Performance Evaluation in Higher Education – A Comparative Approach

Abstract

Higher education stands as an essential base point in the current knowledge societies, shaping the way to sustainable growth and enhanced life quality. Literature recognizes higher education institutions as powerhouses which, through their own capabilities and partnerships, can champion innovation in a transformative way. Being widely praised for the transformative output they generate through the conducted operations, literature notes that when the educational process is defined by an outstanding quality and performance, multiple benefits arise for all the stakeholders involved. However, since quality and performance are very nuanced and volatile concepts, ensuring them in higher education necessitates a good understanding of the educational ecosystem as well as its ongoing monitoring. To encourage this aim, the selection of proper key performance indicators and the consistent implementation of performance appraisal actions have to be enacted so the end beneficiaries of the educational process and other stakeholders are provided maximal quality. As performance evaluation can be deployed by considering various indicators, higher education institutions need to carefully design, apply its steps and run follow-up actions to determine what is still to be improved.