Evaluation of quality management processes from the perspective of academics: The case of Afyon Kocatepe University

Quality and accreditation studies in higher education in Turkey started to become widespread with the establishment of the Higher Education Quality Board as an independent institution in 2017. Higher education institutions in our country have started to carry out accreditation activities that increase their awareness, national and international recognition. Universities aim to increase the quality of education by obtaining accreditation and to be more preferred institutions than other universities. It is an undoubted fact that some changes are necessary for quality management and accreditation to be carried out in universities. One of the most important internal stakeholders affected by these changes is academics. Because the accreditation process brings additional responsibilities to academicians, such as ensuring stakeholder participation, continuous improvement of activities, and documenting these improvements, in addition to their routine academic work. In this context, it is seen that the views and perspectives of academicians on the realization of accreditation have a critical effect. The fact that academics have negative opinions about the accreditation process may cause the process to be disrupted. In this context, the thesis aims to understand the perspectives of academics, one of the internal stakeholders of universities, about the process. The research was carried out by adopting a qualitative study design and the participants were determined by the snowball sampling technique, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods. In-depth interviews were conducted with the determined participants through semi-structured forms. Participants consist of 13 academic staff who take part in quality and accreditation processes at Afyon Kocatepe University. The data obtained from the interview recordings were completely converted into text and then content analysis was applied. As a result of the analysis, it was observed that the perceptions and awareness of the participants about quality management and accreditation processes were high. On the other hand, it has been revealed that some academicians do not sufficiently adopt and own the activities. While the participants thought that the activities carried out in the process caused additional work and time costs, they stated that it would not be a problem to bear these costs since they had high expectations for the outcome of the process. It is expected that the results of the research will create a foresight for higher education institutions that have just started the accreditation process and contribute to new research in this field.