Quality, semantics and the twocultures

Brian PooleNational University of Singapore, CELC, Singapore

Abstract

Purpose – The aims of this paper are twofold: first, to engage with the definition of quality as“excellence” and to show why this could be regarded as unhelpful and misleading; and, second, tosuggest some factors which contribute to a “cultural divide” between quality assurance specialists inuniversities and their colleagues who are full-time academics. In both cases the paper seeks to raiseand explore these issues because their resolution may suggest ways forward for quality assurance inhigher education.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is generally based on consideration and criticalevaluation of published work relevant to the two issues mentioned previously. However, other forms ofevidence are drawn into the argument. Notably, lexical data from the British National Corpus areexamined in order to substantiate points about the semantics of the word “quality”.

Findings – The paper finds, on the grounds of both lexical semantics and consideration of scholarlyliterature on quality assurance in higher education, that it is unhelpful to understand the term“quality” as equivalent to “excellence”. It also identifies possible reasons why a “cultural divide” existsbetween university lecturers and quality assurance specialists.

Originality/value – The paper should be of interest to both quality assurance specialists andlecturers in universities. It offers logical, language-based reasons why “quality” should not beregarded as “excellence” and goes on to relate this to the notion of “quality enhancement”. Preliminarysuggestions are also made about means through which the “cultural divide” between academics andquality assurance specialists might be narrowed, to the potential benefit of universities seen as bothcomplex entrepreneurial organizations, and academic communities.

Keywords Higher education, Universities, Quality, Quality assurance, Semantics

Paper type Viewpoint

IntroductionDoherty’s recent (2008) paper in this journal will no doubt have stimulated manyreaders to re-think their personal positions on the characteristics and contribution ofquality assurance to higher education. The tone of the paper is frank, there is verylittle fence-sitting, and the reader is therefore obliged to confront Doherty’sarguments. The impulse to write the present paper arose from Doherty’s (2008)paper, although as it developed it also came to encompass a couple of hobby horsesof my own.

I should begin, perhaps, by identifying more explicitly the two primary motivationsfor the present paper. First, I want to explain why I find the notion of quality as“excellence” (Cartwright, 2007; Doherty, 2008) unhelpful; and second, to offer someobservations about the apparently divergent views on quality espoused by Vidovich’s(2001, p. 258) “academics” and “bureaucrats” – a “cultural” distinction which remindsone of that between “literary intellectuals” and “physical scientists” drawn long ago(initially in the 1959 Rede Lecture) by C.P. Snow (1963). The comparison betweenSnow’s “two cultures” and the academic/bureaucrat divide identified by Vidovich willbe further discussed later. The overall intention here is to suggest tentatively how

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0968-4883.htm

QAE18,1

6

Quality Assurance in EducationVol. 18 No. 1, 2010pp. 6-18q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0968-4883DOI 10.1108/09684881011015963

steps could be taken towards establishing a quality assurance culture which would bemore warmly accepted by a majority of those involved in higher education as being ofgenuine benefit to the sector.

I must also begin with a personal declaration. During my career I have, among otherthings, been a lecturer in two British universities and taken a leading role in qualityassurance at higher education institutions in Oman and Fiji. I therefore have someunderstanding of the concerns and aspirations of both the groups set in opposition toeach other by Vidovich (2001). Essentially this paper consists of my own ideascrystallized with the aid of published work in the field; but in discussion of the varioussenses and uses of the word “quality” I also make use of data from free online access tothe British National Corpus[1] (hereafter BNC) to support my argument.

What do we mean by “quality” in an educational context?

What the hell is quality? What is it? (Pirsig, 1974, p. 184).

There is no simple answer to that question, since “quality” like “beauty” is subjective – amatter of personal judgement (Doherty, 2008, p. 256).

Occasionally, but not so frequently as was once the case, I’m asked the hoary old question:what is quality? If the infrequency of the question means that everyone is now clear whatquality is, then that’s a major step forward in improving higher education. I hope, but am notyet entirely sure, that this is so (Williams 2004, p. 1).

The word “quality” is, both in general usage and in specialist texts, a ratherslippery word. For one thing, as will be illustrated in the following, throughdictionary definitions and BNC data, it can occur as both a noun and an adjective.Furthermore, “quality” is a polysemous noun: that is, it is used as a noun in severaldistinct but related senses. For both these reasons it is entirely possible to makemisleading statements inadvertently about what “quality” means, or should mean,and I would like to argue that those who take the view that “quality” meansexcellence are, indeed, in danger of leading us astray. For instance, to take anexample from Britain, the 2003 White Paper (The Future of Higher Education –DES, 2003) essentially conflates excellence and quality, with Box B (p. 27) providingseveral striking examples. Similarly, Bogue and Hall (2003, p. 8) state that they usethe words “excellence” and “quality” as conveying “the same meaning”; while, asCartwright (2007, p. 290) notes, Harvey and Green’s (1993) notion of “quality asexcellence” has also been greatly influential in establishing this as a widespreadassumption.

Several years ago, in a journal which is primarily read by those who take aprofessional interest in the English language, I offered (Poole, 2005) a rather clumsyaccount of the semantics of the word “quality”. Here I shall try to present the basiclinguistic and semantic facts more briefly and, I hope, more clearly.

First, “quality” means “excellence” rather rarely in general usage, although – andthis complicates the issue – it quite frequently means “excellent”. Dictionaries tend torecognize several senses associated with “quality” as a noun. For example, in theCollins Dictionary of the English Language (Hanks, 1979, p. 1194) the first five sensesare:

(1) A distinguishing characteristic, property or attribute.

(2) The basic character or nature of something.

Quality,semantics and

the two cultures

7

(3) A trait or feature of personality.

(4) A degree or standard of excellence, especially a high standard.

(5) High social status or the distinction associated with it.

Presumably the notion of quality-as-excellence is to be associated with sense 4 here. Infact, however, textual examples of “quality” as a noun meaning “excellence” – whetherin BNC or elsewhere – are few and far between. In the following are three, from BNC(strings of letters and numbers are BNC reference codes, which potentially allowidentification of the original source text):

. EX0 459 The fineness of the knotting is not an infallible indicator of quality.

. K4F 20 BMW puts on a show of quality.

. H47 69 Quality is here to stay.

However, in many cases (in BNC data) the noun “quality” has a neutral meaning. Forinstance it occurs frequently in phrases such as “water quality”, “sound quality” (thequality of sound) and “air quality”. Here are other examples:

. K25 3712 The quality is variable but is generally vastly inferior to the genuineitem.

. FT7 447 I never use a 2X converter on the Bronica as the drop in quality isunbelievable.

. CBP 54 This involves a slight drop in picture quality.

We might ponder here for a moment the apparent difference in meaning between“education quality” (where “quality” is a noun) and “quality education” (where itfunctions as a pre-modifier). However, these examples also illustrate a fundamentaldifference between “quality” and “excellence”: the former is inherently variable and canbe associated with levels ranging from high/exceptional to satisfactory/acceptable tolow/poor, while for the latter this is far less apparent. For instance, there are 193examples of “poor quality” in online BNC; 18 examples of “acceptable quality”; and 864examples of “high quality” data. There are, on the other hand, no examples at all of theadjectives “poor”, “acceptable” or “high” occurring directly before “excellence” in freeonline BNC data.

On the basis of BNC data, therefore, it is safe to argue that “quality” can vary muchmore readily than can “excellence”, since it often associates with adjectives such as“high” “low” and “acceptable”, while “excellence” does not. Indeed, it might well be thatit is “high quality” (not “quality” itself) which could be regarded as more or lessequivalent to “excellence’.

The argument (or intuitive feeling) that “quality” and “excellence” are virtuallysynonymous probably arises from two sources. First, relatively rare examples such as“BMW puts on a show of quality” (see previous) and, second, the fact that “quality”can, and not infrequently does, function as an adjective (or pre-modifier) and mean“excellent”:

. EVG 127 But was there a market in Glasgow for a quality product?

. HAN 45 Promote Scotch Whisky as a quality product of natural ingredients.

. CEP 8738 Everton boss Howard Kendall is reluctant to allow a quality player todepart.

QAE18,1

8

Here, of course, “excellent” (an adjective) can substitute, but not “excellence” (a noun).The distinction between “quality” as a noun and as an adjective is sometimesoverlooked by writers on quality assurance. For instance, Lomas (2002, p. 72) refers to“the traditional notion of quality that equates it to excellence” (in which, of course,“excellence” and “quality” are both nouns) and then illustrates this by referring to aRolls Royce as “a ‘quality’ car”, although here “quality” is an adjective (or pre-modifier)and equates to “excellent”. Similarly, Barcan (1996, p. 134) cited in Anderson (2006, p. 166)suggests that “quality” has shifted “from an adjective to a noun – from attribute tocommodity”. A diachronic study of usage would be needed to substantiate this, but Isuspect that in fact things worked the other way around if general, as opposed tospecialist, use of the word “quality” is considered. That is to say, the use of “quality” asan adjective meaning “of high quality” (“a quality player”) probably entered thelanguage rather recently. For instance, when the Robbins Report (Robbins, 1963) –which will be briefly discussed later – employs the word “quality”, all occurrences arenouns.

Some may regard what has been said so far as a rather trivial examination oflinguistic evidence relating largely to non-specialist uses of the word “quality”. Afterall, by its very nature a field of specialism such as quality assurance is able toacquire and define its own technical terminology, even when it co-opts words whichmay mean other things to the lay person. However, I would like to point out thatthe terms “quality enhancement” and “quality improvement”, which are, of course,frequently used in scholarly texts on QA, can also be seen as providing evidence insupport of my position. Both seem somewhat awkward if “quality” means“excellence”. True, it is possible to improve or enhance “excellence”, although not byvery much. But these two technical terms make a great deal more sense if werecognize the fundamental variability of “quality”, and dismiss the notion that itequates to excellence.

Instead of arguing that “quality” is “excellence” therefore, we should adopt ashort-hand definition in which the equivalent of “quality” is also something inherentlyvariable. Potentially the quality of teaching, research or learning resources, forinstance, can be judged to be appalling, superb or at any point between those two poles.In most educational contexts it can be argued that “fitness for purpose” is just such avariable notion, although for research quality it is arguably not quite so apt.Nevertheless, it is fully evident that when we speak of “research quality” we arereferring to something which can and does vary, and this is reflected in the descriptorsused for the (UK) 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which recognize degreesof “originality”, “significance” and “rigour”. Research quality does not therefore equateto “research excellence”.

Finally in this section I would suggest that it is more appropriate to supportDoherty’s (2008) position rather than that of Williams (2004), as the two are revealedin the previous quotations. An anonymous head of department in a UK university issurely right when she or he says that “definitions of quality are constantlyoverturned” (Morley, 2003, p. 170). Unlike Williams, therefore, I doubt that it ispossible to reach a situation where “everyone is . . . clear what quality is”, althoughin the context of widespread discussion in a single institution (see “narrowing thecultural divide”, which follows) this may be possible. The difficulty in reaching auniversally acceptable definition of “quality” arises because it is at one and the

Quality,semantics and

the two cultures

9

same time a polysemous word and, as Morley (2003) has convincingly shown, acontested concept, with academics and quality specialists often distinctly at oddsover its meaning. Morley (2003, p. 170) argues that “quality is a discourse” andfurthermore one that is “polysemic and multi-dimensional”. Having conductedextensive interviews with a range of subjects at various levels of seniority, Morley(2003, p. 170) concludes that British academics have accommodated themselves tothis “dominant discourse” in a variety of ways:

Some members of the academy occupy a liminal position – operating within and outsidequality assurance. For some, quality assurance has provided new paradigms for thinkingabout academic work and new career opportunities. For others it is about suspicion, mistrustand the management of processes, rather than standards, with considerable wastage andfrustration involved. As a new disciplinary technology it has exacerbated old or introducednew power relations.

There is some indication of balance here – after all, Morley concedes that someacademics have benefited in career terms from the advance of quality assurance inhigher education. But there can be little doubt that in the final sentence here she isaligning herself with those who view quality assurance with suspicion, mistrust andfrustration, and who feel that its all-pervasiveness in university life has reduced theautonomy of academics and called into question their professionalism. A similarfinding (for Australian academics) is reported in Anderson (2006) whose respondents“resented the time spent on quality assurance mechanisms precisely because thesepractices were ineffective in genuinely assuring quality” (p. 170). She quotes one seniorlecturer in psychology (p. 168) as saying that “lecturers find their time, which could begoing into real teaching and other things, diverted to the paperwork of feeding thesystem”.

Doherty (2008, p. 264) refers to this sort of attitude among academics when healludes, somewhat exasperatedly, to those who “still do not understand that QA issomething you do, not wrangle about”. However, wrangling can surely only cease – orat least abate – once a definition of “quality” is agreed by a majority of both academicsand quality assurance professionals in a given institution through a process of wide,inclusive debate. The definition of quality should differ somewhat for each individualinstitution, in my view, since all universities have a unique mission, history and set ofpriorities.

As we have seen, it is often argued that those who design and require the operationof “quality assurance mechanisms” (pro-vice chancellors (academic); deans of qualityassurance; faculty QA directors; and their respective teams of QA officers andauditors) belong to a different cultural group than most academics who (Morley, 2003,Anderson, 2006) appear to be highly sceptical of the value of such mechanisms. It isthis cultural divide, which we shall consider in the next section.

Quality and the two culturesC.P. Snow (1905-1980) is a novelist not so widely read as was the case 30 or 40 yearsago; he has gone out of fashion. However, in his day, as a holder of a doctorate inphysics, as a civil servant who advised successive British governments on scientificprojects, and as the writer of about a dozen novels, he had “intimate friends amongboth scientists and writers” (Snow, 1963, p. 2). In his view “culture” consists of“common attitudes, common standards and patterns of behaviour, common

QAE18,1

10

approaches and assumptions” (p. 64) and, looking around himself in the late 1950s, hesaw (p. 4) a clear cultural divide between “literary intellectuals” and “physicalscientists”:

Literary intellectuals at one pole – at the other scientists, and as the most representative, thephysical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension – sometimes . . .hostility and dislike, but most of all lack of understanding.

Two groups who scarcely understand each other, because their attitudes andassumptions are so different, and who sometimes demonstrate downright hostilitytowards each other. It could just as easily be a description of the relationship betweenacademics and QA professionals, drawing on interview material from Morley (2003),Anderson (2006) or Cartwright (2007). What then are the principal reasons why manyacademics distrust the quality culture (or “discourse” – Morley, 2003; Kong, 2008)?

I think there are two main reasons for this instinctive distrust: first, the qualityculture arises from a business and manufacturing setting; and second, its introductioninto higher education worldwide is associated with ”an ideological shift towards theNew Right”(Vidovich, 2002, p. 393). A great many academics – including, perhaps, amajority of those who are educationalists – hold fundamental educational and politicalbeliefs, which lead them to regard the quality culture as largely or wholly negative.Focusing largely but not exclusively on the British case, I shall, in turn, deal brieflywith the origins of quality assurance and the introduction of QA into higher education,showing how each of these plays a contributory role in fuelling academic distrust.

We may begin with the origins of “quality” as a piece of specialist terminology. Asis well known, what we understand today by terms such as “quality” and “qualityassurance” owes a great deal to pioneering work by individuals such as Joseph Juranand William Edwards Deming (see Juran (2003); Gabor, 1992). Both Juran and Demingwere active in Japan in the early 1950s, contributing independently to the efficientreconstruction of the Japanese industrial and commercial sectors after the SecondWorld War. Deming is credited with training hundreds of key professionals such asengineers, managers, and scholars in statistical methods for controlling quality inmanufacturing processes, while Juran in the 1950s delivered courses on aspects ofquality management. Their joint influence is often cited in the rise of many Japanesecompanies and products, from the 1970s onwards, to the position of worldwide qualityleaders, and their ideas were taken up with enthusiasm in the USA and elsewherethroughout the second-half of the last century.

Hence, the concept and application of quality assurance can be said to haveoriginated in the areas of business and manufacturing. It is perhaps still most usualfor educated members of the general public to think of QA as a set of proceduresand checks used, in a commercial and/or manufacturing setting, to ensure thatnothing goes wrong in the production of goods or the delivery of services. It wasnot until the 1980s and 1990s that some of the concepts of quality assurance beganto be applied in a widespread and concerted way to the field of education. Forexample, “quality” is a word rarely used in the highly influential Robbins Report ofthe early 1960s, which looked into the future of higher education in Britain. In fact,when it does occur, it is only in a general, non-technical sense – for instance, thereport talks about “varied education of high quality” (Robbins, 1963, p. 150) and“the quality of those who teach and learn” in educational institutions (p. 170).

Quality,semantics and

the two cultures

11

However, during the 1980s and 1990s the technical notion “quality” migrated intoeducation from business and industry (Gabor, 1992). In the case of Britain, manysources (Salter and Tapper, 2000) cite the Jarratt Report (originating from theerstwhile Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, or CVCP) as being a crucialinstigator of this development. Indeed, according to Salter and Tapper (2000, p. 79)“[B]y 1995, the language of quality assurance dominated the discourse of highereducation governance”. The Robbins Report (1963, p. 231) had argued that “. . . anautonomous institution should be free to establish and maintain its own standards. . . without reference to any external authority”, but in 1995 the Secretary of Statefor Education and Skills (Gillian Shephard), writing to the Chairman of CVCP abouthow “quality” was to be assured in British universities, took a different position: “Icould not contemplate a solution which relied mainly on self-regulation” (Salter andTapper, 2000, p. 80).

We can trace the emergence of the “quality” culture in all sectors of the Britisheducational system to the Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s, with NewLabour later taking both the reins of office and a similar stance. The language used bypoliticians of both parties is often remarkably similar:

And we’re going to give every parent this Parent’s Guarantee: if you don’t think your child’sFree School meets minimum standards, and enough of your fellow parents agree, then youcan sack the whole school management. That’s real parent power; that’s the way to drive upstandards (William Hague, as Tory Leader, speech to Conservative Party Conference, October1999, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/468183.stm).

The best way to drive up standards is to give teachers responsibility for results, and makethem account to parents for those results. (Iain Duncan Smith, as Conservative Leader,February 2003), available at: www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def ¼ news.story.page&obj_id¼ 52096&speeches ¼ 1)

As you know better than most, choice and competition drive up standards in every field ofhuman endeavour (Speech by Michael Howard, Leader of the Opposition, to the Confederationof British Industry (CBI), March 2005), available at: www.michaelhowardmp.com/oldsite/sp010305.htm 6)

Such statements on “parent power” or “choice and competition” frequently alsomention “driving up” standards or quality. These essentially Conservative ideas – andthe language in which they are habitually expressed – appear in the 2003 White Paper,issued six years into New Labour’s tenure of office:

Student choice will increasingly work to drive up quality (p. 46).

The Government believes that student choice will be an increasingly important driver ofteaching quality (p. 47).

. . . student choice can only drive quality up successfully if it is underpinned by robustinformation (p. 47).

. . . a very significant step forward in helping student demand drive up quality (p. 48).

. . . make student choice a much more powerful force, and help choice drive quality (p. 84).

We might note, in passing, that “driving up” quality makes rather more sense than“driving up” excellence.

QAE18,1

12

It is, perhaps, not very surprising that many academics find the quality culturesomewhat alien and inimical. They see it as emanating from a manufacturing setting,and as a culture (or discourse) associated with the Conservative Party and its NewLabour imitators, with “centralised control of higher education”, and with themarket/customer view of the sector “central to . . . New Right ideology” (Vidovich,2002, p. 393). One or both of these factors surely plays a role in creating and sustainingthe cultural divide between academics and those actively involved in promoting andoperating quality assurance systems in universities.

However, there is, I think, another factor, which is more deeply rooted in theunderstandings of “education” common among academics. Quality assuranceframeworks characteristically focus on inputs and outputs in the educationalprocess, and this is a source of unease among academics, including particularly thosewhose specialist area is education itself. For instance, Turner (2004) offers strongcriticism of this kind of approach. He suggests that “systems thinking has taken adominant position in the development of educational systems, and in the shaping ofeducational theory” (p. 161) and goes on to argue that “It has become commonplace tolook on teachers as ‘inputs’ to the educational process, and examination results as‘outputs’” (pp. 161-2). Along with this, he claims, goes the mindset “that educationalinstitutions can be improved by introducing quality assurance mechanisms whichwould be more appropriate in a sausage factory” (p. 162). This is a view of education,he considers, that is “deeply rooted . . . in the factory production line” (p. 162).

Turner argues vehemently that approaches to quality assurance in educationfrequently rest on an over-simplified view of the teaching and learning process. In fact,he goes on (p. 162) to link an input-output view of education with largely discreditedbehaviourist notions of learning, when he says that such a view is “part of the sameimagination which motivated an attempt to define learning in terms of stimulus andresponse”, the view that “if we can manage the . . . inputs properly, we can secureregular and predictable outcomes” (p. 162).

Turner (2004) concludes his discussion of the processes of teaching and learning byoffering a generalisation, based on his professional experience and on apparentawareness of the beliefs of colleagues. Commenting on the mindset that particularteacher inputs can lead to predictable learning outcomes, he says that:

Everyone who has ever taught knows that education cannot be controlled and regulated inthis way. If a hundred people attend a lecture, they will all learn something different,depending on the experiences, which they bring with them. What is learnt is only looselyconnected to what is taught . . . (p. 162).

A somewhat similar view is offered by Knight (2002, p. 275, cited in Gibbs andIacovidou, 2004, p. 115) who suggests that “there is good evidence that studentachievement is related, first and foremost, to engagement”. For Gibbs and Iacovidouthemselves (p. 115) “the experience of education . . . is one of enthusiasticcollaboration”. It may be that, in the academic culture, education (or at leastteaching and learning) tends to be regarded as a matter of personal contact andinteraction. The quality assurance culture, however, tends not to emphasise meansthrough this aspect of the educational experience can be captured and evaluated.Instead, it brings with it a tight focus on outcome-based learning, which Turner andothers might well find unhelpful. See Hussey and Smith (2002) for an interestingdiscussion of learning outcomes, which raises doubts about their value.

Quality,semantics and

the two cultures

13

Certain aspects of what might be called “the quality culture”, then, appear to be indisharmony with the predominant concerns of practising teachers and lecturers.Anderson (2006, p. 171) discovered, for example, on the basis of a study of 30academics from ten Australian universities, that in general they believed that:

. . . quality assurance mechanisms imposed an additional workload burden but actually failedto assure quality in any meaningful way. While the academics in this study appearedunreservedly committed to quality research and quality teaching, they remained unconvincedby the forms of quality assessment employed in their universities.

Furthermore, Kong (2008, p. 8) may have put her finger on a key point when she assertsthat “quality processes are based on postulations or notions that are not open todebate” and goes on to suggest (p. 8) that this is “fundamentally at odds with academicculture”.

Narrowing the cultural divideCollegiality (Lucas, 2006) is a characteristic of academic life associated, in the UK, with“old” universities, in which (in its purest form) “the power of sovereignty lies in thecollectivity of the dons” (Lucas, 2006, p. 18). Furthermore, (p. 19) collegiality “stands asa more “humane” alternative to managerialism . . . with an emphasis on collectivismrather than individualism and competition” In post-1992 UK universities, it can beargued (p. 19), “management structures are . . . more common” than in pre-1992institutions. I would like to suggest here that there are three ways through which thecultural divide thus far discussed might perhaps narrow: an increase in collegiality; afocus on quality enhancement as a crucial factor in quality assurance, and a shift inattitude among those academics charged with responsibility for quality.

The current cultural divide in British universities might perhaps be bridged, if arenewed spirit of collegiality were to emerge. To many academics in Britain – andperhaps particularly to those working in post-1992 universities – this may seemfar-fetched. However, consultation is potentially a key factor in ensuring that agreementand confidence are promoted. For instance, the environment described by Carroll et al.(2009, p. 26) is one in which a national body (in Oman) is at present putting in place a newquality management system and, while so doing, consulting at every stage across the HEsector. It is argued (p. 26) that consultation before decisions are taken “helps identify andgain common agreement on . . . needs”; that consultation “during development helps gainthe sector’s confidence in the proposed solutions”; and that consultation after decisionsare taken “helps disseminate and explain final decisions”. This approach entails respectfor the professionalism and rights of the various institutions with which the nationalbody is working, a stance which should surely be replicated within universities. Thoserequired to manage universities must recognize the professionalism and rights of theirstaff, and should regard consultation and collegiality as central to the management ofinstitutional quality. In other words, there should be true “participation indecision-making” (Lucas, 2006, p. 18). It can surely only be through such participationthat academics can genuinely feel that they have part-ownership of the “quality” agenda,and that quality assurance can become “a culture of commitment to delivering highquality education” (Kong, 2008, p. 2) to which all subscribe.

This brings us to our second point: a greater focus on quality enhancement (or“quality improvement”, as it is also termed, particularly in Australia). As is implied by

QAE18,1

14

Kong (2008) in the previous quotation, it seems plausible that academic staff inuniversities would be more positively disposed towards approaches to quality in highereducation which, rather than concentrating resources on meticulous (and perhapsover-intrusive) checking of existing systems and practices to ensure conformity andmaintenance of bureaucratically specified standards, emphasize continuousimprovement. For example, commenting on Australian higher education, Sachs (1994,cited in Vidovich, 2001, p. 250) refers to what she sees as quality improvement’sassociation with, among other things, consensual management, devolved administration,and qualitative assessments. This she contrasts with quality assurance’s linkage toauthoritarian management, centralized administration and quantitative assessments. InBritain during the 1990s considerable negative feeling was generated among academicstaff by what was perceived as the “heavy touch” approach of bodies such as the HigherEducation Funding Councils and the QAA when conducting quality audits and teachingreviews. The reverberations of this discontent are evident in Morley’s (2003) survey ofthe sector, and in a parallel fashion, in Anderson’s (2006) discussion of similarphenomena in Australia. Perhaps as a reaction to the negative feedback received over theprevious decade or so from academic staff, a new focus on quality enhancement seems tobe emerging in the British higher education sector – with Scotland arguably leading theway. This change of emphasis can be seen, for example, at university web sites such asManchester Metropolitan University’s[2] or the University of Aberdeen’s[3] or in thework of the Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee[4]. It is also evident inthe foregrounding of enhancement in the current remit of the Quality AssuranceAgency’s Quality Matters, Quality Assurance Agency (n.d.). These developmentsimplicitly provide grounds for guarded optimism about the possibility of improvedunderstanding between academics and quality assurance specialists. They also suggestthat feedback from the academic community/culture has, to an extent, influenced thequality agenda put in place by national governments.

Finally, we should recognize (with Morley, 2003, p. 170) that “some academics occupya liminal position”, operating both within and outside the quality assurance discourse.They may, for example, be Heads of Department who spend most of their time onadministration and who attend Faculty and/or University Quality Assurance Committeemeetings, but who also teach and publish occasionally. Others (such as the pro-vicechancellors (academic); deans of quality assurance; and faculty QA directors referred toearlier) are frequently ex-academics who are now required to exert all their energies onmanagement and supervision. They may (Tribus, cited in Doherty, 2008, p. 264) be“recovering academics . . . recovering from the academic culture”, in which case theymay well agree with Doherty (p. 264) that “QA is something you do, not wrangle about”.On the other hand, they may (like Kong, 2008, p. 8) recognize that debate is anineradicable feature of academic life and thought, and that academics, although arguablysometimes preoccupied with their own narrow concerns, do, on the whole, havehighly-trained and acute minds. Their views deserve to be aired and consideredcarefully. Those senior university managers and QA specialists who were formerlylecturers have a key role to play here, since, like C.P. Snow, they are ideally placed tounderstand the assumptions and concerns of both camps. In my view, they should bemore proactive in consulting with, and empathizing with, their academic colleagues.

If “quality” (or, as I would prefer, “high quality”) is to be seen as residing chiefly inefficient use of resources, this may not be a vision which will allow members of the

Quality,semantics and

the two cultures

15

academic culture to cease their “wrangling”. If, on the other hand, universities set out topursue high quality teaching and learning through a continuous upgrading andexpansion of their learning resources, drawing on insights drawn from currenteducational research, this might be more likely to narrow the cultural divide. All staffin a university can conceivably unite around a vision of “high quality” achievedthrough a process of consultation, with progress towards achieving it fostered andevaluated through the implementation of a quality cycle such as PDRI (University ofTechnology Sydney, 2009).

As we have seen, recent British governments (of both parties) have espoused anessentially neo-liberal perspective on the economy, employing “market” rhetoric(competition, driving up standards) while seeking to shape higher education policy.The rise of the quality culture in higher education should be seen in this context.Furthermore, in an era of globalization, similar forces are at work worldwide, with thespread of the quality culture arguably acting as a standardizing force across highereducation sectors internationally. The power of the academic culture to resist, re-mouldor roll back the advance of “quality” seems relatively weak. However, Luckett (2003, p.18), writing of South Africa, optimistically foresees the creation of a new atmosphere inwhich “a relationship of trust will develop in which control and ownership of the QAprocess is gradually ceded by the state to . . . institutions”. Perhaps the way forwardlies not through agency monitoring of quality assurance processes and procedures, butthrough a more consultative management style, and the rigorous pursuit withinindividual universities of high quality as defined for their specific contexts?

Notes

1. See British National Corpus, Oxford, available at: www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/

2. See Manchester Metropolitan University Centre for Academic Standards and QualityEnhancement, available at: www.mmu.ac.uk/academic/examiner.php

3. See University of Aberdeen, “Quality enhancement”, available at: www.abdn.ac.uk/qe/

4. See Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee, available at: www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/background/enhancementThemes.asp

References

Anderson, G. (2006), “Assuring quality/resisting quality assurance: academics’ responses to‘quality’ in some Australian universities”, Quality in Higher Education, Vol. 12 No. 3,pp. 161-73.

Barcan, R. (1996), “The body of the (humanities) academic, or, what is an academic?”, SouthernReview, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 128-45.

Bogue, E.G. and Hall, K.B. (2003), Quality and Accountability in Higher Education, PraegerPublishers, Westport, CT.

Carroll, M., Razvi, S., Goodliffe, T. and Al-Habsi, F. (2009), “Progress in developing a nationalquality management system for higher education in Oman”, Quality in Higher Education,Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 17-27.

Cartwright, M. (2007), “The rhetoric and reality of ‘quality’ in higher education”, QualityAssurance in Education, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 287-301.

DES (2003), The Future of Higher Education, Cm 5735, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Norwich.

QAE18,1

16

Doherty, G. (2008), “On quality in education”, Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 16 No. 3,pp. 255-65.

Gabor, A. (1992), The Man Who Discovered Quality: How W. Edwards Deming Brought theQuality Revolution to America, Penguin, New York, NY.

Gibbs, P. and Iacovidou, M. (2004), “Quality as pedagogy of confinement: is there analternative?”, Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 113-19.

Hanks, P. (Ed.) (1979), Collins’ English Dictionary, Collins, London and Glasgow.

Harvey, L. and Green, D. (1993), “Defining quality”, Assessment and Evaluation in HigherEducation, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 9-34.

Hussey, T. and Smith, P. (2002), “The trouble with learning outcomes”, Active Learning in HigherEducation, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 220-33.

Juran, J.M. (2003), Architect of Quality: The Autobiography of Dr Joseph M. Juran, McGraw-Hill,New York, NY.

Knight, P.T. (2002), “Summative assessment in higher education: practices in disarray”, Studiesin Higher Education, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 275-86.

Kong, L. (2008), “Cultures of quality assurance”, Ideas on Teaching and Learning, Vol. 6, Centrefor Development of Teaching and Learning, National University of Singapore, Singapore,pp. 2-10.

Lomas, L. (2002), “Does the development of mass education necessarily mean the end ofquality?”, Quality in Higher Education, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 71-9.

Lucas, L. (2006), The Research Game in Academic Life, McGraw-Hill/Open University Press,Maidenhead.

Luckett, K. (2003), “Tensions between ‘fitness of purpose’ and ‘fitness for purpose’: theintroduction of a national quality system in South Africa”, available at: http://ahero.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module¼cshe&action¼viewtitle&id¼cshe_82

Morley, L. (2003), Quality and Power in Higher Education, Society for Research into HigherEducation/Open University Press, Buckingham.

Pirsig, R. (1974), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Morrow, New York, NY.

Poole, B. (2005), “Quality problems”, English Today, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 32-5.

Quality Assurance Agency (n.d.), Quality Assurance Agency, Gloucester, available at: www.qaa.ac.uk/enhancement/

Robbins, L. (1963), Report of the Committee on Higher Education under the Chairmanship of LordRobbins, Cmnd. 2154, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.

Sachs, J. (1994), “Strange yet compatible bedfellows: quality assurance and qualityimprovement”, Australian Universities Review, Vol. 371, pp. 22-5.

Salter, B. and Tapper, T. (2000), “The politics of governance in higher education: the case ofquality assurance”, Political Studies, Vol. 48, pp. 66-87.

Snow, C.P. (1963), The Two Cultures: And a Second Look, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press,London.

Turner, D. (2004), Theory of Education, Continuum, London and New York, NY.

University of Technology (2009), Planning and Quality Management at UTS, University ofTechnology, Sydney, available at: www.planning.uts.edu.au

Vidovich, L. (2001), “That chameleon ‘quality’: the multiple and contradictory discourses of‘quality’ policy in Australian higher education”, Discourse, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 249-61.

Quality,semantics and

the two cultures

17

Vidovich, L. (2002), “Quality assurance in Australian higher education: globalisation and‘steering at a distance’”, Higher Education, Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 391-408.

Williams, P. (2004), “Less is more”, Higher Quality, Vol. 16, p. 1.

Further reading

Cheng, Y.C. and Tam, W.M. (1997), “Multi-models of quality in education”, Quality Assurance inEducation, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 22-31.

About the authorBrian Poole is currently a Lecturer in English for academic purposes and for critical thinking atNational University of Singapore. He will shortly take up a post as Quality Assurance Managerat the University of Sohar in the Sultanate of Oman. Brian Poole can be contacted at:brianqpoole@hotmail.com

QAE18,1

18

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.comOr visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints