Assessing the quality assurance awareness of nonacademic staff: A case study of the Faculty of Agriculture in the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Nonacademic staff including administrative staff contribute immensely to conducting the university operations without disturbances. Despite being key stakeholders within the university system, their awareness of the quality assurance of university education is not adequately explored in Sri Lanka in particular. Hence, the present study intends to bridge this research gap by assessing the quality assurance awareness of nonacademic staff within the university education system and specifically by identifying the awareness of nonacademics on quality assurance. The nonacademic staff of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna was selected as the target population. The population was equal to the sample and 35 respondents were individually interviewed conveniently using a semi-structured questionnaire for primary data collection. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods including Pearson Chi-Square Analysis were used for the data analysis. The sample consisted of 66% of males and 34% females. 69% and 31% of respondents are engaged in operational level and managerial level occupations respectively. The majority (57%) are having more than 20 years of working experience. Results revealed that 45% of the respondents are having moderate awareness of quality assurance while 34% are having slight awareness. Interestingly, none of them is having adequate awareness of quality assurance in university education. According to the results of the Pearson Chi-Square test, a marginally significant association exists between gender and the quality assurance awareness of nonacademic staff (p=0.056). The findings concluded that the majority of the nonacademic staff are having moderate awareness of quality assurance. The majority of respondents (64%) recommended conducting workshops and training programs to educate nonacademic staff in order to enhance their awareness of the quality assurance of university education. The findings of this study will be of great significance for university administrators to further improve the quality of university education with the enhanced contribution of nonacademic staff