Quality Assessment Projects as Teaching and Learning Tools

Abstract

Quality management is a broad subject whose principles and practices are best understood when studied in the context of real-life organizations. This article describes a major quality assessment field project that serves as the integrative vehicle for an MBA curriculum. Each year the entire entering MBA class devotes a portion of 8 months to performing comprehensive quality audits of external organizations. Whereas they reinforce the principles of quality management, the field projects also require students to integrate the knowledge gained from each of their MBA courses in critically examining all operational areas of their host organizations.

Using Total Quality Processes and Learning Outcome Assessments to Develop Management Curricula

“…Students make detailed observations and practice these skills several times during the 2 weeks. Five months later, when the graduate students are in the middle of a three-term, team-based integrated project that requires consultation with a real organization (Bloomfield & Paschke, 1997), we require them to revisit group roles and feedback by conducting a process discussion of how well their group works together. We have found that when content is central to a curriculum, it cannot be partitioned into a stand-alone course if learning is to occur.…”