Abstract:

The Quality Assurance experience in Higher Education is closely linked to a factor of necessary growth in the quality culture, which becomes part of the knowledge management of the university. The concept of 'quality culture' according to the European University Association is an organisational style that aims to permanently improve quality and is characterised by two distinct elements: on the one hand a cultural-psychological element of shared values, expectations and commitments to quality and on the other hand a structural-managerial element with defined processes that develop quality through coordinated individual efforts.

But how to define quality in one university context and how to spread its culture? It is an open question and different definitions have been given in the literature over time. Certainly, the conceptualization of quality in the university depends on the different perspectives from which it is observed, i.e. on the basis of the points of view of the different subjects who live in the university: teachers, students, technical-administrative staff and external stakeholders.

To this end, the present research aims to investigate, through a survey submitted to the academic community of an Italian university, what are their individual experiences of "quality" in the context of work and study in which they operate, as well as their expectations. From the results of the survey it will be possible to carry out analyzes on the different priorities given to the various cultural elements, thus hypothesizing what should be the strategies that a University can adopt to raise the level of culture and quality of its community. Furthermore, through in-depth interviews, we will investigate which of these cultural elements - distinguished between cultural-psychological and structural-managerial - have already been undertaken and known by the subjects who work in the field of quality assurance of the University under investigation.

Keywords:

Quality assurance, quality culture, higher education.