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Quality assurance mechanisms in regards to work- based learning – findings from institutional accreditation in Croatia (2019–2021)

Student-centred learning, recognized as an important determinant of quality assurance, especially accentuated throughout the 2015 version of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG), should also be considered as a leading principle of meaningful and relevant quality assurance system of the higher education institution, involving a creation of an environment for active student learning with flexible programs while using learning outcomes to understand student achievement. The Agency for Science and Higher Education, the Croatian accreditation authority, assesses this institutional aspect, including the ones related to the inter- and intrainstitutional cooperation through work-based learning and its implementation in the student workload. In the Croatian higher education setting, accreditation process is mandatory for all higher education institutions in five-year cycles. It encompasses quality standards compatible to the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) and is comprised of four phases – the self-evaluation report, a review team’s visit, an accreditation report and a follow-up. This presentation, through the analysis of institutional accreditation reports (2019-2021 period), systematizes the review teams’ findings and extracts institutional practices and obstacles related to the implementation and improvement of student work-based learning. Review teams’ accreditation findings (2019-2021) of work-based learning activities include different practices: higher education institutions’ encouragement of workplace learning, no institutional collaboration, informal collaboration (individual contacts), workplace learning as optional and no quality assessment of workplace learning. When it comes to the forms of work-based learning review teams differentiate between intrainstitutional activities such as exercises, labs, practical work with classroom mentors, projects, volunteering in different promotion activities, etc., and interinstitutional collaboration, including collaboration with other higher education institutions, professional organizations as well as the public and the private sector. Assessment of work-based learning includes different practices including no assessment at all, informal assessment (diaries, individual observations), no consistent assessment, inadequate student workload (ECTS), work-based learning which is not integrated in the overall study programme workload, student workload not being unified across all higher education institution programmes as well as no alignment of workplace learning outcomes with programme outcomes, but also commendable practices of adequate ECTS workload harmonized with learning outcomes and the qualification level. Therefore, the results of content analysis of 76 reports from institutional reaccreditation indicate that review teams differentiate between many forms of institutional practices promoting and improving work-based learning. Likewise, quality assurance, as the analysis shows, plays an intermediary role in the implementation of outcomes of interinstitutional collaboration into students’ learning as well as other intrainstitutional activities. It is notable that higher education institutions aspire to increase student public engagement and work-based activities, but a successful translation thereof into student learning and evaluation seems to be a complex process where institutional quality assurance mechanisms play an important role in work-based learning formalization.

work-based learning, quality assurance, student-centred learning

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