Qualitative research is used to discover process, i.e., the way things happen in education, medicine, engineering, etc. How does this question translate to education?
Vitaly and Helmut, you two are right. I wonder about universities that launch commercials about their academic and research quality but the outside environment or the communities they are surrounded by are a total mess. I believe that the quality they talk about should reflect upon its surrounding communities. Also, how about universities that usually talk about quality, but the primary and secondary schools their students work at are not as good as people think they are. I am talking about the specific case of Colombia. I guess this happens in other countries too. Thanks.
But this is not ethical and in consequence academic and research quality are affected.
Quality depends on the expectations of the different stakeholders. As Claudio Rama has put it, students expect accessibility; the academic community expects scholarship and rigor; graduates expect employability; and employers expect competence. We should not forget that quality is a social construct. Comparing institutions or programs is one of the goals of current evaluation and accreditation processes. However, I think it would not be appropriate to compare quality indicators or criteria "in a vacuum", without considering the context of each institution, and also their missions and target populations. For example, if you measure employability based on annual income, graduates from an Ivy League college would probably outperform graduates from a small, teaching college. Does that mean that one is "better" than the other? Does it have "more quality"? But if we take into consideration their particular populations, program characteristicas, and communities, we will see that they both accomplish their missions. There are common quality indicators, but they also have to be interpreted in the light of their specific contexts.
I agree Edgar. My point about quality is: how I can get quality work from an underserved number of students that have received bad training in institutions that offer less than quality teaching.
Now it is easy to teach those who have had access to education and who come from families with strong academic environments. However, what do we do with the disenfranchised mother, or the kids who are homeless or those students who seem not to care?
Is there quality for them?
Quality still exists. It should not be viewed (in an educational context) as each student getting to a certain educational standard, but be seen as a set of characteristics that all lead any particular student to the best outcome possible considering their starting point. It comprises progress (not attainment) in skills and knowledges, and possibly unlearning bad knowledges as you imply, and most importantly, good dispositions to learning and beliefs about learning. The most important belief about learning I spend time developing for my students, many of whom come from low SES families, is 'I can learn' which often involves students unlearnIng the belief that they 'can't learn'.
I would say that quality education is a right for all. Even those coming from underserved populations should have access to an education that is PERTINENT for them. As I said, there are common ingredients to quality education, but also there are factors that are context-specific, that must be taken into consideration. In my country, elitist higher education institutions exclude students from rural high schools and non-traditional systems (such as night schools and distance education schools), their rationale being that they are not well-prepared for higher education; they tend to avoid their responsibility, saying that "it is not their fault" that public schools have not accomplished their mission. There are many alternatives, such as distance education universities, blended learning formats, technical training, on the job training, and adult education, all of which must be encouraged in every country.
Quality is conformance to the requirements of the customers. Quality in education is attaining and even exceeding the expectations of the customers ( I.e students).
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