Furthermore, an outline of possible directions for further studies will be made.

8.1 Possible deficiencies This section comprises an attempt to point at some possible deficiencies in the reasoning. Since similar discussions with direct reference to the actual studies have been treated separately in the sections where these studies are described, the aspects discussed in this context will be on a fairly general level.

• The purpose with the thesis has been to discuss TQM in higher education, but TQM has never been thoroughly defined. The reasons for this have been based on a comprehension of quality and related concepts as dependent on context , and consequently undefinable outside such contexts. Descriptions, delimitations and circumscriptions have been made, but exhaustive definitions seem to be out of reach. TQM has thus been interpreted in a broad way. One problem which consequently arises is the difficulty to confirm or falsify hypotheses regarding the validity of TQM as an approach to quality improvement. This is clearly a conceptual and theoretical problem. It does however not seem to be a substantial practical problem, since organisations actually have been able to improve on the basis of a TQM perspective despite any theoretical shortcomings.

• Connected with the previously mentioned problem there is the question of status for TQM. The acronym has been one element in constructs as ‘TQM strategy’, ‘TQM approach’ and ‘TQM implementation’. It has never been labelled as a ‘theory’, which points at an issue of at least academic concern. There are consequently some serious theoretical difficulties beyond my present capability to discuss.

• The purpose in the thesis has neither been to criticise nor to question TQM. The need for quality improvements and the relevance of TQM in higher education has more or less been taken for granted. This is a rather hazardous perspective, since it could obstruct a sufficiently critical attitude towards the matters which have been discussed. Whether this has been the case must be determined by readers of the thesis.

8.2 What has not been covered? There are several threads which have not been studied but which could have been. Most of these fields are worthy of study in their own right, and the literature is generally vast.

One area which has not been dealt with in any greater detail is assessment and evaluation, or to use a more general term, measurement. This is an area which has a long tradition in education in general, and substantial resources are spent on both evaluation and research on evaluation. The main reason for not considering this area has been that the focus for this thesis has been quality improvement. In order to achieve improvements and change there have to be measurements, but it seems reasonable to assume that design of measurement systems is less difficult or at least different from trying to achieve change. More detailed studies of measurement and measurement systems has, in other words, been perceived as a side-track in this context.

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Another area which could have been rewarding to study further is organisational theory and perhaps organisational behaviour. Discussing quality improvement is not possible without at least touching upon such matters. This would however require a great deal of study, and for the scope of this thesis, this has been deemed as impractical.

It would presumably also be worthwhile to study areas such as sociology and social psychology. Higher education is a system being a part of a greater societal context, and the functions which this system is supposed to fulfil are many and not always explicit. Education is one obvious function, but there are others, such as being a system for sorting and for socialisation. Furthermore, there is in most countries an important interplay on a political level between higher education and governmental bodies. Leaving this context out of scope in a discussion of quality improvement is a considerable restriction.

An area which have been touched upon, but mostly in a superficial way, is learning. TQM has been claimed to rely on learning and self-reflection, but the discussion of learning itself has not been thoroughly developed.

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9 Possible directions for further studies The following list contains some questions which could be interesting to study further:

• Is there a way within the present higher educational system to reconcile the interests of relatively autonomous professionals with different goals?

• Is there any alternative within the present system to grading and sorting?

• What kind of competence will be needed from graduates in the future?

• How are ongoing trends in society going to affect higher education tomorrow? How will the ‘post-modern student’ be constituted, both as regards characteristics as age or educational background and attitudes towards studies or life outside education?

• There is a great deal of knowledge in such fields as evaluation, learning theory and pedagogy. So far it seems as if knowledge from these fields has not had any great impact on the educational system. Is there any way in which different fields could be integrated and effectively put into practice?

• Assuming that TQM could be labelled as a ‘theory’ or a ‘mapping of reality’, what is the connection between this theory and reality as such? What demands could justifiably be put on theories? How could a construct as TQM be falsified?

• What is the role for so-called operational definitions? Where are they needed, and where are more vaguely expressed terms sufficient? Under what circumstances will the vagueness in definitions of quality, TQM and other concepts pose practical problems?

These questions could be studied from a number of perspectives, but some areas which seem at least touching upon them are social psychology, learning theory, sociology and epistemology.

As has been noted in a number of sections of the thesis, higher education is not as unfragmented as would be desired. Through specialisation there are few if any who can have a substantial amount of knowledge in more than a few areas. Consequently there is a great need for collaborative work on many issues. The questions raised above will hopefully be addressed by such interdisciplinary ‘teams’.

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10 Conclusions The conclusions can be considered as belonging to two levels, the first concerning the findings in the studies which have been reported in chapter 5-7 and the second comprising conclusions on a more general level.

The following aims were given in the introductory parts of the thesis:

• to provide a general background for the discussion of quality management and quality improvement in higher education;

• to provide more detailed accounts of some issues related to quality management and improvements in higher education:

1 Would self-assessments according to criteria in quality awards be possible and meaningful in higher education?

2 Are quality systems such as ISO 9000 possible and useful to implement in higher education?

3 In what way could the teaching and the learning processes in higher education be enhanced by a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach?

Even though there has been no explicit attempt to define concepts such as ‘Total Quality Management’ or ‘higher education’, the introductory sections (chapter 2-4) have hopefully provided a meaningful background for the subsequent discussion. It is my firm conviction that we can often deal with issues without ‘clearcut’ definitions, or even that there are often no such definitions.

As for the study of the Swedish Quality Award, there are a number of conclusions which have been discussed. Some aspects which seem relevant to repeat here are the following:

• Self-assessments according to the criteria in the SQA were generally conceived as providing meaningful descriptions by the people involved, despite the fact that the award criteria make use of concepts which are not common in higher education: customers, processes, leadership and similar.

• A ‘full-scale’ assessment could be understood as the procedure where all the criteria are addressed in a complete way, and where the assessment document is evaluated by some people external to the actual unit. Such assessments were not achieved in this study. This difference in procedure did still not make the assessments useless, but made the results incomparable with the results which would follow from full-scale assessments. The results were simply dependent on the yard-stick.

• Since the assessment procedure is based on an internal perspective and internally made decisions such as what constitutes quality, these self-assessments seem to be one way to achieve ‘organisational self-reflection’.

The study of quality systems and ISO 9000 in higher education point to some other conclusions:

• The purpose with quality systems as they are described in the ISO 9000 set of standards is to provide a structure for quality assurance. Quality systems have their origin in business settings, and they are, just as the previously mentioned instrument, based on terms and

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concepts which have not been common in higher education. Still, all respondents in the study claim that their implementation had been worth the effort and had resulted in positive effects.

• The ISO 9000 set of standards is not so explicitly oriented towards TQM or quality improvement as for example the SQA or other quality awards. In the study there were still a number of institutions where the implementations of some quality system had functioned as an instrument for improvements: routines had been clarified and a common ground for improvements had been established.

The attempt to discuss the possible effects of adoption of a TQM perspective to teaching and learning in higher education point in the following directions:

• A TQM perspective seems consistent with common and desirable objects in teaching and learning in general.

• Higher education seems to bear a number of characteristics which formerly were common in trade and industry: mass production in isolated subunits rather than in processes, monitoring of nonconformances, rework and eventual scrapping. This mode of operations has increasingly been abandoned in trade and industry, and a similar development could be beneficial to the teaching and learning in higher education as well.

• The organisational structure in higher education and the common use of grades may pose substantial impediments to the learning which is intended to be stimulated, but both these aspects seem hard to change since they have become integrated in the higher educational system.

As for conclusions on a more general level than possible conclusions from the specific studies, some issues which seem particularly important to address are change, the role for TQM and possible developments in the future. However, these issues cannot be addressed without drawing on impressions and perhaps not so well-founded personal interpretations. Still, it seems appropriate to face the difficulty and risk of such discussion rather than evade it.

During the attempts to come to an understanding about quality management and quality improvement in higher education, I have felt that the discussion often focuses on methods. However, my own interpretation of cases where some particular method has been used suggests that addressing quality issues encompasses a lot more than choosing method. Such a remark may seem naïve since the statement “methods are not enough” could be considered as something which almost goes without saying. It has still been one of the most important elements in my own learning.

One such factor which seems to be important is the perception of change as necessary, a perception which could be expressed in negative terms as a threat or more positively as a possible gain. Merely environmental forces for change are not sufficient, there must also be some people who can and want to perceive these forces. Such apprehension could perhaps be stimulated by use of certain tools, but there is no substitute for a willingness to perceive such signals: “none so blind as those who won’t see” (Strauss 1994).

It also seems almost imperative to have a committed leadership, or stated in other terms, to have clearly expressed support for the changes from the people leading the organisation. In higher education where leadership is diffuse when compared with many other organisations, the necessary support must come from leaders of an actual unit. Support expressed at the

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highest level, such as presidents or rectors, seems to be important or even necessary in order to achieve a climate where the individuals in the organisation not only complete the everyday tasks but also actively find ways to improve. However, such higher level support alone does not seem to be sufficient. Due to the diffuse leadership, there is also a substantial need for commitment and clearly expressed support for change by leaders on other levels. Without both these factors, quality improvement initiatives often seem to result in scepticism or even cynicism.

Furthermore, it seems as if change in general and quality improvement in particular cannot be treated as an ‘administrative matter’. It must be systematically planned, but the necessary commitment and willingness to try new approaches seem hard to muster by force. If managers try to launch programs for change without being prepared to lead the way, they seem less likely to succeed. This conclusion is obviously not any novelty. It still seems to be very important to emphasise this aspect, perhaps especially in organisations with diffuse leadership such as higher education.

In a discussion on implementation of reforms in higher education, Cerych & Sabatier (1992) state that:

“The special problems posed by the implementation of higher education reforms are set primarily by the many autonomous actors present, and by the diffusion of authority throughout the structure.”

“....rarely is the diffusion of authority as great as it is in higher education where, within one system, in addition to a multiplicity of vertical levels of authority, there are autonomy-seeking clusters of professionals...which are part of small and large, new and old institutions.”

Assuming that this description of reform and change is correct, what then is the role for TQM in higher education? A personal experience during my work with this thesis and its elements has been that there are those who consider TQM as such as inappropriate in higher education. However, statements as “TQM is not valid in higher education” seem to be less meaningful due to the vague implications of such statements. In a description of hypothesis testing, Tribus (1969) states that “It is extremely difficult to destroy a hypothesis if you do not have an alternative.” Even though this remark treated other issues than the status of TQM, it seems valid in this discussion as well.

The observation that TQM has been adopted and led to improvements consequently suggests that such general criticism is hardly correct. There are cases where TQM has been assumed as a framework for quality improvement efforts in higher education. These cases range from administration and support functions to teaching and research. In the studies reported in this thesis, the individuals involved in efforts to implement a quality system or in self-assessments generally seem to find these activities as relevant and worthwhile. The existence of these and many other cases suggests that the adoption of TQM could prove to be a way to achieve improvements in other cases as well.

This does however not necessarily mean that there is a need for TQM rather than other approaches. It even seems reasonable to assume that a substantial proportion of the individuals involved in improvement efforts guided by a TQM framework would have been involved in improvement efforts under other banners had not TQM been chosen.

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TQM is consequently hardly the sole remedy to the issues facing higher education. My personal view is still that adoption of a TQM perspective could comprise a way to address really important aspects of the contemporary system. The basis for this assumption is not only a comprehension of improvements as something generally desirable, but also a conception of higher education as a system in need of often fundamental change. There might be approaches other than TQM which can be useful in efforts to achieve both incremental and fundamental changes, but TQM is clearly one approach which directly addresses such change.

Furthermore, a TQM perspective encompasses an orientation towards higher education which I personally think is necessary such as process orientation, teamwork and focus on the needs of the customers. These are some of the elements which seem lacking, but which would be natural in a TQM perspective. Questions as to whether there is any need for change and whether TQM could be a way to proceed are therefore in my own view possible to answer affirmatively.

Finally, with the background given in the previous chapters, it seems relevant to discuss possible developments in the future. The reason for raising these particular questions apart from the rest of the discussion is that the present situation in higher education does not easily lend itself to forecasting. Historically, few institutions are older, but it does not seem evident that this relative stability can be the basis for extrapolations into the future. The role for higher education, and what possible changes the system will have to go through, is dependent on developments in other parts of society and of the interplay between higher education and society at large. Among the many factors influencing future development are:

• changes in demographic structure of the student population;

• continued or even increased strains on monetary resources;

• changes in demands on the competencies of the workforce;

• lasting mass unemployment.

The way higher education will respond to these developments is anything but clear. Due to factors as the organisational structure and the absence of some commonly held perception of general problems which have to be solved, TQM could not be expected to be generally embraced as the solution to some undefined problems. There will presumably be a number of institutions where TQM will be adopted, but there will also continue to be others where TQM will be unknown or even resisted.

Will TQM be an effective way to address coming events in a longer perspective? Will higher education be capable of meeting the demands held by its customers? For my own part, I do not believe that these questions can be answered affirmatively. TQM is today resting on a trend within society at large which could be seen as an attempt to address what I perceive as more fundamental problems: lack of commitment to a common goal, lack of integration of efforts, short-sightedness. It would be desirable if TQM could effectively solve such problems, but I don’t think this will happen: the problems are simply too great for any single approach to be effective within the present system.

We cannot expect that the higher education system will be able to cope with coming challenges by merely continuing as before. As I think Einstein said: “We cannot expect to solve today’s problems with the thinking that took us here”. If the system had been flexible, then these challenges would not be so much of a problem. However, flexibility is not one

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characteristic trait of the existing system, and it does not seem likely to appear spontaneously. These and other factors point at a possible collapse of the system, so the conclusion is in a way rather pessimistic.

However, the future is naturally not all dark. Higher learning and the research so far associated with higher education will presumably continue. The existing structures for higher education would, given such a development, be replaced by other structures, so there would not be much of a problem, at least not in a longer perspective. Meanwhile, I think we should make the best of the situation. In the shorter perspective, we have to cope with the system as well as we can, and in a longer perspective, we should point to possible problems and find ways to deal with these. This is perhaps also one possible side-effect of a TQM approach to quality improvement: explicit efforts to find out who the customers are and how their demands could be met, not just today but also tomorrow, could highlight problems in the present system as well as possibilities for the future.

Assuming that this interpretation of possibilities, threats and obstacles is correct, one conclusion must be that whatever could be done should be done. TQM could prove to be a meaningful and beneficial way to address the actual problems. TQM might not be the final answer to the great questions, but that does not make it possible to evade the responsibility to exploit the potential in this approach wherever suitable.

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Turner, R. T. (1995) TQM in the college classroom, Quality Progress, vol. 28, no. 10, p. 105-108, ISSN 0033-524X.

UNESCO (1996) Statistical yearbook, UNESCO Publishing & Bernan Press, Paris & Lanham, ISBN 92-3-003344-8 & 0-89059-064-8.

Welch, S. C. (1994) Quality management in opera education, in: 48th Annual Quality Congress Proceedings, Las Vegas, p. 270-285, ASQC Press, Milwaukee.

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Zuber-Skerrit, O. (1992) Action research in higher education, Kogan Page, London, ISBN 0-7494-0741-7.

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Appendices Appendix 1: Institutions involved in the study of ISO

9000 The following list is a compilation of details about the institutions involved in the study. The institutions listed have either gained a certificate to some part of the ISO 9000 set of standards or have been considered as having so much direct experience as to make the inclusion of their answers relevant.

Not all details are known for all institutions, as for example full addresses. There were also some respondents who did not want to be referred to in person, so in some cases just the name of the institution is given.

Institution School of Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia Person to contact

Robert Carmichael

e-mail rmichael@lucy.swin.edu.au Institution Centre for Industrial Management, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven Person to contact

Ludo Gelders

Address Celestijnenlaan 300A B-3001 Heverlee Belgium

Tel +32(0)16 323567 Fax +32(0)16 322986 e-mail Ludo.Gelders@cib.kuleuven.ac.be Institution University of Wolverhampton Person to contact

Tracey Beech

Address Wolverhampton West Midlands WV1 1SB UK

Tel +44(0)1902 321000 Fax +44(0)1902 321279 e-mail in4988@mail.wlv.ac.uk Institution Centre for Language Study, Leeds Metropolitan University Person to contact

Elspeth Jones

e-mail E.Jones@lmu.ac.uk Institution Angus College Person to contact

Sandy Dallas

Address Keptie Road Arbroath DD11 3EA UK

Tel +44(0)1241 432600

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Fax +44(0)1241 876169 Institution European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences Person to contact

Rob Priest

Address University of Surrey Warren Road Guildford Surrey GU1 3NT UK

Tel +44(0)1483 571122 Fax +44(0)1483 303927 Institution Blackpool & The Fylde College Person to contact

Colin Addison

Address Department of Engineering Technology Ashfield Road Bispham Blackpool FY2 0HB UK

Tel +44 (0)1253 352 352 Fax Institution South Tyneside College Person to contact

Brian Burnett

Address St. George’s Avenue South Shields Tyne & Wear NE34 6ET UK

Tel +44(0)1914 273533 Fax +44(0)1914 273535 Institution Norfolk College of Arts and Technology Person to contact

Terry Harris

Address Tennyson Avenue King’s Lynn Norfolk PE30 2QW UK

Tel +44(0)1553 761144 Fax +44(0)1553 764902 Institution Lehrbetrieb des IFT-CIM-Labors (education of the CIM laboratory of

the Institute for Production Technology, Technical University of Vienna, Austria)

Institution Estates Department, Academic Registry & Central Stores, Cranfield University

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Institution North Trafford College Person to contact

Mr P W Luby

Address Talbot Road Stretford Manchester M32 0XH UK

Institution North Tyneside Training Services Address Queen Victoria Centre, Coach Lane

North Shields NE29 0EL UK

Institution Sandwell College Person to contact

Neil Chapman

Address Woden Road South Wednesday Sandwell West Midlands WS10 0PE UK

Institution University of Central Lancashire Library, UK Institution Executive Education, Waikato University, New Zealand Institution West Cheshire College Person to contact

Mr I Rimmington

Address Eaton Road Handbridge Chester CH4 7ER UK

Institution Strategic Quality Management Institute Person to contact

Ton van der Wiele

Address Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam Postbus 1738 3000 DR Rotterdam Netherlands

Tel +31 10 4081354 Fax +31 10 4526094 Institution Marlborough Boys’ College Person to contact

John Rodgers

Address PO Box 353 Blenheim New Zealand

Telephone +64 (0)3 578 0119 Fax +64 (0)3 578 0954

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Appendix 2: The questionnaire used in the study of ISO 9000

** SURVEY: ISO 9000 IN HIGHER EDUCATION **

I am trying to study the use of ISO 9000 or equivalents in higher education. The purpose is to find out where the system is being used, how and why it has been done and any experiences that could be useful for institutions on their way to begin such work.

The search for relevant institutions has resulted in a list containing your name, and I hope you will share your experiences with me by filling out the questionnaire given later in this message.

Any information will of course be treated completely confidentially, and the results will generally be presented in aggregated form.

Since it has been difficult to cover all the aspects of the ISO 9000 system you will perhaps find questions and/or the categorisation of the answers irrelevant or unsuitable to your organisation. Please do not hesitate to answer in a way more meaningful to you.

When the answers have been compiled, you will be sent a list of all the organisations that have answered. Hopefully such a list will be of assistance in your further work with quality issues. You will also be given access to the results from the study.

Since I can’t hope for having covered every institution engaged in work with the ISO 9000 system, it would also be of great help if you could assist in distributing the questionnaire to other which you believe could have experiences of relevance. The questionnaire could either be distributed directly, or you could inform me about the actual person or organisation.

The most straight-forward way to answer and return the questionnaire is to use the “reply” function that should go with most e-mail systems. Otherwise you can return it by fax or ordinary mail.

Robert Lundquist tel +46-920-91078 Div. of Quality Technology & Statistics fax +46-920-72160 Lulea University e-mail Robert.Lundquist@ies.luth.se S-971 87 Lulea Sweden

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Please fill in the questionnaire by marking relevant answers with a symbol of your choice, e.g. X, inside the brackets: [X].

The terms “ISO 9000” are used instead of the possible names for national equivalents. Some other examples are given below:

ISO 9000 = BS 5750 = Q 9000 ISO 9001-9004 = BS 5750: Part 1-Part 4 = Q 9001-9004

1 Name of your organisation:

2 What are the main activities in your organisation?

[ ] Teaching

[ ] Research

[ ] Library

[ ] Other, namely:

3 If teaching is a main activity, what are the actual kinds of students?

[ ] Undergraduate students

[ ] Graduate students

[ ] Other, namely:

4 How many people work in your organisation (counting every person)?

[ ] 1-10

[ ] 11-50

[ ] 51-100

[ ] 101-

[ ] No estimate available

5 Is your organisation to be considered as part of a larger organisation? (For example a language centre within a university)

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

6 Has your organisation implemented the ISO 9000 system?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

7 If the ISO 9000 system not has been implemented, are you considering doing so?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

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If the ISO 9000 system not has been or will be implemented the following questions are irrelevant to you. Please go to question 25 and return the questionnaire in any case, since this would also provide valuable information.

*********************************************

The following questions are relevant to organisations that have implemented an ISO 9000 system.

8 Has your organisation gained a certificate to any part of the ISO 9000 series?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

9 If you do not have a certificate, are you working for gaining a certificate?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

10 If you have a certificate, what is the name of the organisation having gained the certificate?

Name:

11 If you have a certificate, to which part of the series does the certificate pertain?

[ ] ISO 9001

[ ] ISO 9002

[ ] ISO 9003

12 If you have a certificate, how long did it take to gain a certificate ?

Number of years:

13 If you have a certificate, when did your organisation gain the certificate?

Year:

14 What were the major motives for the implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

[ ] The expected marketing value

[ ] Explicit customer requirements

[ ] Implementation was motivated internally and believed to be beneficial to the organisation’s internal affairs

[ ] Implementation has been recommended by superior levels within the organisation

[ ] Other, namely:

15 What amount of resources on a yearly basis is spent on the maintenance of the system? (Answers could preferably be given as e.g. 1/2 full-time employee.)

Number of full-time employees:

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16 Have specific documents with guidelines for implementation of the ISO 9000 system in education and training been used?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

17 Have external consultants been hired for the implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

18 If external consultants have been hired, what have been the consultants’ main tasks?

[ ] Training of people within the organisation

[ ] Writing the documents required in the system

[ ] Other, namely:

19 How many of the people working in the organisation have been involved in implementing the ISO 9000 system?

[ ] 1-5

[ ] 6-10

[ ] 11-50

[ ] 51-

[ ] No estimate available

20 Has the work with the ISO 9000 system been regarded as part of working with Total Quality Management?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

21 Has your organisation performed assessments according to any of the following quality awards:

[ ] The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award or The European Quality Award

[ ] Other quality award, namely:

[ ] No

22 Have you experienced any particular difficulties in the implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

[ ] No

[ ] Yes, namely:

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23 Have you experienced any demonstrable effects of working with the ISO 9000 system?

[ ] No

[ ] Yes, namely:

24 Do you consider your implementation of the ISO 9000 system worth the effort?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

[ ] Not certain

25 What do you consider to be the main effects of working with the ISO 9000 system?

26 What advice would you give to other organisations in higher education on their way to begin implementation of the ISO 9000 system?

27 Other comments about the ISO 9000?

28 Do you consider your answers possible to make public with reference to the source?

[ ] Yes

[ ] Generally yes, but not answers to questions number:........

[ ] No

T H A N K Y O U F O R Y O U R C O O P E R A T I O N !

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Appendix 3: Internet resources used in the study of ISO 9000

• tqm-l: TQM In Higher Education

To subscribe: send the following command to LISTSERV@UKANVM.CC.UKANS.EDU via E-Mail. The command should be the first and only line in the body of text (not in the Subject: field):

Subscribe TQM-L <First name> <Last name> <Institution>

• HEPROC: Higher Education Processes

URL: http://rrpubs.com/heproc/index.shtml/WWW/quality/index.html

• quality: TQM in Manufacturing and Service Industries Discussion List

To subscribe: send your subscription request to:

listserv@pucc.princeton.edu

The correct subscribe syntax is:

SUBSCRIBE QUALITY YourFirstName YourLastName

Example: SUBSCRIBE QUALITY John Doe

– 123 –

Appendix 4: Addresses to the International Organization for Standardization

Name International Organization for Standardization

Address 1, rue de Varembé

Case postale 56

CH-1211 Genève 20

Switzerland

Tel +41 22 749 01 11

Fax +41 22 733 34 30

e-mail central@iso.ch

URL http://www.iso.ch

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