Assessment of education quality at Universidad de Antioquia: a deconstructive approach

Abstract

With a  deconstructive  perspective,  this  article  seeks  to  analyze  the  way  education  quality is assessed in higher education. It shows the prevalence of instrumental approaches that usually exclude and hide the interests and senses of teachers and students. The article begins by developing a conceptual approach on education quality assessment in higher education, and then it deconstructively analyzes the model used at Universidad de Antioquia.

This conceptual  and  methodological  overview  shows  how  the  quality  approach  under  use  determines the notions of both assessment and higher education: assessment is perceived as a practice mediated  and  enlightened  by  a  theoretical  position  traversed  by  communication,  language,  and agreements,  as  well  as  an  educational  event  that  contributes  to  the  formation  of  human  beings and to the organization that sets up evaluation processes. On the other hand, quality is defined as dominated by a utilitarian approach, which ends up by downgrading education, curriculums and even teacher training.

This article suggests that each program and each institution commit themselves to an educational process  characterized  by  public  debates,  adopting  an  assessment  culture  and  thus  generating  a real participatory process of conscious and autonomous self-evaluation for self-improvement. Such culture would promote joint decisions in order to go beyond technical-instrumental approaches by interacting  with  the  people  involved,  seeking  the  strengthening  and  improvement  of  educational practices in the first place.