Improving quality: the evaluation process and the decision to plan actions for improving quality

Abstract

Questioning customers and using their evaluation to improve quality is one of the nine pillars of the EFQM model of excellence. Processing the answers obtained by the results of customers’ self-evaluation questionnaires enables the provider to enhance the quality of the offered products. In other words, making good use of good self evaluation questionnaires leads to better quality.

Field research showed that a certain amount of providers of VET with ODL, blended or eLearning have used a variety of self-evaluation questionnaires in the past. Some of these questionnaires function well and are adapted to the specific necessities of the institution or enterprise, others are not. What is more, it is not clear at all whether the outcomes of the self-evaluation questionnaires have actually led to improvement of the quality of the courses offered.

Therefore the SEVAQ project consortium decided to contribute to the quality improvement of (e-) courses in a twofold way: - By producing a multifunctional European self-evaluation tool containing a certain amount of diverse functions so that it is applicable to the different kinds of VET such as ODL, e-learning and blended learning. The tool had to be multifunctional and multilingual with diverse possibilities for use and adaptable to the target group it would be used in; with a variety of functions (automatic feedback, collection of data, …); built in a modular way, with a set of small tools with a specific function, to ensure that each user has the possibility to adapt the tool according to unique needs. - By sustaining the processes of the application of the self-evaluation tool in certain selected groups (Target Reference Groups) in the form of interactive evaluation sessions, in order to guide the provider through the process of translating results from self-evaluation questionnaires into better quality, so that the quality of the e-learning process is being improved

In the short term the aim was to provide actors with an adequate tool and help them focusing on quality and customers’ needs, and help gaining insight in the process of obtaining better quality; in the long term these results will have their impact in helping improving quality and serving the effort to improve transparency and compatibility in European VET.

The SEVAQ project was realised by promoter EFODL and partners BE-ODL with Eduwest and University Hasselt, NADE, CESI IBERIA, Vytautas Magnus University, Le Préau-CCIP, Videoscop / University Nancy 2, ISQ and BILD.