Abstract:

The Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment or ONESQA’s main role consists of the setting of standards for external quality assessment and the certification of assessors in order to attain a standardized level of evaluation. The expectation of the role of external assessors or EAs is that they function as “quality ambassadors” by operating as amicable peers, as well as possessing an understanding of the context of a variety of educational management issues, an ability to listen and provide practical comments to improve the quality of education and the capacity to learn from each other. The EAs operate on both a professional and an ethical basis and are known as “amicability assessors”.

The results of monitoring the performance of the EAs in a first (2001-2005) and second phase (2006-2010) indicated that they were operating to different sets of standards and it required a third phase of external quality assessment, covering the period 2011-2015, to enable ONESQA to establish a standardized system of evaluation. This system was called QC100, signifying Quality Control (QC) and the number, including both individuals and units, of assessors(100).

ONESQA/Naresuan University is one of ONESQA’s eight network centers and as such monitored the performance study of EAs during evaluation phase 3, within our area of responsibility.
The aim of this research project was to monitor the performance of the EAs in the area of responsibility of the ONESQA/NU Network Center. The data was collected via meetings with the focus groups of the institutions which had received external quality assessment during the third phase. These institutional groups were categorized by educational level, as follows: one group for higher education, one group for vocational education and three groups for basic education. Each group was composed of 10-15 persons comprising institutional administrators and teams of teachers involved with education quality assurance.

The research was conducted during the period April-September 2013 and comprised the following:
1) the knowledge and attributes of the assessors,
2) the methods and tools utilized in data collection/evaluation,
3) reports from the external assessors/teams,
4) problems and
5) suggestions.

The results of the research demonstrated that, owing to their amicable approach, the EAs in this phase proved far more satisfactory to each educational level group than those in the first two phases. However, issues did arise to show that it was necessary for ONESQA to select and develop assessors particularly suited to each educational level. For example, the higher education level group required assessors who were particularly skilled in interpreting the assessment criteria in a precise manner and were able to accurately apply the same standards to each unit. This group also requested that ONESQA review some of the assessment criteria. The vocational education level group asked that the members of the assessment team should be comprised of persons with an understanding of the context of vocational education and include assessors from Rajamangala University and that the assessment team should operate under the same standards, as well as requiring ONESQA to review the assessment criteria in order to make them more appropriate to vocational colleges. The basic education level group required assessors who had experience in the field of education itself and were not selected from another profession.

Keywords:

External Assessors, Network Center of Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment / Naresuan University, QC100.