Accountability in higher education: A comprehensive analytical framework

Abstract

Concomitant with the rise of rationalizing accountability in higher education has been an increase in theoretical reflection about the forms accountability has taken and the ones it should take. The literature is now peppered by a wide array of distinctions (e.g. internal/external, inward/ outward, vertical/horizontal, upward/downward, professional/public, political/economic, soft/ hard, positive/negative), to the point that when people speak of ‘accountability’ they risk speaking past one another, having some of these distinctions in mind and not others. Furthermore, often these distinctions are vague and cross-cut each other in ways that are as yet unclear. The field could benefit from having a comprehensive framework in which to place these distinctions and to view their relations. My aim in this article is to provide an analytical tool by which to classify important debate about what accountability in higher education has been and ought to be. Beyond organizing such debate, this schema will serve the purposes of revealing ambiguities in terms, conflations of ideas, assumptions that warrant questioning, and gaps in present research agendas.

Performance Management as Panopticism: Embedding Intellectually Repressive Conditions in Academia

“…Participants' experiences also confirm that when confronted by the panopticon, academics are prone to securing the self by appealing to instrumental performativity (Clarke & Knights, 2015). They, at times unknowingly, exploit PM's promotion of individualism thereby undermining any semblance of collegiality, collaboration and solidarity (Metz, 2011). In this respect, PM practices in HEIs promote capitalistic academics that focus on individual performance and the related success and promised rewards (Clarke & Knights, 2015).…”

“…(Claire & Sivil, 2014). Metz (2011) reasons that the more education institutions demand quantitative data for outputs in relation to students', teachers' and researchers' performance, the more blinded they are to quality attainment and education's basic aims.…”

Accountability in Higher Education

“…Ayr›ca, hesap verebilirli¤in yüksekö¤retimde kurumsal özerklikle çeliflti¤ini iddia edenler de vard›r (Metz, 2011 (Stensaker ve Harvey, 2011).…”

The Program Assessment and Improvement Cycle Today: A New and Simple Taxonomy of General Types and Levels of Program Evaluation

“…This pressure has simultaneously come from parents, students themselves (and particularly if they are working to pay for their own education or/and borrowing substantial amounts of money for the same), government agencies, business leaders, the general public, accrediting bodies and professional associations, all of whom are both clients of and stakeholders in the higher education system, which adds several layers of complexity and types of nuances to any kind of program evaluation or improvement efforts done by institutions in terms of their goals, design, data structures, analyses and reporting (Scriven, 2010a). The program development, evaluation and improvement cycle today, consequently, is much different and far more complex than it was fifty years ago, or even two decades ago, and it is actually a highly diversified and confusing landscape from both the practitioner's and consumer's view of such evaluative and improvement information (Mets, 2011).…”