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Focus On The Classroom

How to ImproveTeaching Quality

RICHARD M. FELDER, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITYREBECCA BRENT, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

When higher education adopted total quality managementin the 1980s, changes were made primarily in businessandservice departments. Some curricula were revised, andafew instructors made changes in what they did in theirclassrooms, but most continued to teach the way they hadalways taught. This research is specifically concerned withthe applicability ofTQM toteaching, asopposed to academicor research program structure and administration. 7heauthors first consider how an instructor can improve thequality of ins/ruction in an individual course, and thenthey explore the more difficult question ofhow an academicorganization (a university, college, or academic department) can improve the quality of its instructionalprogram, in both cases, thepotential contribution ofqualifymanagement principles to teaching improvementprograms is examined, in light of the cultural differencesbetween industry and the university.

Key words: quality of instruction improvement, qualityof instructional program improvement, teachingimprovement. TQM in education

©1999.ASQ

INTRODUCTIONAn announcement goes out to the faculty that from nowon the university will operate asa total quality management (TQM) campus. All academic, business, andservice functions will be assessed regularly, and qualityteams will plan ways to improve them. Acampus quality

director and a steering team arenamed, with thedirectorreporting to the provost. All university departmentsappoint quality coordinators, who attend a one-dayworkshop on quality management principles and returnto their departments to facilitate faculty and/or staffmeetings atwhich quality improvement isdiscussed.

Many faculty members are irate. They argue thatTQM was developed by and for industry7 to improveprofits, that industry and the university are totallydifferent, and that talking ofstudents as "customers" isoffensive and makes no sense. Faculty make it clearthat they will have nothing todowith this scheme and

will view any attempt to compel them to participate asa violation of their academic freedom.

What happens then is...practically nothing. Somechanges are made in business and service departments,somecurricula are revised, and a few instructors make

changes in what they do in theirclassrooms but mostgoon teaching theway they have always taught. Aftertwo or three years thesteering committee writes itsfinalreport declaring the program an unqualified successand disbands, and life goes on.

Higher education discovered total quality management in the 1980s, andquickly became enamored of it.Books like TQM for Professors and Students(Bateman and Roberts 1992) and Total QualityManagement in Higher Education (Sherr and Teeter

199U declared thatTQM could serve asa paradigm forimproving even- aspect ofcollegiate functioning from

R. M. FELDER, R. BRENT/© 1999, ASQ 9