RESEARCH IN QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION: EVOLVING OR DEVOLVING?

The topics of quality in higher education have received a lot of attention in recent years. Policymakers as well as higher education institutions (HEIs) around the globe are seeking to prepare their students for a rapidly changing labour market by increasing the quality of their study programmes. As a result, many researchers have addressed a variety of topics in the area of quality in higher education (QHE).

Topics include the quality system, quality management, students’ satisfaction, quality culture, developing curricula, quality of teaching and learning, and many more. Nevertheless, to date, relatively little is known about the research field itself.

The aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of the research field of QHE. To this end, in a first step, we provide an overview of the publications in the research field over the last 30 years. In a second step, we explore the main addressed themes as well as interrelations between them.

The methodology of this paper is based on analyzing data collected from academic publications (journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, and reviews) in SCOPUS database. Two different methods are applied to provide different levels of analysis: a qualitative bibliometric analysis followed by a text analysis approach.

The findings of the study are twofold: first, it provides a descriptive analysis of academic literature over time. Second, it reveals the nine aggregated themes in the research field, which are: Management Systems, Improvement & Development, Teaching & Learning, Stakeholders, Quality Services, Excellence, Accreditation, Quality of Research, and General Themes of quality.