Abstract:

This paper introduces THEQM, the Teaching in Higher Education Quality Model and defines a large number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be used to monitor the adherence of an institution to the model and to the process for achieving teaching quality. THEQM measures the commitment of institutions of Higher Education to teaching quality. The model is based on the Report of the European Commission (EC) “Improving the quality of teaching and learning in Europe’s higher education institutions”. Based on 11 recommendations for improving teaching, addressed in the report, we have defined one hundred quality indicators that build a model based on a numeric system for measuring the adherence to these recommendations/indicators by a particular institution, thus measuring the institution’s commitment to teaching quality.

The indicators address the provision of strategies, policies and in general the regulatory framework, through which teaching quality can be achieved. They do not measure the actual implementation of this framework and the practices adopted. It is expected however, than once the model is adopted, then each institution would take appropriate actions to achieve teaching quality. The existence of practices does not guarantee a continuous effort for achieving teaching quality. On the contrary the existence of a regulatory framework ensures that strict adherence to its rules and regulations will provide continuous work towards achieving teaching quality. In this respect, we have identified some KPIs that can be used to measure and compare over the years the implementation of the recommendations and the quality indicators. We thus herein further extend the model by defining KPIs to measure the actual implementation of the model.

THEQM calculates for each institution an overall score (0 to 100) and a score within each recommendation (0 to 9). The scale used for the score within each recommendation as well as for the overall performance is: Extremely High (9, 90-100), Very High (8, 80-89), High (7, 70-79), Adequate (6, 60-69), Average (4-5, 40-59), Below Average (3, 30-39), Poor (2, 20-29), Very poor (1, 10-19) and Extremely Poor (0, 0-9).

We are in the process of building a web-based tool, namely THEQMTool that will provide an on-line version of THEQM; Version 1 of the tool will allow an institution to carry out a self-assessment of its commitment to teaching quality, and find out how it compares (ranking wise and anonymously) to a number of other institutions that have carried out the same self-assessment exercise. Thus version 1, implements the 100 quality indicators of THEQM. Version 2 of the tool will automate the processing and comparison analysis of the KPIs throughout the various years, thus will allow an institution to monitor through the KPIs teaching quality.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents related work in the area of teaching quality. Section 3, presents our suggested quality indicators, 9 for each recommendation. Section 4, presents the proposed THEQM model, which can be used to measure the commitment of an institution to teaching quality. Section 5 introduces Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) deriving from the recommendations and the quality indicators; these KPIs can be used to measure the extent to which teaching quality is achieved (through the KPIs). Finally, Conclusions briefly addresses our future work with regards to THEQMTool.

Keywords:

Teaching Quality, Quality Model, IT Tools, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).