Exploring Issues of Quality Teaching and Learning within Public Chilean Higher Education
Date
2018-09-18
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Abstract
Chilean public and state universities have made great efforts in tackling quality standards and mechanisms of accountability put in place by the Chilean Government to regulate institutions of higher education since the 1990s. Through these efforts, universities obtain the needed accreditation to access public funding, as well as public recognition of the quality of their programs – a fact which creates higher enrollment in the highly competitive context of Chilean higher education. One of the aspects considered for purposes of accreditation and accountability is to have evidence of effective learning. To this end, universities have had to establish policies and strategies that significantly improve the education and training of students. Since the core of education focuses on the processes of teaching and learning (Martens & Prosser, 1998) and the conditions for their realization, this study explored the ways in which the quality of teaching and learning might be improved in two public and state universities in Chile. Three theorical lines were considered as approaches to the focus of study: the concepts of quality as understood by the academic communities studied; the approaches and conditions of teaching and learning that favored effective teaching and learning in higher education; and the approaches to leadership, as well as the vital traits of leaders that would drive the possible and necessary changes in the Chilean system. This conceptual approach inevitably had to acknowledge and accommodate the legacy of the social and political turmoil resulting from the Pinochet era which has scarred the university sector in Chile. The study used a concurrent embedded design as a mixed methodological design suggested by Creswell (2009) and characterized by the simultaneous collection of qualitative and quantitative data. The total number of participants in this study was 163 (N) and who represented two universities in Chile – one in the city of Santiago and one in a regional city. There were 103 participants who engaged in semi-structured interviews (n), and of that there were a total of 13 leaders, 30 professors, 59 students. There were also 42 teaching professors and 18 students who participated in the online questionnaire across the two universities. The leaders represented vice-rectors and deans; and the professoriate drew from a broad array of disciplines (encompassing Architecture, Education and Languages, Engineering, Geography, Health [Kinesiology, Medicine, Nursing, Physiotherapy, and Psychology], Mathematics, Sciences [Biology, Chemistry, Physics,], Social Sciences). The qualitative approach was assumed as a primary method, while the quantitative method was essentially considered for “legitimation” purposes (Onwuegbuzie, Johnson, & Collins, 2011). During the execution of the study, three findings emerged that were key to building a culture for the permanent improvement of the quality of teaching and learning processes for students of public and state universities. First, faculty members indicated that any construct about “quality” should consider elements from the external context (e.g., the Bologna tuning process), but also the institutional ethos and the expectations of stakeholders (e.g., the mission of the university). Additionally, all stakeholders generally indicated that teaching and learning should meet the needs of the country and to prepare graduates for holistic success in life (both civically and personally) within the Chilean state. In practice, findings indicated that there was a triadic relationship between the expectations for graduate qualities and career opportunities; second, students’ and graduates’ capacity to learn effectively (in program and lifelong learning); and third, the institutional commitment to deliver the human and material resources that would ensure the best possible conditions for teaching and learning at university – these three were deemed to be requisite for quality at university. A third and curious finding was that academics, students, and leaders themselves did not conceptualize university leaders as leaders; rather, there was a prevailing ideology that university leaders were administrators, managers, and authorities. Thus, this philosophical conceptualization about authority and administration reinforced the negative legacy of the Pinochet era of top-down, autocratic, and dictatorial leadership approaches within the higher education sector. An ambitious model of Effective Teaching and Learning Model that incorporates Scott and Scott’s (2012) Webs of Enhanced Practice was created based upon the major findings of this research and was designed in response to the needs indicated by the participants. This model raised the need to make fundamental decisions to reposition the effectiveness of education through meaningful and authentic learning experiences for teaching and learning as a central purpose of the University. This study offered a closer and more descriptive exploration of university stakeholders’ realities that have previously gone largely unnoticed and often masked by statistics. This reality, narrated by its own protagonists, served as a call to examine the “effective teaching and learning” situation with a new lens, and in that way, potentially lead to real change in Chile’s higher education sector.
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Keywords
Higher Education Teaching & Learning, Quality, Academic continuous professional development, Chilean Higher Education
Citation
Rodríguez-Videla, L. (2018). Exploring Issues of Quality Teaching and Learning within Public Chilean Higher Education (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/33164