How Policy Makers Employ the Term Quality in Higher Education Policymaking

Pechmann, Philipp Wilhelm; Haase, Sanne Schioldann

doi:10.1080/00313831.2020.1869081

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The specification of standards or performance measures, which often imply a concrete prioritisation of some elements at the possible expense of others. Performance measures also imply a greater focus on outcomes, where in particular employability or relevance has been highly prioritised in Denmark (Pechmann & Haase, 2022), and where there may be less agreement on which outcomes are most important.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality work in higher education: a multi-stakeholder study

Bloch

Fuglsang

Glavind

et al. 2022

Quality in Higher Education

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Quality in higher education has been at the top of the political agenda for years, motivating discussion of how to define quality and how standards and assessment can promote quality. However, the literature tends to overlook the processes and practices constituting 'every-day' quality. To improve quality, it is important to know how quality is perceived and enacted by the key stakeholders, namely the students, teachers, administrative staff and managers. Informed by the findings of a survey, this article aims to identify and compare the local practices of quality work at higher education institutions in Denmark. The analysis reveals that students, teachers and managers across sectors to a large extent share views on quality work highlighting practices that help develop students' academic skills, the ability to apply these to practice and the continuous development of teaching practices. Some differences are however also apparent, for example, concerning employability orientation in higher education.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality work in higher education: a multi-stakeholder study

Bloch

Fuglsang

Glavind

et al. 2022

Quality in Higher Education

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“…Secondly, and interestingly, when contemplating the number of reforms that have impacted the Danish higher education system over the past decades, no specific quality reform has been proposed in Denmark even though quality is often used to legitimise reforms in higher education (Pechmann & Haase, 2021). This is in contrast to, for example, the other Nordic countries.…”

Section: The Danish Case Of Quality Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the profanity of management of higher education

Degn,

Glavind,

Pechmann

et al. 2024

JPHE

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Management and managerialism in higher education have become increasingly synonymous with the corruption of self-regulating institutions, with the disbandment of collegial governance, and with a general devaluation of traditional academic norms and values; they have become profane concepts. In this paper, this profanity is challenged, through an exploration of its reach into the actual practices of higher education. We conceptualise two versions of profane management: management as discursively profane and as practically profane. Using data from a Delphi study on perceptions of quality and quality management, we explore the usefulness of these concepts and discuss their value.

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“…Furthermore, implementing policy into effective practice remains a major challenge (Pechmann and Haase 2021 ). These performance measures have become highly politicised in so far as there is a duality in the design of measures such as ‘management tools’ and at the same time they are ‘performance tools of public expression’ (Cave et al 1995 ).…”

Section: Problems In Performance Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Performance Management remains fragmented and undefined (Bloch et al 2021 ). One major reason may be the lack of genuine attention by policy makers to performance quality, especially in terms of defining it (Pechmann and Haase 2021 ). Goh ( 2012 ) has also argued that the existing issues relating to performance measurement and management implementation is due to lack in focus.…”

Section: Problems In Performance Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second category involved competence development programmes focused mostly on initiatives such as promoting an active role for students in learning (Bloch et al 2021 ). According to Pechmann and Haase ( 2021 ), this continued existential crisis of ‘quality’ seemed to benefit policy makers as it is such a broadly defined and used term. However, researchers need to define quality for improvement in HE.…”

Section: Problems In Performance Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performance measurement and management in the British higher education sector

et al. 2022

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Theoretical enquiry and empirical studies demonstrate the significance of performance management (PM) in the higher education sector and it is a fulcrum for developing a strategic role for people management within universities. In spite of the perceived weaknesses of people management in the higher education sector, in general, the current period of rapid and substantial contextual change may necessitate greater formalisation of HR practices across the British higher education sector. In addition to the changing role of the HR function and line managers, these developments may result in an increasingly stringent performance regime across the sector, especially in more hard-pressed institutions. Through a literature review and a pilot study, this paper attempts to address two main research questions: (i) what are the current performance management practices in the British Higher Education sector? and (ii) what needs to be done to strategically align these practices within HEIs in the UK? This paper discusses the wider literature related to performance management in general and to academic institutions in particular. We also undertook a small-scale qualitative study to explore the views of HR professionals on the need for, and the current performance measurement systems in their universities in the UK. The preliminary findings confirmed that PM is a key issue in the respondents' institutions, with substantial and recent changes in policy. This underscores the need for a large-scale research agenda to capture the current dynamics of change the sector is undergoing. The paper concludes by stimulating a policy debate and placing a number of research calls, along with suggestions on how these research questions may be investigated.

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How Policy Makers Employ the Term Quality in Higher Education Policymaking

Cited by 10 publications

References 30 publications

Quality work in higher education: a multi-stakeholder study

Quality work in higher education: a multi-stakeholder study

Challenging the profanity of management of higher education

Performance measurement and management in the British higher education sector

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