Internal Quality Assurance and Self-Evaluation
This domain covers the institution's own machinery for assuring and improving quality, and the self-evaluation that feeds it. EAQE items ask you to judge the quality of a self-evaluation report, design a programme review, or diagnose why an internal QA system produces paperwork but no change.
Core rules
- The internal QA cycle. Design and approval of programmes (ESG 1.2), student-centred learning (1.3), admission/progression/recognition/certification (1.4), teaching staff (1.5), learning resources and support (1.6), information management (1.7), public information (1.8), and on-going monitoring plus periodic review (1.9). These are interdependent: monitoring without information management is anecdote.
- Self-evaluation is an evidence-based judgement, not a description of activity. Each claim needs a source, a comparator and a verdict.
- Analytical tools. SWOT for positioning, gap analysis against a standard, root-cause analysis for weaknesses, and a judgement scale (fully / substantially / partially / not met).
- Internal audit differs from self-evaluation: audit checks conformity with defined criteria and reports findings; self-evaluation is a broader reflective judgement by the unit itself. Both need criteria published in advance.
- Data triangulation. Combine surveys, administrative records, documentary evidence, focus groups and observation. One instrument is one perspective.
- Documentation discipline. Version control, ownership, retention, and a clear audit trail from claim to evidence.
Worked example
A department's self-evaluation report states: "Student support is excellent." The only cited source is the annual satisfaction survey (response rate 11%), where 78% agreed support was adequate. Reasoning: the claim is over-stated and thinly evidenced. Steps: (1) mark the judgement as "partially met" pending further evidence; (2) triangulate with advising-contact logs, withdrawal reasons, pass rates for supported versus unsupported cohorts, and focus-group themes; (3) interrogate non-response - the 89% who did not answer may be the dissatisfied or the disengaged; (4) rewrite the claim as a defensible sentence with a comparator and a residual weakness; (5) assign an improvement action with an owner and review date. The report should read as a judgement with caveats, not a brochure.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing self-evaluation as marketing: adjectives without sources.
- Recycling last cycle's report with only dates changed.
- Listing activities ("we ran five workshops") as if activity equalled outcome.
- Ignoring non-respondents and self-selection bias in surveys.
- Confusing internal audit findings with self-evaluation judgements.
- Leaving the improvement plan disconnected from the weaknesses identified.