EAQE flashcards
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32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Quality assurance framework
- A structured set of principles, standards, criteria, processes and decision rules that defines what quality means and how it is evidenced, judged and improved.
- Standard versus criterion
- A standard is a normative statement of expected performance; a criterion is the operational dimension used to judge whether that standard has been met.
- Fitness for purpose
- A quality judgement approach that evaluates an institution or programme against its own stated mission and objectives rather than a single external template.
- PDCA cycle
- Plan-Do-Check-Act: a four-stage improvement loop in which objectives are planned, implemented, monitored against indicators, and acted on through corrective change.
- Separation of duties
- A governance principle whereby the body setting quality policy is not the sole judge of compliance with it, preserving independence of assurance.
- Quality policy
- A formally approved institutional statement of quality commitments, responsibilities and review arrangements, owned by a named body with a defined review interval.
- Risk-based assurance
- Prioritising quality-assurance effort on programmes or processes with high impact and low control, such as new programmes, placements and partnerships.
- Governing body oversight
- Regular reporting to the board on quality performance, open findings and their closure, with evidence that corrective actions were resourced and completed.
- Self-evaluation report
- An evidence-referenced institutional narrative against each standard, stating strengths, weaknesses and improvement actions with owners and deadlines.
- Triangulation of evidence
- Using at least three independent evidence types - documents, indicator data and stakeholder testimony - before drawing a quality judgement.
- Annual monitoring
- A yearly review of programme data including enrolment, progression, completion, grade profiles and student feedback, with tracked follow-up actions.
- Evidence register
- A mapping of each standard to named evidence items, their location, owner and date, enabling reviewability and preventing unsupported claims.
- Accreditation
- Time-limited external recognition confirming that an institution or programme meets published threshold standards, subject to renewal and follow-up conditions.
- Quality audit
- An external evaluation of the effectiveness of an institution's own quality-assurance arrangements, rather than direct judgement of programme quality.
- Peer review panel
- A team of external experts, including subject and quality specialists and often a student member, that evaluates evidence and conducts site visits.
- Factual accuracy check
- A stage in external review where the reviewed unit corrects factual errors in the draft report before the judgement is finalised and published.
- Stakeholder mapping
- Identifying each group's interest in and influence over quality decisions, then selecting an appropriate mechanism from information to partnership.
- Student partnership
- Arrangements in which students co-design, review and influence provision and quality processes, rather than only responding to satisfaction surveys.
- Closing the feedback loop
- Reporting back to stakeholders what changed as a result of their input, naming the owner and the date of the change.
- Completion rate
- Qualifiers within the reference period divided by entrants to the same cohort, with transfers and withdrawals treated according to a stated rule.
- Data dictionary
- A controlled record defining each indicator's name, formula, data source, owner and refresh cycle, preserving comparability across time and units.
- Small-number caution
- The rule that percentages based on fewer than about thirty cases are unstable and should be reported with counts or suppressed.
- Key performance indicator
- A quantitative or qualitative performance signal tied to an explicit target and an accountable owner, used to steer decisions.
- Root-cause analysis
- Techniques such as the five whys and cause-and-effect diagrams that separate underlying causes from symptoms so interventions prevent recurrence.
- Anchoring change
- Embedding an improvement into routine processes, job descriptions, induction, data systems and policy so performance does not regress after the project ends.
- Improvement plan
- A document recording gap, root cause, action, owner, resources, timeline and success measure, enabling later evaluation of whether the change worked.
- Constructive alignment
- The principle that intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks must all target the same content and cognitive level.
- Assessment validity
- The degree to which an assessment task actually measures the intended learning outcomes rather than unrelated knowledge or test-taking skill.
- Inter-rater reliability
- The consistency of judgements between different markers scoring the same work, supported by rubrics, moderation and double marking.
- Conflict of interest
- A relationship or interest that could reasonably be seen to compromise impartial judgement, requiring declaration and usually recusal from the decision.
- Transparency in quality practice
- Publishing standards, review methods and outcomes, and giving reasons for decisions, so that affected parties can scrutinise the basis of judgement.
- Quality culture
- The shared values, beliefs and behaviours about quality within an institution, together with the structures and processes that sustain them.