Developing IQA system for graduate-only institution : case study of NIDA (National Institute of Development Administration)

Abstract

An Internal Quality Assurance system (IQA) in Thai higher education has been developed continuously since 2007 by the Office of the Higher Education Commission of Thailand (OHEC). According to an announcement of the Internal Quality Assurance Commission on Higher Education under the heading “Regulations and Guidelines regarding Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance 2014”, the IQA system was adjusted in two major, different, areas than the previous versions. One of these areas is that each institution has an opportunity to choose its own IQA system. The purpose of this study was to develop an IQA system for a graduate-only institution, and the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) was adopted as the case study. The research approach included a focus group and interviews which were used to gather qualitative data regarding internal quality assurance processes in the Thai and NIDA contexts. Data from the focus group, the interviews, and the literature review were integrated and developed into a questionnaire that was used as the major research tool in the Delphi-style research process. Two rounds of the Delphi process were conducted. Subject matter experts (SMEs) rated each question for its relevance to indicate the importance and the level of implementation of quality assurance processes at NIDA.The findings of this study were that the NIDA IQA system needed to have 3 levels of assessment: the program level, faculty level, and institutional level. It was also found that the system should address 24 quality criteria with 72 items under them. Among those 72 items were 7 items under human resource management, working systems, program, student development and support, and public relations quality criteria that should not be excluded from the system as they had perfect Interquartile Range (IQR). As well, a further recommendation was that the quality assurance processes should be conducted annually, to be conducted by a committee of at least 3 persons, each of whom should have knowledge of IQA, and each member of the committee should have experience in being a program director or have held a position related to IQA.