The usefulness of quality assurance for university management and academic staff: a case study of Finland and Iceland

Transnational turn and national models of higher education - The case of Finland

“…Haapakorpi (2011) studied the outcomes of quality assurance related to the Bologna goals in Finnish universities. In Haapakorpi & al. (2013), a comparative study was introduced, which focused on the process of quality system assessment in Finnish and Icelandic universities.…”

“…We approach our question via two cases which are based on our previous and current individual research projects: quality assurance policies on one hand, as an example of an explicit and penetrating policy particularly in Europe (Haapakorpi, 2011;Haapakorpi & al., 2013 ), and language policy on the other hand, as an example of a more implicit policy that appears in context with internationalisation and knowledge society policy discourses (Saarinen forthcoming;Saarinen & Nikula, 2013;Saarinen & Taalas, forthcoming).…”

“…Third, poorly conducted transnational assessments cause crises of evaluation legitimacy. They are expensive and very time consuming and if they do not convince university staff that they are conducted in a highly professional manner, they are more likely to be waste of money (Haapakorpi & al. 2013).…”

Does quality work work? A systematic review of academic literature on quality initiatives in higher education

“…However, at the same time, a review of results identified gaps or potentials for improvement, with subsequent adjustments in both teaching methods and curriculum. Haapakorpi, Geirsdóttir, and Jóhannsdóttir (2013) find that university management and teaching staff in Finland and Iceland are able to make use of quality evaluation processes during the implementation process of the quality assessment, which prompted learning and reflection during preparations. However, the actual evaluation results were not found to be useful by low-level management and teaching staff, who viewed the external reports as too superficial and non-specific.…”

“…Motivating and involving staff in decision making facilitates change and improvement in teaching (Laksov et al 2008;Kleijnen et al 2014 Improving student learning experiences leads to better learning outcomes (Cahill et al, 2010;Shah et al, 2017) Quality assessment activities promote the development of teaching practices (Tavares, Rosa, and Amaral 2010;Haapakorpi et al 2013;El-Khawas 2014;Tavares et al 2017) Effective implementation of e-learning enhances its impact on learning (Garrison and Vaughan 2013;Graham et al 2013;Moskal et al 2013;Porter et al 2014;Almpanis 2015;Adekola et al 2017) Blended learning facilitates student centered learning, leading to better learning outcomes (Monteiro et al, 2013) Student engagement in development work increases the impact of educational strategies (Healey et al 2010;Bovill et al 2011;Shah et al 2017) In total, we identified 7 papers that examined the effects of quality work using qualitative methods.…”