Exploring the Determinants of Quality Assurance in University Education as per the Views of Academics and Students of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna: Are these Views Compatible?

Abstract

Although there are multiple dimensions that help higher education institutions to design appropriate value propositions in determining the quality of education, the determinants that assure the quality based on students and academics’ views are relatively unexplored. A clear understanding of how the main stakeholders in teaching and learning process interpret quality of university education and determinates of assuring the quality is important to identify their part in achieving “quality.” Therefore, A cross-sectional survey of the samples of students (n = 394) and academics (n = 32) was conducted to explore the compatibility of the selected determinants as viewed by the students and the academics of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna. A pre-tested structured questionnaire contains 29 selected determinants based on past literature were used and measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = most important to 5 = least important. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the analysis in SPSS (Ver.22). Mann Whiteney U test suggested that engaging in interactive teaching methods, lecturer's knowledge of new developments and research areas, class size and student-to-class ratio, availability of scholarships and financial aids, and alumni network and career placement services had significant differences between these groups (p<0.05). Accordingly, the study suggests the importance of including teaching excellence, learning environment, supportive services, and institutional factors in particular as determinants in developing a user-friendly internal QA framework. Findings are significant for policymakers, university authorities and researchers in particular in making effective policies, regulations and exploring further researches to generalize the present findings.