Chapter 7 Quantitative Analysis of Interview Results and Comparison
7.2 Comparison of interview results with literature evidences
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7.2 Comparison of interview results with literature evidences
The feedbacks from interviews in this study are compared with literature evidences shown in Chapter 2. The aim of comparison is to certify that the opinions from interviewees about higher education accreditation are consistent are consistent with what have been discussed in domestic or foreign literature. The following items are selected as typical examples for comparison.
7.2-1 The importance of quality assurance through accreditation
Mok (2003) has stated that owing to the inevitable trend of globalization, Asian universities functioned as supply of manpower to market demand. The traditional university role as critics to society became less emphasized. The Bologna Process discussed in section 2.1 also demonstrated that higher education is facing a world of globalization. Accreditation provides an effective way for quality control of higher education and mutual recognition of degrees. The accreditation process is beneficial to enterprises for recruiting qualified employees, and also profitable to graduates for transnational job opportunities.
The interviewees in this study showed very good consensus about the importance of global connection through accreditation (question number 17 of Table 7.1). One interviewee emphasized especially about the word of mobility. Our higher education outputs, the university graduates, have to be accepted by international job market.
Otherwise, our higher education will lose its compatibility and waste the limited national resources. The interview results of this study agree well with literature that higher education accreditation is essential for quality control, and global connection of accreditation results provides a motive for universities to attend accreditation.
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Contractor (2009) has discussed the factors that would be the obstacles to the success of Bologna Process. These factors include the immigration laws, financial incentives, etc. When we consider the globalization of our higher education accreditation in Taiwan, the interviewees of this study also have similar concerns.
One interviewee mentioned that our education aims and environment might be different from those of foreign countries. We should not seek after globalization reluctantly. At the present time, most engineering programs and several business schools have joint international accreditation organizations. Although our graduates have broader job market due to mutual recognition of degrees by foreign signatories, Taiwan has to open our own market to foreign graduates for reciprocity treatment.
The administration and legal departments of our government have to work together with the education sector for the issue of accreditation and globalization. The critical factors raised by Contractor (2009) should be resolved before we can successfully reach the goal of globalization of educational accreditation.
7.2-2 Advantages and disadvantages of higher education accreditation
It has been stated in section 2.2 that previous literature has shown opposite opinions about the advantages of education accreditation. Julian and Ofori-Dankwa (2006) argued that accreditation to business school has disadvantages to the strategic decision making. They stated that the modern world is a discontinuous environment.
The required documentation and hard data for accreditation are not suitable for professional development. They even expressed doubt about the feedbacks from enterprises because that the latent need might be ignored. Remeo (2008) and Zammuto (2008) rebutted the opinions of Julian and Ofori-Dankwa (2006) by saying that accreditation is similar to the diffusion of ISO quality standards. They believed
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that the verifiable evidences, that are the collected data in the self evaluation report, are essential to show the accomplishment of performance.
Examining the interview results of this study, many interviewees did agree that program accreditation brought burden to department chairpersons and faculty members. Preparation of the self evaluation report was generally taken as a time-consuming task. Data collection was very difficult for a program in its beginning state to participate accreditation. Analyses of the collected data together with expressions of the results by soft words are other complains from the programs been accredited. These negative feelings corresponded to the previous literature statement that the accreditation agency was accreditocracy. Many of our interviewees, however, expressed positive opinions about accreditation. They stated that the data collection was difficult in the beginning stage, but will be smoothly accomplished once the collecting system has been established. Many interviewees agreed that accreditation is similar to a physical examination. The data shown in the self evaluation report are useful as the basis of continuous improvement. Diversified opinions from the interviewees are observed from the data shown in question numbers 9 and 10 of Table 7.1.
Many interviewees of this study expressed that the indices or criteria of accreditation should be seriously considered. For example, the number of publications of SCI or SSCI research papers is a controversial index due to very different characteristics of various programs. Most interviewees have consensus that training of program evaluators is very important. Accreditation is a qualitative work, and all program evaluators should have homogeneity in their standards. Feedbacks from enterprises or industries are highly respected in Taiwanese accreditation. To my
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understanding, professional societies have participated in the educational accreditation not only in Taiwan, but also in many other countries. The opinion from Julian and Ofori-Dankwa (2006) might be a special personal comment.
7.2-3 Arguments on the evaluation results from HEEACT in Taiwan
It has been expressed in section 2.3 of Chapter 2 that many scholars in Taiwan have negative opinions about the evaluation results from HEEACT. For example, the HEEACT insisted that an independent graduate institute must have at least 7 full time faculty members. This policy brought strong opposition from celebrated institutes such as the Nuclear Engineering Science of National Tsing Hua University. The counting of SCI or SSCI publications in the evaluation by HEEACT was also opposed by scholar （郭明政，2009b）. The Editorial of Economics Daily News（經濟日報 社論，2009）even concluded that the evaluation by HEEACT was formulism and it decreased the competitive potential of higher education in Taiwan.
It is observed from the interview results of this study that input-based criteria are still emphasized in the present higher education evaluation. Many interviewees agreed that the future trend is toward outcomes-based evaluation (question numbers 1 and 2 in Table 7.1), but it needs time to make promotion. One interviewee has stated that each evaluator has his self preferred standard and it is difficult to homogenize their viewpoints in program evaluation. Many interviewees pointed out that it is more appropriate to evaluate higher education programs by their special fields. The standards for natural science and engineering programs would not be the same as those for liberal arts and humanity programs. Majority of interviewees stated that the evaluator should play their roles as counselors, rather than acting as policemen
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accreditation encourage the programs to establish a continuous improvement mechanism. The spirit of evaluation is not intended to guide the program development by the personal standards of evaluators, nor to terminate a specific percentage of programs being evaluated.
Comparing the interview results with the arguments shown in domestic publications about the higher education evaluation conducted by HEEACT, we observe common and opposite viewpoints from interview results of this study:
(1) The evaluation executed by HEEACT has a short history about 5 years. It is difficult for HEEACT to formulate general evaluation criteria or standards that are applicable to all academic fields. It would be much better if each special field, like medicine, engineering and business school, to have their own evaluation or accreditation agency. The progress of IEET for engineering education accreditation is a good example. The government has to implement the de-centralization policy of higher education quality control, and to recognize the evaluation or accreditation agencies in various academic fields. Examining the quantitative results of question number 3 of Table 7.1, most interviewees agreed that there is no major difficulty for the Ministry of Education to recognize professional accreditation agencies. The specialized agencies can establish the evaluation criteria that are acceptable to programs for specific academic field. International connection can also easily be accomplished by non-governmental agencies. The Ministry of Education has proceeded toward this direction, but the mutual trust between the government and privately operated organizations is still inadequate.
(2) In the literature review, the former CEO of HEEACT has stated the division of labor of higher education evaluation (陳振遠，2009). The future role of HEEACT
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will be responsible for the planning and feedback control part. It is observed from the interview results that the opinions from interviewees are diversified. The quantitative results shown in question number 4 of Table 7.1 indicate that only one third of interviewees strongly supported the transition of roles of HEEACT. From the statements presented in Section 4.2 of Chapter 4, it is also recognized that some legal issues have to be resolved first concerning the status of HEEACT. The higher education evaluation by HEEACT and the accreditation by non-governmental agencies will coexist for at least 3 to 5 years. The introduction of foreign accreditation agency like AACSB into the market in Taiwan may speed up the transition process of HEEACT to a higher rank supervision position.
(3) It was stated by the Economic Daily News (經濟日報社論，2009) that the evaluation by HEEACT resulted in the profound harm to the development of human resources. Upon inspecting the result shown in question number 11 of Table 7.1, most interviewees didn’t agree with the editorial viewpoint. The interviewees had consensus that higher education evaluation or accreditation is helpful for the continuous improvement of education (question number 14 of Table 7.1). Almost all of the interviewees supported that higher education evaluation or accreditation is important to professional mobility (question number 17 of Table 7.1). The negative opinion about HEEACT shown in domestic publications may come from the insufficient training of evaluators. This is reflected from the result of question number 15 of Table 7.1 that most interviewees emphasized the importance of training process.
7.3 Summary and suggestions
This chapter presents the quantitative results from interview of this study.
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there indicate whether consensus had been reached. The quantitative results are also employed to compare with the evidences collected from previous literature.
Comparing the findings from the interviews of this study and the literature evidences, obvious consistency has been found for the typical topics:
z Higher education quality control is definitely required
z Outcomes-based evaluation or accreditation is better than the tradition input-based method.
z Diversified opinions were presented that evaluation or accreditation might bring burden to education programs.
z Evaluation or accreditation is useful for continuous improvement of higher education
z Training process of evaluators is important
There are, however, several items that the interview results do not comply with the literature statements. The following are two typical examples:
z Domestic literature suggested that the HEEACT should change its role to higher rank supervision. The interview results indicated legislation issues should firstly be resolved.
z Most interviewees did not agree that there should be a specific percentage of programs failed in evaluation. The domestic literature indicated that the passing percentage was the most concerned issue to participate the evaluation or accreditation.
The higher education accreditation evaluation conducted by HEEACT, and the accreditation by other agencies have been emerging in the recent 6 years. There is a long way to go as stated by Contractor (2009) for the Bologna process in European
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countries. Based on the interview results and the literature evidences, the following points are suggested for the future evaluation and accreditation process:
(1) According to the higher education evaluation law in Taiwan, more professional evaluation or accreditation agencies will seek for the recognition by the Ministry of Education. The government would better design a complete plan for these domestic and international agencies to function their work.
(2) The role of the HEEACT would be better at a supervision level. The government has to consider the associated legislation problems accordingly.
(3) The culture of higher education evaluation or accreditation has to be cultivated in Taiwan. It should focus on the teaching quality, although the achievement of research can surely facilitate teaching effect. The evidence of continuous improvement, not only the number of academic publications should be examined through evaluation or accreditation.
(4) The professional evaluation or accreditation agencies should provide enough training to their evaluators. The government should monitor these agencies for their healthy administrational, professional and financial conditions. The government would better support these agencies on international affairs for the purpose of mobility of graduates.
(5) The enterprises and government would better initiate incentives for the higher education programs to participate in the evaluation or accreditation. Favorable treatment on the starting salary or application of professional licenses would encourage the programs to input more effort for passing the evaluation or accreditation. Comments from enterprises are useful driving forces for improving quality of teaching.
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