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>Institutional evaluation in Quebec: An interpretation of organizational response to policy approaches in the context of Marianopolis College.
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Institutional evaluation in Quebec: An interpretation of organizational response to policy approaches in the context of Marianopolis College.
In the past two to three decades there has been tremendously increased interest from various sectors of society in the performance, effectiveness and social responsibility of higher education. As a result, an audit culture has evolved within which quality assurance has become an integral part of the politics of governance which assumes external regulation of academic activity to be the natural state of affairs. In Quebec, the Commission d'Evaluation de L'enseignement Collegial (CEEC) serves government instrumentally by institutionalizing accountability mechanisms, evaluation, and other quality assurance practices as technologies that transmit, as well as shape, particular values within the college-level sector. The underlying rationale for this study is to develop a deeper understanding of the institutional evaluation process. In order to attain this study's research objectives, a multidimensional theoretical framework is employed to analyze and interpret the ways by which the college of interest relates and responds to the institutional environment within which it is embedded. This framework draws upon neo-institutionalism theory in sociology and the emerging body of discourse literature within organizational studies. In answering the research question, a constructivist, qualitative interpretive case study of the college's self-evaluative experience is developed to clarify three specific aspects of the dynamics of quality assurance and the institutional evaluation process: how national policy regimes and organizations within their fields envision and approach quality assurance; which particular organizational strategies and procedures are adopted to achieve specific quality objectives in response to the organization's mission, vision and the institutional environment; and, how organizational interests are served in the process of implementing and complying with regulatory quality assurance procedures.; Three substantive findings emerge from this study. Firstly, quality assurance policy in Quebec focuses on strengthening and sustaining the quality and integrity of academic programs and institutional management, and on encouraging and enabling colleges to develop a culture of evaluation. Quebec's quality assurance agency has placed improvement, the enhancement of relevance, effectiveness, quality and accountability in the forefront. Secondly, the College's evaluative discourse claims alignment with institutional and social expectations and the attainment of organizational mission and goals, the primary goal being the successful preparation of students for university studies. In fact, the overarching thesis which emerges from the data is that Marianopolis is characterized by superior institutional and student success. The competencies and capabilities of the College may be attributed to its commitment to academic excellence, as well as to specific strategic decisions and organizational processes that manipulate and convert resources and assets into new value-creating services. Thirdly, the College uses discourse to solidify its identity, and to be self-defined and identified in relation to specific standards and practices in conformity to institutional norms, policy, and social expectations, and to claim legitimacy in light of such alignment.; The propositions that link the patterns, unifying themes and concepts within the data embody a coherent explanation of the organization's response to the management of the educational process in the context of accountability. These propositions have the potential to serve as a basis for transferability from the case of interest to the wider population of colleges. They also suggest avenues for future process-based research on the management and functioning of the colleges, and should inform models for holistic quality development in this regard.
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