Managing the Continuous Improvement Loop of Educational Systems: Students as Key Actors in Program Evaluation

More and more, educational frameworks and accreditation bodies recommend implementing a system to evaluate and improve the quality of higher education institutions. This paper describes a student self-evaluation of a French engineering school which was carried out with an external institution as client. It describes the methodology and standards adopted by the students in order to conduct the evaluation, interview stakeholders, and rate compliance with maturity levels. An analysis of the quantitative and qualitative results of this evaluation is drawn, both from the quality assurance and student perspectives. The benefits, bias, and difficulties of this student-led institution evaluation are discussed. Finally, in this paper, the authors identify the skills specific to quality assurance engineers which this project allowed students to develop. They conclude on possible future issues concerning evaluation, such as student-led cross- evaluations among institutions. This paper will permit readers (i) to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a student-led evaluation, (ii) to validate or not the opportunity of dedicated student projects within their programs to facilitate the continuous improvement loop, and (iii) to underline specific student skills developed in such projects.

Proceedings of the 9th International CDIO Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 9 – 13, 2013.