Quality of higher education and the complex exercise of proposing indicators

MOROSINI, MARILIA COSTA; FERNANDES, CLEONI MARIA BARBOSA; LEITE, DENISE; FRANCO, MARIA ESTELA DAL PAI; CUNHA, MARIA ISABEL DA; ISAIA, SILVIA MARIA AGUIAR

doi:10.1590/S1413-24782016216402

MARILIA COSTA MOROSINI

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

* Pesquisador CNPq

CLEONI MARIA BARBOSA FERNANDES

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

* Pesquisador CNPq

DENISE LEITE

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

* Pesquisador CNPq

MARIA ESTELA DAL PAI FRANCO

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

MARIA ISABEL DA CUNHA

Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo, RS, Brazil

* Pesquisador CNPq

SILVIA MARIA AGUIAR ISAIA

Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil

* Pesquisador CNPq

Marilia Costa Morosini has a doctorate in human sciences from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is a professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS).

E-mail: marilia.morosini@pucrs.br

Cleoni Maria Barbosa Fernandes has a doctorate in education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is a professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS).

E-mail: cleofernandes@terra.com.br

Denise Leite has a doctorate in human sciences from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), where she is a professor.

E-mail: denise.leite@pq.cnpq.br

Maria Estela Dal Pai Franco has a doctorate in education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), where she is a professor.

E-mail: medpf@orion.ufrgs.br

Maria Isabel da Cunha has a doctorate in education from Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). She is a professor at the Universidade do Vale dos Sinos (UNISINOS).

E-mail: cunhami@uol.com.br

Silvia Maria Aguiar Isaia has a doctorate in education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is a professor at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM).

E-mail: sisaia@terra.com.br

*
Pesquisador CNPq

Thematic categories	Subcategories and Number of indicators
1. Quality in Project Management and Institutional Planning (5) – Concerns the identity, mission and commitments of the institution and actions dedicated to institutional sustainability and improvement.(23 indicators and 7 subcategories)	Institutional project (5)
	Democratic Management (4)
	Institutional Sustainability (3), Planning (3),
	Physical Structure (2), Staff and Faculty (4)
	Informational Structure (2)
2. Financial Management Quality – Concerns sustainability and autonomy in financial-budgetary procedures. (6 indicators and 2 subcategories)	Financial Sustainability (3)
	Autonomy in Financial Procedures (3)
3. Quality in Management of education and teaching– Encompasses decision-making in the strategies of education and articulation between levels,knowledges, qualification of teaching staff, career and employability of graduates and their impacts.(15 indicators and 6 subcategories)	Political Decision-Making
	System about education (6)
	Articulation of Levels and Knowledge (2)
	Education/Teaching Strategies (2)
	Teaching Staff Qualification (2)
	Career Construction/Employability (2)
	Economic and Social Impact (1)
4. Research Management Quality – Involves the articulation of knowledge and local and global transformations, the development of technologies that meet demands, the approximation of university and society and the improvement of the quality of life. (19 indicators and 4 subcategories)	Political Decision-Making System (5)
	Research Development (5)
	Research Sustainability (4)
	Socialization of Knowledge (5)
5. Quality in Management of University Extension and Services – this is realized by establishing compatibility between academic quality and social commitment, and in cultural, technical and scientific development towards a more just society.(20 indicators and 5 subcategories)	Political Decision-Making System (9)
	Social Responsibility (1)
	Social Commitment (3)
	Inclusionary Policies and Practices (5)
	Cooperation and Partnerships (2)
6. Quality in Management of Student Services – Encompasses the factors that allow students to enter, remain in and graduate from the university.(7 indicators and 4 subcategories)	Access/Permanence of the Student in the institute of higher education (3)
	Student Mobility Programs (1)
	Inclusionary Policies/Programs (2)
	Continuing Education Policies – Graduates (1)
7. Quality in th Management of the Evaluation of the University – Concerning the evaluation processes of action of the institute and its political decisionmaking system, linked to the university's evaluation (internal and external, and self-evaluation). (10 indicators and 3 subcategories)	Institutional Political Decision- Making System of Evaluation (4)
	Internal/External Institutional Evaluation (5)
	University Self-Evaluation (1)
Total: 7 categories	31 subcategories and 100 indicators

Categories	Quality indicators
1. Institution Quality	infrastructure involving adequate facilities
	installed and functional labs for students
	up-to-date library and with unrestricted access
	the assumption of representative processes in university administration
	institutional guide of academic action project
2. Teaching Faculty Quality	compatible issuance of degrees, including master's and doctorates
	continuing education and professional development programs for professors in the field of pedagogy
	structured career and progression
	work regime focused on teaching, research and extension
3. Student Body	conditions of student support and permanence (food, housing, transport assistance)
	programs for insertion into academic life, including offers of compensatory studies
	national and international exchange programs
	opportunity to participate in "scientific initiation" programs
	social insertion programs, including encouragement for participation in solidarity projects
	cultural action programs promoting student curiosity and valuing their general development

Categories	Quality indicators
1. Curriculum Quality	innovative curricula that go beyond the traditional organization of knowledge in a rigid and disciplinary structure
	explanation of the theory-practice axis in curricular proposals in an articulate and meaningful manner (a presumption of the guidelines)
	articulation of teaching with research, understanding doubt as the basic principle for the processes of teaching and learning
	offer of optional curricular activities that broaden the cultural base of education
2. Pedagogical practices	presence of participatory practices that stimulate student autonomy
	valorization of autonomous activities that stimulate students' capacity for self-regulation
	familiarization with technological languages and their impact on the forms of student thought production
	flexibilization of times/spaces of education, stimulating contact with the world of labor and with culture
	encouragement of integrated scientific production, through meaningful final course projects that are valued as a production that is integrated to the education
3. Evaluation	stimulation of comprehensive evaluation, focused on the objectives and dynamic of academic work
	use of different processes and multiple timeframes in the measurement of learning emphasis on complex learning over memorization
	appreciation of student authorship and autonomy in the realization of learning

Dimensions	Quality indicators
1. Educational MemoryWeb of relationships that involve knowledge as a foundational category of the teaching and learning process	Accounts of experiences brought by individuals representation of their realities and meanings accounts reinterpreted in the university dialectic, knowledge and life.
	Trajectory of professors and students explained and brought for the construction of a common territory marks of differences, web of relationships constructed with stories of students and professors.
	Meaningful bonds among students, and between students and professors, as part of the experience they carry within themselves and life openly faced conflicts.
2.2. ProtagonismConscious participation and autonomy of students and professors in the education process	Exercise of authorship in classroom decisions, elaboration of work, reorganization of groups, studies, text writing.
	Development of argumentative capacity
	Development of decision-making capacity in an independent and justified manner.
	Shared decisions in the pedagogical process of choices at the individual and collective level
	Teaching-learning experiences as non-finished appropriation of reality.
3. TerritorialityOccupation, circulation and appropriation of different formal and non-formal spaces of academic life	Different configurations woven by bonds constructed in and by classroom work
	Decisions and actions of professors not limited to the classroom territory nor by the walls of the University classroom as an intentional teaching and learning space.
	Professors and students expand frontiers social-cultural relations with knowledge and day-to-day life,beyond the physical boundary of the classroom.
4. RuptureEpistemological ruptures with static content of knowledge	Different epistemes for comprehension of knowledge, science and the world.
	Different rationalities beyond the cognitive-instrumental.
	Overcoming knowledge as a static content – "cadaver of information – dead body of knowledge" (Freire,Shor, 1987)
	Forms of teaching-learning that overcome the positivist reproductive model.
	Overcoming individualism and understanding the social construction of knowledge.
5. Historicity of KnowledgeModes of production of knowledge and their relations with socio-cultural, political space-time and political structures of society	Manifestation of the break with the mythical belief of the superiority of scientific knowledge
	Manifestation of the reception of different interpretations of reality
	Recognition of the intentions and interests that forge the history of knowledge.
	Recognition of values involved in the production of knowledge,in different times, circumstances and spaces of social praxis
	Reflective understanding of the dated and situated knowledge individual and collective construction of humanity
6. PedagogicalDemocracyShared pedagogical relations and democratic contract for teaching learning decisions	Relationship of trust built on respectful attitudes, reception within the bounds of possible human relations
	Relations permeated by affection and availability for dialog
	Condition established in conjunction by professors and students-students
	Condition built on teaching-learning processes that move between the individual and the social

Categories	Quality indicators
1. University Teaching	The professors engaged in the educational process for which they are responsible meet the demands of the academic and professional fields, in which they perform.
	The professors, aware of teaching as a profession, accept the challenges of new ways of educating in an ever-changing world.
	The professors display genuine understanding of the knowledge, skills and competencies, related to their respective professional areas.
	The professors from various areas of education and their students recombine experiences and knowledges for an autonomous professional performance.
	University teaching involves spaces and times of reflection and reconstruction of personal and professional trajectories.
	The way in which the teaching trajectory is experienced determines personal, group and institutional purposes, reflecting on the quality of the formative process.
2. Institutional/ Teaching Ambience	The institution invests in the construction of university pedagogies,contemplating individual and collective reflection processes.
	The institution promotes policies and spaces for the qualification of professors,favoring access to master's and doctoral degrees in the specific field.
	The institution promotes policies and spaces of education and development for the teaching professional, favoring well-being and professional achievement.
	The institutional organization determines how the teaching trajectory is experienced, reflecting on the quality of the educational process.
	The creation of interactive networks favors dialog among peers, encouraging innovative pedagogical practices.
3. Professors' Learning and Interactivity	Professors learn through collaboration and reflection among peers, with repercussions for professional autonomy.
	The generative professors develop themselves and their group of students, in dialog with others from the academic world.
	The professors give priority to interpersonal relations with their students as components of the teaching and learning processes.
	The professors prioritize interpersonal relations as components of personal and professional education and development.
	The processes of individual and group reflection favor awareness about the educational practice promoting professional development of professors.
4. Inclusion and Diversity	Institutional policies for the professional development of professors consider the requirements of the diversity of students, contexts and the world of labor.
	The higher education institutions are prepared to meet the demands of inclusion of diversity, accessibility and permanence of students in the academic context.
	Professors are prepared to meet the demands of inclusion and diversity,accessibilit , and the permanence of students in the academic context.

Categories	Subcategories
Internationalization	Transnational	Process (range)
	National	Product (balance)
	Institutional
Management	Institutional Project and Planning
	Financial
	Education and Teaching
	Research
	Extension and Services
	Student Service
	Evaluation
Teaching	Institution
	Faculty Products
	Student Body
	Curriculum
	Pedagogical Practices Processes
	Evaluation
Pedagogical Innovation	Educational Memory
	Protagonism
	Territoriality
	Rupture
	Historicity of Knowledge
	Pedagogical Democracy
	University Teaching
Faculty Professional Development	Institutional/Teaching AmbienceFaculty
	Learning and Interactivity
	Inclusion and Diversity

[1] Marilia Costa Morosini has a doctorate in human sciences from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is a professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS).

E-mail: marilia.morosini@pucrs.br

Brasil

Brasil

Quality of higher education and the complex exercise of proposing indicators

ABSTRACT