Abstract:

Higher education in Saudi Arabia relies on a variety of quality assurance processes in order to compete nationally and globally. One of the most commonly used quality assurance mechanism is the NCAAA accreditation. The NCAAA is the only national accrediting agency that accredits higher education institutions and programs in Saudi Arabia. It aims at enhancing the quality of academic programs through a specific number of criteria. This exploratory qualitative case study utilizes observational notes from author’s first-hand experience, relevant documents, focus groups, and in-depth interviews to explore benefits, issues, and challenges associated with the NCAAA programmatic accreditation process. Participants of the focus groups and interviews were faculty members and staff who have actively participated in accreditation related activities (e.g., self-evaluation report, site visit, evidence gathering and analysis, etc.). Data from the multiple sources were analyzed using a categorical aggregation method to establish common themes pertaining to the benefits, issues, and challenges of the NCAAA accreditation process. The study demonstrates that the NCAAA accreditation had several benefits to academic programs. It helped created a culture of assessment within the College and encouraged faculty and staff to engage with programs’ key stakeholders actively. The study also points to the need for a big data system to be created at the institutional level in order to offer useful data and information related to programs’ performance. The findings also indicate that the NCAAA accreditation might not be the best quality assurance mechanism depending upon the programs' specific needs. Based on these findings, the study suggests the need for experts' opinions to assess the appropriateness and the readiness of their particular programs before considering the accreditation pursuit.

Keywords:

Quality assurance, assessment, higher education, NCAAA.