(966) THE 3RD ROUND OF OPERATION PURSUANCE OF THE EXTERNAL ASSESSORS: CASE STUDY OF NARESUAN UNIVERSITY OF OFFICE FOR NATIONAL EDUCATION STANDARDS AND QUALITY ASSESSMENT NETWORK CENTER'S RESPONSIBLE AREA

摘要

The Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment or ONESQA's main roleconsists of the setting of standards for external quality assessment and the certification of assessorsin order to attain a standardized level of evaluation. The expectation of the role of external assessorsor EAs is that they function as “quality ambassadors” by operating as amicable peers, as well aspossessing an understanding of the context of a variety of educational management issues, an abilityto listen and provide practical comments to improve the quality of education and the capacity to learnfrom each other. The EAs operate on both a professional and an ethical basis and are known as“amicability assessors”.The results of monitoring the performance of the EAs in a first (2001-2005) and second phase (2006-2010) indicated that they were operating to different sets of standards and it required a third phase ofexternal quality assessment, covering the period 2011-2015, to enable ONESQA to establish astandardized system of evaluation. This system was called QC100, signifying Quality Control (QC)and the number, including both individuals and units, of assessors (100).ONESQA/Naresuan University is one of ONESQA's eight network centers and as such monitored theperformance study of EAs during evaluation phase 3, within our area of responsibility.The aim of this research project was to monitor the performance of the EAs in the area ofresponsibility of the ONESQA/NU Network Center. The data was collected via meetings with the focusgroups of the institutions which had received external quality assessment during the third phase.These institutional groups were categorized by educational level, as follows: one group for highereducation, one group for vocational education and three groups for basic education. Each group wascomposed of 10-15 persons comprising institutional administrators and teams of teachers involvedwith education quality assurance. The research was conducted during the period April-September2013 and comprised the following: 1) the knowledge and attributes of the assessors, 2) the methodsand tools utilized in data collection/evaluation, 3) reports from the external assessors/teams, 4)problems and 5) suggestions.The results of the research demonstrated that, owing to their amicable approach, the EAs in thisphase proved far more satisfactory to each educational level group than those in the first two phases.However, issues did arise to show that it was necessary for ONESQA to select and develop assessorsparticularly suited to each educational level. For example, the higher education level group requiredassessors who were particularly skilled in interpreting the assessment criteria in a precise manner andwere able to accurately apply the same standards to each unit. This group also requested thatONESQA review some of the assessment criteria. The vocational education level group asked that themembers of the assessment team should be comprised of persons with an understanding of thecontext of vocational education and include assessors from Rajamangala University and that theassessment team should operate under the same standards, as well as requiring ONESQA to reviewthe assessment criteria in order to make them more appropriate to vocational colleges. The basiceducation level group required assessors who had experience in the field of education itself and werenot selected from another profession.