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from VCCA Journal, Volume 8, Number 1, Summer 1993, 12-14
© Copyright 1993 VCCA Journal
For the past few years, we have been hearing much about accountability, assessment, and institutional effectiveness. During this same time, we have been hearing of something called Total Quality Management (TQM) being applied to Business and Industry processes for the purpose of quality improvement. Can the concepts of TQM be applied in the educational setting and particularly in the assessment process?
Assessment in higher education parallels in many ways the TQM movement in business and industry. Higher education and business and industry have cyclically tried many passing fads over the years to address the question of Quality. The impetus has been much the same, pressure. Pressure from boards of directors, stockholders, management, politicians, taxpayers, administrators. Each of these sources of pressure has usually had its own agenda and has usually known what the problem was and how to correct it. The problem was usually the worker and the method of correction was almost always to admonish the worker to work harder. Through the manipulation of data, management and administration could show improvement in short-term results. This reinforced the perception that indeed the worker was responsible for lapses in quality learning; now we realize that quality can only develop through a systems approach.
Business and industry (particularly manufacturing) have been feeling much more than pressure for the past two decades; they have been feeling a sense of crisis. This sense of crisis, faced by educational institutions at all levels, is consistent with that of business and industry. The response is to blame others and to claim that we are different and TQM principles cannot be applied to us. Once higher education progresses through these phases and embraces quality principles, measurable improvement in quality education will be a reality.
Other obvious parallels exist between the manner in which business and industry and higher education have reacted to the demand for accountability and assessment. In education, as in industry, the focus has been on inspection of the end product, that is, of the graduate. To fulfill both state and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) requirements, colleges and universities are vigorously administering comprehensive tests to seniors and conducting surveys of graduates as well as employers of graduates. This inspection may indeed provide some interesting and even relevant information; however, it is inspection of the finished product and cannot prevent defects which may already exist. The cost of irreparable defects in any organization is unacceptable; the price of defects in education is irretrievable. As W. Edwards Deming and others have proven, measurable improvement in the quality of products and services or in the quality of a student's education requires improvement in the processes employed to generate the products and services. Accountability and assessment must be moved from the finished product into the educational process. In order to implement change, data must be collected for accurate decision-making by the people managing every process.
Many businesses that are vendors for larger businesses and corporations have been issued a mandate to comply with TQM principles. The same is true for many colleges and universities required to design and implement methods of assessment. But these businesses and educational institutions will not experience long-term quality improvement in their products, services, and graduates until they move from compliance to commitment. This commitment must be from the top management and administration of business and higher education. The commitment must be to embrace and implement the philosophy of Deming and the principles of TQM on a daily basis. The focus must be on the processes of the organization and on providing leadership. And, above all, this commitment must be consistent.
Unfortunately, higher education often indulges in the use of slogans and phrases of motivational encouragement to faculty and staff to produce more and to improve quality without providing the necessary resources and improvement for those processes. The same is true in business and industry. Neither threats nor praise result in quality improvement. Management and administration must share control of decision-making and provide methods that can bring about change in the processes that produce the products and or services of an organization. But employees, be they hourly workers or salaried teachers, are the only people who can manage the quality of the educational process. Commitment to TQM philosophy and principles of empowerment and participation results in getting those who know the processes and those who produce the products or services involved in implementing true and lasting quality.
Higher education must review its mission and challenge faculty and staff to identify their respective departmental, division and program philosophies, goals, objectives, and expected outcomes. If organizations don't know what results they desire, assessment is meaningless no matter how many statistics are amassed. Once this is accomplished, valid measurement techniques can be identified to measure quality improvement and to reduce the variation of outcomes. Many of the existing attempts to assess student outcomes focus on gathering data and analyzing it without any regard to the processes business and educational institutions employ daily or to the expected outcomes of those processes. For example, instructors may evaluate algebraic solutions without examining the sequential steps students take to arrive at those solutions. By contrast, all elements of a process are evaluated in a TQM environment. A student's mastery of multiplication precedes his learning simple algebraic problems, just as proven competency in simple algebra must be established prior to developing more advanced skills. This differs from traditional education in that every student acquires necessary skills and knowledge before progressing with his education.
As higher education moves toward interest in quality improvement of processes, it is critical to recognize that TQM and assessment are made up of identifiable, measurable components. Proper orientation to and understanding of the TQM philosophy, team development, problem solving techniques, and statistical process control must be the mission of everyone in any organization.
Paul Lee is Division Chairman of the Division of Business, Developmental Studies, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia.
This article was originally published in Quality First, Vol. I, No. 3, by Elizabethtown Community College, Summer, 1992.