Towards a model of institutional effectiveness in higher education : implications of a Hong Kong study

Over the past two decades, higher education worldwide has become increasingly preoccupied with performance measurement. Faced with pressure from Governments espousing the doctrine of public accountability and ‘value for money’ education, higher education has responded by embracing the quality movement. Despite some ambiguity, the quality movement has given rise to some useful initiatives, not least the practice of institutional self assessment which is a common approach to institutional performance measurement in higher education. However, there is a tendency for institutional self assessment exercises to employ criteria which represent an untested view of institutional effectiveness