The Study On Maturity Evaluation Of Teaching Quality Management In Higher Education Institutions

Quality is the center of higher education,in which teaching quality is the cornerstone of it.The continuous improvement of teaching quality is dependent on the completeness and effectiveness of the internal quality management activities within a higher education institution(HEI),thus how to evaluate it comes to be the pivot of quality leverage.Driven by organizational quality change,the theme of quality has shifted from products and services to organizational level,which means quality evaluation needs to be extended from quality to quality manageme nt activities.The key to improve quality of HEIs is to improve the maturity level of quality management activities,in that case,it is of great significance to transform quality evaluation paradigm from the point of maturity.Higher education quality evaluation in China is often led by government,which,is essence,is an accountability of HEIs? quality outcomes and performances,giving rise to the problematic homogeneity and path dependence of HEIs.Maturity evaluation focuses on the level of quality management activities within HEIs,and aims to promote quality management capabilities of HEIs.Contrary to traditional quality evaluation,maturity evaluation puts emphasis on longitudinal enhancement and school-based self-evaluation of teaching quality management activities;therefore it is applicable to diversified HEIs with its flexible nature.Following independent principle,maturity evaluation could be more supportive and constructive in quality assurance by improving quality management system of HEIs.Teaching quality management activities are the core object of maturity evaluation,which needs a model to implement in reality.This study extracted key elements and structural features of HEIs? teaching quality management activities by opening,axial,and selective coding of three National Quality Award winners? reports under grounded theory methods.With the addition of experts? suggestions and domestic HEIs? quality reports,we have constructed maturity evaluation model and index system of HEIs.The whole model can be divided into three sub-systems and ten key areas,namely,support system,agent system and process systems.Support system consists of three areas: organizational leadership,measurement & analysis,and strategic management;agent system consist of two areas: teachers management and students management;process systems consists of five areas: program management,curriculum management,teaching management,learning management,and practice management.Based on maturity evaluation model,this study made a teaching quality management maturity questionnaire by resorting to literature,field research and experts interviews.Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirms the structural division of maturity model is reliable and valid.The 413 questionnaire data from eastern China?s 15 HEIs reveals that teaching quality management maturity has no significant difference between colleges from different level,type and area.Structural equation modeling(SEM)path analysis shows that the maturity of organizational leadership and measurement & analysis has positive impact on agent system and process system;strategic management has no positive impact on agent system and only partial impact on process system;teachers management maturity has positive impact on process system while students management has no positive impact on it;program management exerts an intermediary role of the influence from support system and agent system to the process system.In order to analyze teaching quality management more accurately,this study developed a more refined and practical maturity evaluation scale.The scale embodies initiative and dynamic improvement idea with the combination of a lternative questions and essay questions,and three rounds of experts? review were taken to modify it.We choose 10 departments of Shanghai Jiao Tong University to demonstrate how to use fuzzy comprehensive method to carry out specific maturity evaluation,as well as how to use quadrant analysis to determine quality improvement priority matrix.Case evaluation results shows that departments differs greatly in terms of their maturity level in different dimensions,which means departments within a college needs to be treated separately.Maturity evaluation scale,as an effective tool to diagnose teaching quality management activities,can help HEIs understand its current situation and identify its weak and key quality management processes.Teaching quality management is a complex system composed of multiple elements,which has to be matched with certain framework,organizational governance and operational mechanisms to run steadily and enhance sustainably.To improve teaching quality management maturity,HEIs should focus on macro framework,governance structure and micro operational mechanisms so as to assure it can be implemented effectively and entirely.Specifically,HEIs need to establish PDCA improvement cycle,form a quality management system,actively undertake self-evaluation;establish management structure based on departments,make clear quality governance body and participatory mechanisms;strengthen institutional research capability,promote organizational learning and knowledge management.