Internal Quality Assurance of Academic Programs: A Case Study in Vietnamese Higher Education

Abstract

Quality assurance of higher education has been carried out across the world in the past few decades. Therefore, setting up an effective internal quality assurance (IQA) system that fosters improvement in teaching and learning is of great significance. This research examined whether the IQA system was associated with the continuous improvement in the quality of academic programs in Vietnamese higher education institutions (HEIs). The study looked into the IQA system’s infrastructure, its instruments and its efforts at program improvement across different types of HEIs including infrastructure, instruments, and continuous quality improvement efforts in academic programs that are implemented across the different types of institutions. A total of 715 responses from the survey and 46 interviews were analyzed for this paper. The findings demonstrated that the IQA of academic programs in Vietnamese higher education built the fundamental infrastructure and used indirect instruments but did not frequently use the IQA results to continuously improve educational quality. On the basis of these findings, recommendations are made to improve the IQA system of academic programs.

Improving the quality of student assessment practices: a Saudi University case study

“…Quality assurance in HEIs encompasses monitoring and essential assessment activities for maintaining academic programs (Pham et al, 2022), including IQA and EQA. Performance-related QAE 32,3 data collection, followed by subsequent analysis, is conducted by the same institution for internal use in IQA or by one or more external entities, followed by reporting and conclusions to achieve accreditation in EQA (e.g.…”

“…Quality assurance in HEIs encompasses monitoring and essential assessment activities for maintaining academic programs (Pham et al. , 2022), including IQA and EQA.…”

“…Quality assurance is influential in higher education institutions (HEIs) to monitor, manage and improve the caliber of academic programs. Notably, HEIs are centrally responsible for internal quality assurance (IQA) and external quality assurance (EQA) (Pham et al. , 2022).…”

“…Introduction Quality assurance is influential in higher education institutions (HEIs) to monitor, manage and improve the caliber of academic programs. Notably, HEIs are centrally responsible for internal quality assurance (IQA) and external quality assurance (EQA) (Pham et al, 2022). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) represents a compelling case study in achieving the goal of Vision 2030 to diversify the Saudi economy from the oil industry to human capital investment.…”