Quality in higher education

What is 'quality'?

What is quality in a car?

• Reliability?
• Precision finish?
• Good handling?
• Expensive price?
• Strong components?

What is quality in a jacket?

• Designer label?
• Tailored fit?
• Lasts for years?
• Dry-cleans like new?
• Comfortable to wear?

What is quality in a restaurant meal?

• Friendly, prompt table service?
• Wide selection on menu?
• Silver knives and forks?
• Food warm when served?
• Meal cooked as you ordered?

Look up quality in the dictionary and you will find a range of meanings. Quality is the term we use to describe and assess an array of characteristics of a diverse range of physical goods and intangible services. According to Garvin (1988) there are five common definitions of, or approaches to quality:

1. Transcendent - quality can't be precisely defined, but we know it when we see it, or are aware of its absence when it is missing. This is not a particularly useful approach to quality if we hope to make an objective assessment of quality.
2. Product (or attribute)-based - differences in quality relate to differences in the quantity of some attribute - for example, the quality of a piece of jewellery may relate to the proportion of gold it contains, 18 carat gold being better than 9 carat gold.
3. Manufacturing (or process)-based - quality is measured by the degree to which a product or service conforms to its intended design or specification; quality arises from the process(es) used.
4. Value-based - quality is defined by price - a quality product or service is one that provides desired performance at an acceptable cost.
5. User (or customer-)-based - quality is the capacity to satisfy needs, wants and desires of the user(s). A product or service that doesn't fulfil user needs is unlikely to find any users (Garvin, 1988). This is a context-dependent, contingent approach to quality.

In the context of tangible goods, it has been suggested that we assess quality in terms of the following eight factors/dimensions:

1. performance;
2. features;
3. reliability;
4. conformance;
5. durability;
6. serviceability;
7. aesthetics; and
8. perceived quality (Garvin, 1991).

In the context of intangible services, some authors have attempted to apply Garvin's eight dimensions of product quality to service quality, but the analogy becomes tenuous in places. Others have attempted to identify how we assess the quality of services, including:

1. time;
2. timeliness;
3. completeness;
4. courtesy;
5. consistency;
6. accessibility and convenience;
7. accuracy; and
8. responsiveness (Evans & Lindsay, 2005).

Other authors have suggested alternative and/or additional dimensions of quality. The list that we might select as applicable in a particular context is dependent on the product and/or service in question and the purpose for which we wish to assess quality.

The contemporary view of quality places the user (often the 'customer') in a central role (Crosby, 1995). We need to understand the needs of the user if we are to successfully deliver services and/or products that will fulfil their needs. The ultimate measure of quality resides in the perceptions of the 'customer'. This is a much more sophisticated view of quality than appealing to elegant designs or devising reliable systems for production and/or delivery, however it forces the supplier to confront questions that are often difficult. Who is/are the customer(s)? What are their needs, wants and desires? These are difficult enough questions of themselves, but are further complicated by the fact that the user group is generally not homogeneous, and may have a wide range of potentially conflicting requirements. And over time, these needs may change. Think of personal computers - what would have been seen as desirable processing speed, size, etc. five years ago would today been viewed as inadequate.

Another important idea from the contemporary conceptualisation of product quality is that all areas of an organisation contribute to the final quality of the services and products produced (Juran, 1988). Poor market research may lead us to offer products/services that no one wants, regardless of how well we deliver them. A flawed design cannot be turned into quality regardless of how repeatable our delivery processes. An excellent design will appear highly variable in quality if our process tolerances are too wide, or our raw materials are of a low standard. A high quality product can be ruined during transport to the customer. There is a system-wide 'quality function' that exists and impacts on quality. In a manufacturing context, it is recognised that up to 85 percent of quality issues are the result of systemic factors beyond the control of individual workers (Deming, 2000) - the general concept that arises here is that quality is primarily a management responsibility, and the operation of the entire organisation needs to be considered when seeking to improve quality. In a university context, this implies that the student perception of quality is likely to be influenced just as much by the timetable clashes, late delivery of materials, the amount of network downtime, the temperature of the classroom and the size of the tutorial class, as it is to be influenced by currency of course material.

Activity

Think of a product or service that you regularly purchase.  What are the characteristics of that product or service that most matter to you?  What would an alternative supplier of that product or service have to change/improve to get you to buy it from them instead?

Forward to: Quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement