Coming to terms with quality at Argentine universities: Institutional self study at ground level

摘要

New legislation passed in 1995 changed the relationship between higher education and the government, obligating universities to participate in an extensive and new national program of evaluation. This program obligates all universities in Argentina to conduct self studies every six years in order to evaluate the performance of the institution as an integrated whole. The self studies are complemented by external reviews conducted by peer evaluators.;The challenges identified in this research (as Argentina incorporated processes and criteria practiced in other countries) have important implications for other countries that develop programs based on models operating in other academic and cultural environments.;These experiences are completely new to the culture of higher education in Argentina and their impact has not yet been studied. This research evaluates the experience of three Argentina universities with institutional self study and asks, "How do key actors in the implementation of institutional self study assess the impact of this process on their university?" Each institution represents a different type of academic and cultural environment in Argentina---a traditional public university, a new public university, and a private university.;Data were collected from 30 interviews with senior administrators, deans, and professors who had participated in their university's self study in order to construct three case histories that describe how each university understood the purpose of self study, how the process was designed and implemented, and how the participants reflect on and assess the experience. Based on the analysis of these data, this research concludes that evaluation was executed without sufficient time allocated to preparing and training individuals to implement this type of program and that the model adapted from quality assurance schemes in use in other countries is not entirely appropriate for the realities of higher education in Argentina. As a result, the impact of this type of quality assurance scheme will be incremental at best.