Quality Assurance Standards Derived from School Stakeholders: Grounded Evaluation Approach to Spur Accreditation and Quality

Abstract

The idea of this study came from the significant gap between
theory and practice of quality assurance in educational institutions in
developing countries. due to the predetermined rigid standards of
quality and accreditation which may frustrate the institution or may
push the institution to work against its convictions, and transfer all
efforts just to show that it can fulfill the minimum requirements of
accreditation. This evaluation process is usually based on expertise
and on standards that tend to be fixed, global, and rigid, which may
lead to faking commitment of stakeholders in the school. Many
significant standards and criteria are hidden or grounded in the
system and implicit in the stakeholders thought which explain their
social life mode and style. The new suggested evaluation approach is
based on this vision and limitations. It is briefly an interaction of
illuminative, responsive, democratic, empowerment models of
evaluation within the participant and naturalistic approach of
evaluation. This approach is more realistic, grounded, and relatively
free from faking. It doesn’t start with explicit questions or standards.
These standards are derived from the system environment and the
questions go backward. The Model School at Yarmouk University was
the field on which this approach was applied. This paper has two
parts: the theory of evaluation and the background of stakeholders
based evaluation, School quality and accreditation, are presented in
the first part, while the evaluation plan and procedures based on
stakeholders which support the suggested grounded evaluation
approach are presented in the second part. The main characteristics
of this approach presented at the end of this part express its points of
strength and weakness. This approach is not an end by itself, it is the
promising approach to verify real quality in the long run .