| Abstract [eng] |
The impact of globalization and internationalization, new public management trends and their influence on the reformed higher education system, the shift in the value paradigms of higher education promote to reconsider not only such issues as effectiveness of quality management, implementation of the quality assurance system, quality culture development but also fundamental matters such as how quality is understood at the higher education institution. The aim of the research is to identify the specificity of the concept of quality and issues of its construction in higher education institution, upon theoretical and empirical exploration of translation of quality as idea into institutional context. The perspective of translation is presented in the dissertation introducing the Lithuanian equivalent of the term. The theoretical part of the dissertation discusses the theoretical approaches of institutionalism and Scandinavian institutionalism, giving prominence to the interpretations of the travelling idea and the specificity of quality as idea in higher education. A three-stage study (the meta-analysis of international and national documents, studies and reviews; the analysis of strategic documents of colleges; the experts’ interviews) is presented in the empirical part of dissertation. The dissertation research is purposefully orientated to the non-university higher education sector and to contextualisation of the conception of quality based on the example of state colleges of Lithuania, but generalising type of issues of constructing the conception of quality in higher education institution is highlighted. The results of the research expose that translation of quality as idea in the institutional context is based on the communicative approach that allows to assess the involvement (direct and indirect) of actors of the higher education system in the process and creation of meanings. |
