In developing an answer to the question "Can quality be defined?"
it should be recognized that higher education is not the last
industry in America to define quality. A vast majority of American
profit and non-profit organizations have not troubled themselves
with this task. The organizations that have made quality a passion
are exemplified by the recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award. These businesses have learned four important principles
in creating a quality organization:
On the surface, a higher education institution is no more or less
complicated than a company with multiple products. However, two
major exceptions exist: the much wider constituency that a higher
education institution must satisfy and the measurability of its
outcomes. A business is generally accountable to its customers
to deliver a satisfactory product or service, to the government
to keep within various regulations, and to its stockholders for
sound financial management. While higher education must do all
of these things, it must also satisfy a constituency that includes
the faculties who are the creators of the knowledge base, students
who are not customers in the traditional sense but major stakeholders
nonetheless, alumni, parents, employers, elected representatives,
donors, and the general public. Many higher education outcomes
are easily measured, but others-e.g., critical thinking or the
ability to make sound decisions in ambiguous situations-are more
difficult. Thus, the process of defining, measuring, and reconciling
the expectations held for higher education is much more complicated
and inclusive than it is for the corporate world. Nevertheless,
this does not mean that quality cannot be defined for higher education.
It just means that it is not as easy as it might seem.
The truly successful quality
organizations recognize that quality is better understood, not
as a noun-a static condition-but as a verb-an active process with
ever-changing outcomes. These organizations recognize that quality
results from understanding the dynamic relationship of vision
and mission, resource inputs, systems and processes, outcomes,
and the need for continuous assessment and improvement.
Conceptual misconceptions in defining quality
One misconception in defining
quality is the notion that there is an ideal standard. In higher
education, this has been called the "Harvard Model."
Under this concept, the quality of an institution is measured
against that of the most prestigious institution. The underlying
concept of this approach in defining quality is the assumption
that all customers want the same thing. For good reason, states
have recognized the differing needs of their citizens and purposefully
resisted this model by establishing diverse higher education institutions
that are designed to serve a wide variety of education objectives.
However, despite attempts in Virginia to individualize an institution's
restructuring plan and performance measures based on its individual
mission, there is still a tendency to compare outcome results
across institutions. Such comparisons only serve to confuse the
real issue that every institution serves distinctive and different
stakeholders. The quality of an institution is determined by how
well it serves its own stakeholders, not how well it imitates
the performance of the "flagship" institution.
Related to the concept of an ideal standard is the belief that
quality standards can and should be set by the organization and
not the customer. This sense of knowing what is right for the
customer has caused many a business to fail, as exemplified in
the problems of the U.S. automobile industry in the 1970s. In
higher education this process of internally defining academic
quality is characterized by the self-appointed groups who are
determined to protect higher education from the insidious decline
of academic standards. This position of inflexibility about quality
standards has caused one wag to observe that "there appear
to be only two types of people in higher education, the educated
and the uneducated, and it's the liberal arts majors who decide
who is who." It should be obvious, both for businesses and
education institutions, that setting quality standards must involve
both those who create and those who consume the goods or services
of an organization. Another misconception is to
view quality as a constant, i.e., what was considered quality
performance in the past should be the performance criteria of
the present. Under this concept, certain courses or curricula
are held sacred based on tradition rather than on effectiveness.
This concept allows very little flexibility to add new knowledge
and practices to the curriculum. The problem is that, if the length
of a degree program is held constant, the addition of new courses-e.g.,
new technologies or international business studies-must necessitate
the elimination of some other courses-e.g., Latin or a second
history course. The quality of higher education in the future
may not fit well with past quality standards if the public's demand
for more effective and relevant education programs is to be met.
What should concern policymakers is not that the standards of
quality are changing but who will determine the new standards
and on what rationale these standards will be based.
The fallacy of the concept
of the constancy of quality also applies to an institution's reputation.
Unlike businesses, whose reputations are annually reevaluated
based on successful products and profits, the reputations of higher
education institutions are based on history, traditions, and prestige.
The older the institution, or the higher on the academic food
chain, the more it is held in high esteem. What is missing is
both qualitative and quantitative measurements that can help in
giving current indications of the quality of an institution. The
identification of measurable indicators of quality is possible.
To understand how this can be accomplished, it is useful to examine
the limitation of past models of quality.
Where quality
starts The second consideration is
the role of the stakeholder. Because of the increased significance
that higher education has for the individual and the state's economy,
more people have a stake in the outcomes of higher education institutions.
These stakeholders can be divided into two groups. One group includes
those who help to create the institution and help with its funding:
faculty, administrators, parents, alumni, boards of visitors,
and the state executive and legislative branches. The second stakeholder
group consists of those who directly benefit from an institution's
services and outcomes: students, faculty, and administrators in
addition to employers, the local community, and individuals and
organizations using the research and cultural enrichment that
are afforded by the institution. What is important to understand
is that while every group has a stake in how well an institution
performs, not all groups have equal power or voice in defining
the vision, mission, and outcomes of that institution. Without
giving respect and input to all stakeholder groups, the base from
which to define and build a quality institution will be ineffective,
incomplete, and destined to produce conflict.
The automobile industry made
this mistake when it ignored the need for fuel-efficient cars.
IBM almost made this mistake when it underestimated the significance
of the personal computer. And this may happen for higher education
if an adversarial relationship develops between major stakeholders
as the issue of quality is debated. Too often, faculties have
been pitted against administrators; administrators conflict with
boards of visitors; and academic elitists spar with training-oriented
employers.
When the stakeholders of individual
institutions are brought into a discussion of mission and outcomes,
it quickly becomes apparent that each institution is serving several
different types of stakeholders, each with different expectations.
Thus, the expectations of stakeholders of the University of Virginia
differ considerably from the stakeholders of Christopher Newport
University. When these discussions are designed to eliminate conflicting
and unrealistic expectations within an institution, a shared vision
and sense of purpose emerge. Winning corporations have come to
understand that the quality of any product, service, or activity
is measured by how well it meets the expectation of the stakeholders.
This is no less true of higher education.
Faulty quality
indicators and models
Assessing stakeholder expectations and satisfaction has not been
a conventional tool to measure quality in higher education. Traditionally,
a combination of three models has been used: Input Resource Model,
Superior Output Model, and the Inspection Model. Input Resource Model:
The underlying assumption of this model
is that the outcomes will automatically be of the highest quality
only if the highest quality input materials are used. For automobile
manufacturing this would mean having the highest quality of steel;
for baking it would mean using the freshest eggs and butter. Higher
education has three categories of input resources: financial resources,
e.g., high faculty salaries, large endowments, and low faculty-student
ratios; capital resources, e.g., state-of-the-art science and
computer labs, number of books in the library, and new performing
arts buildings; and personnel resources, e.g., faculties from
the best graduate schools and students with the highest standardized
test scores. However, despite its appeal, this model does not
ensure quality. As the automobile companies learned when too much
steel meant low fuel efficiency and any cook knows that the freshest
of ingredients means little if the proportions are wrong, considering
resource inputs without considering institutional vision, mission,
and outcomes will give a false reading on quality. Superior Output Model: This model judges quality
based on various forms of national recognition. Such judgments
could result from a reputation survey based on past successes,
publishing and research efforts of the faculty, or number of national
or international fellowships awarded to students. The model has
at least two weaknesses. The first is whether or not the reputation
of an institution reflects its current accomplishments. For example,
in a ranking of graduate programs in higher education administration
reported last year by U.S. News and World Report, four of the
ten ranked programs were no longer active.
The second concern is the relationship between what is being judged
as quality performance and the mission of the institution. The
superior output model is effective only when it is carefully coordinated
with an institution's mission and outcomes. For example, if an
institution's mission is teaching and student learning, using
faculty articles published in national refereed journals as the
primary focus for faculty promotion may conflict with the institution's
mission.
Inspection Model: Underlying this model is the assumption
that only one standard of quality exists, and the tougher an institution
is on judging its students and faculty, the higher its quality.
Therefore, it is a badge of honor to have a high failure rate.
Faculty giving too many high grades are more likely to be judged
as lacking rigor than to be seen as effective teachers. Institutions
that award tenure to a high percentage of faculty are considered
as lacking standards rather than having high hiring selection
criteria or a nurturing faculty development program. The problem
with this model is that it does not improve the education process.
It is concerned only as a gatekeeper of a static standard of quality.
The inspection model is not concerned with the value-added education
a student receives; it is only interested in whether a student
has met a quality standard as demonstrated by passing an exam. Ensuring a quality
institution
The new quality model is a systematic integration of stakeholder
expectations with a constant review of processes and systems.
This dynamic model of quality is based on three principles:
Expectations: Stakeholder
expectations, which may differ from institution to institution,
must be identified for each individual institution. The expectations
of education students of Longwood College differ greatly from
the expectations of nursing students at Radford University.
Outcomes: The effectiveness of an institution should be judged
by how well it fulfills the stakeholder-defined outcome for that
institution. The stakeholders of the College of William and Mary
may expect that a high percentage of the students will go on to
graduate schools, while the graduates of Old Dominion University
may look for successful careers in business. Processes or systems are interdependent: When two or more people
interact to accomplish a mutual goal, their ways of interacting
are defined as systems or processes. The larger and more centralized
the organization, the more complicated and numerous are the processes
and systems. These processes and systems interrelate and are interdependent.
That is, a change in one process may have a profound impact on
another process. For example, an admissions office may decide
to raise the academic standards for the entering freshman class.
The result may be that this class has higher SAT scores than previous
first-year classes, but the number of admissions is the lowest
in years. The consequence is an institution with millions of dollars
in deficits because of loses of tuition and state revenue. Processes and systems are
people based: The major inputs that make the processes and systems
work in any organization are its people. Everyone is involved
with processes and systems, and everyone needs specific skills
to be successful. Quality business/industry organizations understand
this principle and the importance of continuously developing employees'
skills. As a result they spend between 3 and 7 percent of personnel
dollars on the annual education and training of all personnel.
Higher education spends less than one-half percent on educating
and training its faculty, administrators, and staff. It should
be obvious that assessment of quality should include an evaluation
of the human resource development programs within an institution.
Does the institution specifically identify the skills necessary
for a job and ensure that the people involved have these skills,
e.g., are faculty members skilled in the assessment of students?
are administrators trained in process assessment? Processes and systems are
mission and outcomes based: Any process or system was first developed
under the assumption that it would help to meet the mission and
outcomes of the organization. As an organization grows, the expectations
of the stakeholders change; however, often the institution's processes
and systems do not change. To have effective processes, there
must be a continuous assessment of the link between process and
mission and outcomes. An example of a disconnect between process
and outcomes is when a board of visitors institutes new curricular
requirements without assessing the availability of faculty. Such
an action might actually decrease the institution's ability to
deliver specialized training. Defining quality
through systematic assessment
Because quality is process
dependent and the success of one process is dependent on how well
all the processes are working, it is more effective to judge quality
through a systematic assessment of the entire organization. Many
assessment methods can accomplish this purpose. One method that
has had national acceptance and is used, at least in part, by
nearly 40 state quality award programs is the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award's Education Criteria for Performance Excellence.
These criteria do not provide a proscriptive definition of quality.
Rather, they provide a systematic way to assess the performance
of an institution in the areas of leadership, strategic planning,
student and stakeholder focus, information and analysis, faculty
and staff focus, educational and support process management, and
school performance results. Throughout the Baldrige assessment
process, there is concern that an organization demonstrate a feedback
process that will ensure continuous improvement. Because this
assessment process forces an institution to review its current
performance and then compare that performance with both the expectations
of its stakeholders and a "best-in-class" ideal, the
institution gains an understanding of how successful it currently
is in meeting its stakeholder expectations and what it must do
to improve. Defining the quality of higher education is not easy. No single
static definition of quality will fit all institutions. Quality
is a process, an ever-moving target. Stakeholders' expectations
change, revenue sources are inconsistent, student employment opportunities
are cyclical, and the needs of society are often unclear. Therefore,
higher education is not served well by defining its quality as
a static condition. Quality is best viewed as a process and best
defined through an assessment of the processes that are functioning
to meet the ever-changing expectations of the stakeholders.
Virginia public colleges and universities, along with the State
Council of Higher Education for Virginia, have incorporated several
of the major themes of this mission-driven, process-outcomes model
of quality in some of their newest initiatives. But more needs
to be done before this model can fully become part of the Virginia
higher education institutional culture.
Jonathan D. Fife, currently a visiting professor with the Educational
Policy Institute of Virginia Tech, previously served as director
of the ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center) Clearinghouse
on Higher Education and professor of higher education administration
at George Washington University. He has been a senior examiner
for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and is the co-author,
along with Jann E. Freed and Marie R. Klugman, of the 1997 ASHE
(Association for the Study of Higher
Education)-ERIC Higher Education Report, A Culture for Academic
Excellence: Implementing the Quality Principles in Higher Education. Steven M. Janosik is an associate
professor of higher education and student affairs and co-director
of the Educational Policy Institute of Virginia Tech. From 1994
to 1997, he served as the deputy secretary of education for the
Commonwealth of Virginia. His most recent publication, co-authored
with Susan Short, is Trends in Community College Litigation: Implications
for Policy and Practice.
Posted: June 1, 1999
In the quality corporate world, the inspection model as the primary
method of judging quality has gone out of favor. Yes, quality
inspections are still performed. But there is an understanding
that "you cannot inspect quality in." The inspection
at the end provides only three results: acceptable outcomes, rejects,
or scrap and rework. For a quality organization, the latter two
results are unacceptable. However, for higher education, a 60
percent graduation rate is praised without any recognition that
the institution has also produced 40 percent scrap or rejects.
Stakeholders-driven vision, mission, and measurable
outcomes: It is accepted that the University of Virginia and the
College of William and Mary are different from Virginia Tech and
Radford University. The question is, from a quality perspective,
which ones are of higher quality? Using the elite Harvard model,
the answer is the first two. But using the stakeholder model makes
the answer less obvious. Before the question of quality can be
answered, one first must know who the stakeholders are, what expectations
they hold, and how well these institutions are meeting those expectations.
Therefore, three areas need to be considered before the quality
of an institution can be determined:
Stakeholders: The stakeholders of an institution must be identified
and be part of the process of defining a shared expectation for
the outcomes of that institution. An example of unique shareholders
would be the regional families and employers served by an institution.
Conclusion
___________________
By The Educational Policy Institute of Virginia Tech
sjanosik@vt.edu