Institutional support for quality learning and teaching : what's missing?

Universities are increasingly focusing attention on the quality agenda and its impact on their standing and success. Institutional responses to enhancing and assuring the quality of learning and teaching and the overall student learning experience typically focus on developing plans and policies, implementing systems, creating organisational structures and roles, and devising special initiatives. As AUQA Audit report commendation and recommendations show, the effectiveness of these responses varies across the sector. A number of factors may impact on the success or otherwise of these approaches. Drawing on our experiences and the literature on learning and teaching in Higher Education and on change management, we suggest that a crucial factor often overlooked is the values and beliefs that academic staff have about quality and the impact of these on their engagement with institutional efforts to respond to the quality agenda. Addressing this oversight has important implications for maximising institutional efforts aimed at quality learning and teaching.