Do academic disciplines matter? An analysis of organizational responses to the accreditation of graduate programs by field of study and sector

Accreditation in higher education has become omnipresent and, on many occasions, has been used as a synonym for quality assurance. The establishment of accreditation agencies as a worldwide phenomenon, however, is relatively recent in the history of higher education. Through a predominantly qualitat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Higher education 2022-09, Vol.84 (3), p.569-587
Main Author: Salto, Dante J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic disciplines
Accreditation
Accreditation (Education)
Accreditation (Institutions)
Argentina
Certification
Education
Evaluation
Foreign Countries
Graduate studies
Graduate Study
Graduate work
Higher Education
Intellectual Disciplines
Licensing, certification and accreditation
Private Sector
Quality
Quality Assurance
Quality control
Universities and colleges
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Summary:Accreditation in higher education has become omnipresent and, on many occasions, has been used as a synonym for quality assurance. The establishment of accreditation agencies as a worldwide phenomenon, however, is relatively recent in the history of higher education. Through a predominantly qualitative approach, this paper aims to analyze how programs from different academic disciplines perform in terms of the accreditation of graduate programs in Argentina and how different programs respond to the same accreditation process. Additionally, it analyzes the performance of private sector programs. As expected, academic disciplines play a vital role in the accreditation process, programmatic performance, and responses to this quality assurance mechanism while sector may not play a vital role. Surprisingly, soft pure programs perform better than both hard and soft applied programs. The results highlight the importance of considering both the paradigm (hard or soft) and level application (pure or applied) when analyzing the role of academic disciplines in higher education studies.
ISSN:0018-1560
1573-174X
DOI:10.1007/s10734-021-00789-2