An Appraisal of Appropriate Analytical Approaches for Data on Evaluation of Quality in Higher Education and Related Policy Implications

• Activity Number: 42
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 4, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: International Indian Statistical Association
• Author(s): Sada Nand Dwivedi*+
• Companies: All India Institute of Medical Sciences

Abstract

For improvement and monitoring of quality in higher education, a number of evaluations are carried out, for example, academic program evaluation, course evaluation, individual faculty evaluation, evaluation of centralised facilities, and others. Under each evaluation, a structured/ semi-structured questionnaire, consisting of various Likert type items along with global item, is used. A detailed review globally may still show that even reputed medical/health institutions continue to report conventional analytical results inappropriately (e.g., mean, standard deviation) on each item, irrespective of whether they report other analytical results appropriately (e.g., median, first quartile, 80th percentile). Using a simulated data on various Likert type items under an evaluation, this presentation has tried to discuss appropriateness and use of such analytical measures. Further, attempt is also made to highlight their implications in deriving clues for administrators working for improvement and monitoring of quality in higher education. In addition, for a newly established institution, role of using those analytical results related to a global item is also highlighted.