Title: Exploring The Views of Filipino Teachers On The Dimensions of Academic Quality

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Title: EXPLORING THE VIEWS OF FILIPINO TEACHERS ON THE DIMENSIONS OF
ACADEMIC QUALITY
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Higher education institutions are implementing quality assurance
mechanisms to strengthen not only their services but also improve academic
quality standards in order to achieve its intended learning outcomes. With greater
pressure, the tertiary schools are being challenged to improve their standards to
have global competitiveness and ensure that their graduates can be effective in
their selected profession.
However, academic quality has been a common issue and one of the
most critical tasks facing every educational institution. Hence, several studies
reveal that many practices fail to theorize what quality means (Harvey & Newton,
2007; Deem et al., 2008). While quality-oriented practices have become more
frequently and intentionally pursued in new contexts among schools,
conceptualizations of quality have not advanced at the same rate (Harvey &
Newton, 2007). Even in developed countries such as Europe, the United
Kingdom, and Australia have demand more quality assurance measures and
expecting modification of their existing quality standards. One factor that has
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encouraged this transformation is the urge of increasing productivity through a
well-educated workforce (Harvey & Newton, 2007).
In order to address issues on quality, the school many schools even in
developed countries like US and Europe seek educational accreditation from
independent bodies based on the criteria for accreditation, and found out that
they have still something to improve in their standards (The Higher Learning
Commission, 2007). In order to deal with quality issues, the European countries
even joined forces to develop the standards and guidelines for quality assurance
in the European Higher Education (European Association for Quality Assurance
in Higher Education (EAQAHE), 2005).
In Southeast Asia, the release of ASEAN University Network Quality
Assurance Guidelines and Indicators (AUNQAI) echoed identical movements.
Thus, based on their assessment, most schools are not yet ready to compete
when it comes to academic quality when compared to western standards
(Umemiya, 2008). In the Philippines, the study of Philippine Institute for
Development Studies (PIDS) as cited by Gonzales (2012) noted that lower
spending on state-run colleges and universities have contributed to deterioration
in the quality of higher education. The PIDS reported that many higher education
institutions in the country have not met international, or even local, quality
standards. In 2007, the Philippines spent less than 10% of gross domestic
product per capita on higher education. This compares to Indonesia, which spent
20%, and Malaysia, which spent 50%.

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Over the past decade, Asian nations have developed their own quality
assurance system, by setting up a national accreditor whose principal role is to
accredit local tertiary education institutions and academic programs. Even before
the establishment of national accreditor, the local accreditors, including
professional accreditors, had emerged in Asian countries (Jung et al., 2011). In
order to ensure the quality of these quality assurance agencies, some nations
have developed a recognition system for them. Take the Philippines for example.
It has two recognition bodies certified by the Commission on Higher Education of
the Philippines (CHED). All accrediting agencies operate under the umbrella of
the National Network of Quality Assurance Agencies (NNQAA) and of the
Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines. However, there are no
specific standards for recognition.
Nevertheless, there is no clear idea of how to define the term quality as it
pertains to education, stakeholders seek and, pursue a quality education. A
commonly accepted definition of quality, as it specifically applies to higher
education is nonexistent (Tsinidou et al., 2010). On the other hand, Parri (2006)
asserted that a simple approach to quality assessment may be to describe
quality against specific quantifiable standards and to compare results with work
completed in an institution.
Moreover, there is a dearth of data that gives light on the teachers’ views
on academic quality in Higher Education Institutions. Furthermore, the academic
quality dimensions as viewed by Filipino teacher have not been explored, and
thus there’s no tool available to contextualize academic quality suited for Filipino
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teachers. With this scenarios, this study attempts to explore the dimensions on
academic quality as viewed by teachers in Private Higher Education Institutions
in Region 12. Hence, it can give contribution to the academic society as this
study will craft a reliable tool to measure academic quality suited for Filipino
norms.
Statement of the Problem
This study aimed to examine the underlying factor structure of academic
quality as viewed by teachers in private higher education institutions (HEI) in
Region 12. In particular, this study sought answers to the following questions:
1. What are the themes that emerged from the interview with teachers in
Private HEI regarding academic quality?
2. What are the underlying dimensions on academic quality as viewed by
teachers in Private HEI?
3. Do the underlying dimensions on academic quality exhibit a
parsimonious fit?
4. What is the reliability of the academic quality scale for Private Higher
Education Institutions?
5. Based on the results of analysis, what measurement tool is suitable for
the evaluation of academic quality?
Review of Related Literature

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This section presents the review of related research on academic quality.
It includes the concept and definition of academic quality as well as the findings
of the previous researches.
Academic Quality
Quality is an elusive concept (Green 1994). There are many books and
articles written to try to define the nature of quality; however, there is no general
agreement on the concept (DAAD 2010). An objective definition of quality does
not exist (DAAD 2010) even though we all may instinctively understand what it
means. This is because quality is often subjectively associated with certain
concepts and certain expectations held by individuals with regard to the
perception of what is good. As a result, quality seems to have many facets.
According to Stensaker (2007), quality in general can be defined as value,
conformance to specifications, and conformance to requirements, fitness for use,
loss avoidance, or meeting customer expectations. Because quality is multi-
faceted, over the last 15 years in higher education there have been a number of
contributions by researchers focusing on the difficulties of defining quality
(Harvey & William 2010). The most influential empirical study, often quoted in the
discussion on quality in higher education, was conducted by Harvey and Green
(1993). In this study, Harvey and Green explained the different concepts of
quality as perceived by different stakeholders in higher education. According to
them, stakeholders’ views on quality could be categorized based on five
definitions: quality as exceptional, quality as perfection, quality as fitness for
purpose, quality as value for money, and quality as transformation.

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According to Barrow (1991), quality in higher education is a high
evaluation accorded to an educative process, where it has been demonstrated
that, through the process, the students’ educational development has been
enhanced; not only have they achieved the particular objectives set for the
course but, in doing so, they have also fulfilled the general educational aims of
autonomy, of the ability to participate in reasoned discourse, of critical self-
evaluation, and of coming to a proper awareness of the ultimate contingency of
all thought and action.
Quality assurance and its vocabulary are very popular in higher education
policy in most countries all over the world. Universities and colleges now pay
more and more attention to adopting quality assurance mechanisms and systems
in order to ensure that their students are provided with education of high quality
and that their degrees and diplomas are widely recognized (Harman, 2000).
Such recognition is seen as important not only by the government but also by the
Universities and even by employers. There are many reasons given for the
adoption of quality assurance. Most importantly, all academics want to train
graduates with adequate knowledge and skills so that they can fulfill the
requirements of employers and meet the needs of society (DAAD, 2010).
Apart from that, quality assurance is also an important element for public
accountability, particularly for government, which expects to see education
activities with appropriate standards (Harman, 2000). Also, quality assurance can
provide students with useful information for their choice of universities or
educational courses among many other offers. And, more importantly, at

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institutional level, quality assurance can contribute to the improvement of both
teaching and administrative processes, which can lead to the improvement of
overall systems (Harman, 2000).
The concept of academic quality has long been explored by many
researchers. Nevertheless, the meaning of quality is not agreed on due to the
obscurity and extensiveness of quality as a concept (Liu, 2009). In other words,
quality is not a static, but a dynamic concept, over time, which is treated
differently depending on the current specifications and the particular objects
concerned (Anand, 1997; Ruşevieius & Makijovaite, 1998). Hence, it connotes a
variety of meanings and implies different things to different people.
According to Ali and Shastri (2010) quality is appropriateness for use or
purpose. Yildirim (2002) states quality as to be in degree of being convenient to
the purpose and in teacher education context defines as being convenient to the
standards particularly in teaching and instruction.
Furthermore, the academic quality is established through several teaching
methods such as teacher-centered, student-centered, and teacher-student
interactive method. The teacher-centered methods, under this method, students
simply obtain information from the teacher without building their engagement
level with the subject being taught (Boud & Feletti, 1999). The approach is least
practical, more theoretical and memorizing (Teo & Wong, 2000). It does not
apply activity based learning to encourage students to learn real life problems
based on applied knowledge. Since the teacher controls the transmission and
sharing of knowledge, the lecturer may attempt to maximize the delivery of

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information while minimizing time and effort. As a result, both interest and
understanding of students may get lost. To address such shortfalls, Zakaria, Chin
& Daud (2010) specified that teaching should not merely focus on dispensing
rules, definitions and procedures for students to memorize, but should also
actively engage students as primary participants.
In addition Student-Centered Method, With the advent of the concept of
discovery learning, many scholars today widely adopt more supple student-
centered methods to enhance active learning (Greitzer, 2002). Most teachers
today apply the student centered approach to promote interest, analytical
research, critical thinking and enjoyment among students (Hesson & Shad,
2007). The teaching method is regarded more effective since it does not
centralize the flow of knowledge from the lecturer to the student (Lindquist,
1995).The approach also motivates goal-orientated behavior among students,
hence the method is very effective in improving student achievement (Slavin,
1996).
Furthermore Teacher-Student Interactive Method This teaching method
applies the strategies used by both teacher-centered and student-centered
approaches. The subject information produced by the learners is remembered
better than the same information presented to the learners by the lecturer
(Jacoby, 1978; McDaniel, Friedman & Bourne, 1978; and Slamecka & Graf,
1978). The method encourages the students to search for relevant knowledge
rather than the lecturer monopolizing the transmission of information to the
learners. As such, research evidence on teaching approaches maintains that this

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teaching method is effective in improving students’ academic performance
(Damodharan & Rengarajan, 1999)
Quality Assurance Mechanism
One of the most prominent effects of the implementation of quality is that
the institution has to take the risk of changing the entire system, abandoning its
traditional procedures and spending unlimited amounts of time and resources on
the new system (Morgan & Murgatroyd 1993; Weller & Hartley 1994; Antony &
Preece, 2002). The faculty members may be alienated as their level of authority
and their methods of instruction must change, leading to low morale and also
lack of focus on the new system could lead to worse outcomes (Raelin 2003;
Antony & Preece 2002).
Quality has been a primary concern in African higher education since its
inception. Initially the approach to this was simply that of achieving equivalence
with European qualifications. However, as the focus shifts to the relevance of
higher education to changing African needs, universities and higher education
policy makers in Africa will need to evolve methods of quality assurance that are
based on fundamental principles of quality in relation to African needs rather than
on comparisons with programmes which are intended to serve other needs
elsewhere Furthermore, for a higher institution to be relevant in the academic
world or in society, it must have quality standards and must be well assessed
and accredited. Accreditation is an instrument used to guarantee the quality
threshold (Westerheijden & Empel, 2010).

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Accreditation is a widely used method in quality assurance in OECD
countries. In the United States, accreditation of both programmes and institutions
is the main quality assurance method (Eaton, 2004). Accreditation of
programmes is used on a regular basis by about half of the European quality
assurance agencies. This method is frequently used in German-speaking
countries, by the Dutch and also the Nordic and southern agencies. Accreditation
of institutions is done on a regular basis by 22% of the agencies in Europe, e.g.
by German and Austrian agencies and some in related countries. Accreditation
procedures can also focus on QAAs; for instance, one of the tasks of the German
Akkreditierungsrat is to accredit other agencies (ENQA 2003). US accrediting
organizations also undergo a periodic external review based on specific
standards; this process is known as recognition (Eaton 2004).
Reportedly, quality monitoring is frequently concerned with inputs, outputs
and systems, rather than processes and learning outcomes. It is argued that the
predominance of accountability means that quality monitoring focuses on aspects
that may have little to do with outcomes in teaching and learning (Cave et al.,
1990; Horsburgh, 1999). Similarly, Harvey and Newton (2004) report that most
impact studies have focused on the effect of quality monitoring on staff, on
internal procedures, or on management structures in HEIs. But it is far less clear
what impact quality assurance is having on student learning.
There are many evaluation models that view the organization as an entire
system with its programmes and functions in practice such as the Total Quality
Management System (TQM) and Balanced Score Card. However, most of these
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industry and business-based concepts of quality presents significant limitations in
the educational context. Educational practices such as the curriculum
components (e.g. instructional implementation, design, programme, students,
courses and faculty) need to be included in the overall quality assurance
structures (Birnbaum and Desthoels, 1999; Mizikaci, 2006). It is important to
identify and take into consideration these areas of teacher education quality. It is
also equally important that there is an established link between the training, the
competence of the graduates and ultimately, the achievement of the graduates’
students (Blanton et al., 2006).
In recent years, there has been a shift in paradigm from traditional
evaluation models of programmes to a systems approach to impact its
administration, teaching and research in Higher Education. Thus programme
quality assurance should be considered beyond a measurement tool towards a
systematic, scheduled and focused examination of the organization as a whole.
Vroeijenstijn’s (2001) general model is useful in showing how evaluation fits into
the quality framework of the institution while focusing on the programme. It is
appropriate to describe on the outset that programme evaluation, also known as
programme assessment or programme review are but a sub-set of the larger
debate about quality assurance in Higher Education.
Mizikaci (2006) proposed a model that suggests a systematic and
comprehensive quality approach viewing the organization as an entire system
with its programmes and functions in practice. The social system requires a
culture change in organizational culture (the values, norms, attitudes and role
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expectations); communications (quality of relationships between individual
members and among groups, reward structure, symbols of power etc.); and
behavioral patterns.
The instructional processes influence learning and assessments and bring
in the connections within curriculum and pedagogy. Key components of
Teaching, Learning and Assessment (TLA includes curriculum design and
delivery, teaching and learning environments, staff quality, instruction,
instructional resources and technology, assessment modes and delivery.
Fundamentally, the TLA strategy aims to assure that the initial teacher
preparation programmes have a rigorous curriculum to equip student teachers
with the values, skills and knowledge to be effective and competent in schools
and classrooms and at the same time provide theory-practice linkages to ensure
authentic learning (Chong et al., 2009).
The Academic Quality Assessment and Development (AQUAD) is an
external review process for assessing the core academic functions of each
department or program at the university, including teaching and learning;
research, professional, and creative activity; and public service and academic
outreach. Thus Learning is gaining an understanding out of a particular
experience. From the first time that the father taught his son in prehistoric era the
method of creating fire, education evolved along with changes in society.
As proven in history, civilizations prospered because of the incessant and
dynamic ways in which ideas and skills were passed through from one
generation to another. De Cadiz (2007) emphasized that in a primeval setting,

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quality of education is gauged according to how methodical or functional the
acquired skill was while in the classical period, the value of learning is
determined through its impact to the socio-cultural development of society. In
modern times, evaluation of learning became complex and global in scope and
its outcome is usually being equated with those in other countries as a means of
expressing the level of worth par excellence of the educational system.
Standards-based education is still the core idea guiding education policy
and education reform. Shepard et al (2010) provided that the intentions of
standards based education to focus greater attention on student learning, to
ensure the participation and success of all students, and to provide guidance for
educational improvement are in the best interest of the country. We know enough
to create a new generation of policies, tests, and curricula that will focus greater
attention on learning and will reduce the amount of effort spent preparing
students for tests that do not adequately reflect the conceptual goals of
instruction. Furthermore The world’s top universities achieve excellence,
prestige, brand name, and scientific credibility by meeting four essential
requirements: access to world-class research facilities, and concentration of
faculty talent, student talent, and financial resources.
The world’s top universities ensure these aforementioned four essential
requirements by: seeking a broad funding base (including tuition fees),
performance-based payment, a highly selective admission process, competition
in research funding, independence and focus (Galama, 2006). These
prerequisites were the ones lacking mostly among schools in developing and
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much more in underdeveloped countries. As a consequence, students found it
difficult to acquire the kind of knowledge and skills that would make them at par
in achievement with those in developed countries.
Related Studies on the Dimensions of Academic Quality
The literatures highlighted three core areas that well describe academic
quality, namely curriculum, facilities and instruction. Curriculum has been defined
in various ways from different perspectives. It has great number of definitions as
a subject matter, as an experience, as an outcome, and as a plan (Wiles, 1999).
Goodlad defines five layers and three levels of curriculum (cited in OECD, 1998).
According to him, five layers of curriculum are the ideal, formal, perceived,
operational, and experiential curriculum. The ideal curriculum is the one
developed by its developers. The formal curriculum is the officially approved one
and is to be adopted by institutions and teachers.
The perceived curriculum is the one with the teachers’ and parents’
subjective views on what should be taught. The operational curriculum and the
experiential curriculum are both related with what is going on in the class, but
prior deals with what is presented to the students, whereas, the latter focuses on
what the students actually experience. Moreover, all the behaviors to be
developed by the learner in any institution exist within the curriculum (Erden,
1998).
School facilities have the ability to play a powerful role in a student’s
academic success. Quality learning environments are not only healthier, but also
help students feel more safe, secure, and valued. As a result, self-esteem
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increases and students are more motivated to engage in the learning process.
Research indicates that the condition and design of school facilities measurably
impact test scores, attendance, and graduation rates (Reinisch, 2006).
According to Akande (1985), learning can occur through one’s interaction
with one’s environment. Environment here refers to facilities that are available to
facilitate students learning outcome. It includes books, audio-visual, software and
hardware of educational technology; so also, size of classroom, sitting position
and arrangement, availability of tables, chairs, chalkboards, shelves on which
instruments for practicals are arranged (Farrant, 1991 and Farombi, 1998).
Affirming the previous findings Branham (2004) revealed that students are less
likely to attend school and more likely to drop out of school when school facilities
have inadequate custodial services, need more structural repairs, and rely on
temporary structures.
Instructional quality conceptualizes learning as a self-determined,
constructive, and self-regulated process of conceptual growth, which is
supported or undermined by perceived learning conditions and shaped by a
dynamic interplay among personal, behavioral, and environmental factors
(Schunk and F. Pajares, 2009). Thus, a high level of instructional quality of
learning environments is seen as a prerequisite to enhanced learning outcomes
depending on students’ subjective perceptions, pre-knowledge, and internal
structures of cognitive processing (Cobb and Bowers, 1999).
Brennan and Shah (2000) argue that many case study authors reported
that more attention was given to the teaching function within the institution – to
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talking about teaching, to monitoring teaching, and by implication the teaching
act itself. However, it is suggested, some skeptics would argue that time devoted
to the monitoring of teaching is at the expense of time dedicated to teaching
itself.
Meanwhile, Watty (2003) suggests that the dimension of quality as
perfection can be removed, since higher education does not aim to produce
defect-free graduates. Lomas (2001) suggests that fitness for purpose and
transformation seem to be the two most appropriate definitions of quality,
according to small-scale research with a sample of senior managers in higher
education institutions
According to a case study on external quality evaluation in Chile (Silva et
al., 1997) outstanding improvements have occurred in the teaching environment.
These included curriculum reforms, higher standards in student assessment and
improvement of the assessment instruments, innovation in professional degree
programmes, implementation of upgrading programmes for instructors,
particularly in pedagogical aspects. Reportedly, further positive reactions have
occurred in the academic hiring and promotion system: including higher
standards for staff; more stimuli to publish in refereed journals and revision of
workloads. In contrast, Newton (2001) in his study of NewColl found that few
front-line academics thought that ‘improvements in quality for staff’ had been
made possible thanks to quality assurance mechanisms.
Quality has many dimensions, and on some dimensions the quality of a
thing may be good while on other dimensions it is not (Kalkwijk 1998).

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Accordingly, discussing the quality of a programme from a one-dimensional
viewpoint will be meaningless. All the dimensions of quality should be taken into
account when quality is discussed and judged. Given the different views and the
multi-dimensional notion of quality, quality in higher education often remains
undefined in operational terms (Westerheijden & Empel 2010). Therefore,
according to Green (1994), the best that can be achieved is to define as clearly
as possible the criteria that each stakeholder in higher education uses to judge
quality.
Naturally, defining the dimensions of quality in higher education is based
on the dimensions of service quality in other areas. Also, researchers agree that
there is no single dimension which can be applicable for all the service sectors
(Carman, 1990; Brown et al 1993; Cronin and Taylor, 1994). The study of
Parasuraman et al (1991) initially developed ten dimensions (research in 1985:
reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication,
credibility, security, understanding the customer, tangibles) and later reduced it
into five dimensions (research in 1988: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance, empathy).
Gronroos (1988) had identified six criteria of good perceived quality:
professionalism and skill, attitudes and behavior, access and "flexibility, reliability
and trustworthiness, recovery, reputation and credibility, and in paper in 1990 he
stated that the quality dimensions can be classified into three groups: technical
quality, functional quality and corporate image.

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According to Carney (1994) variables of college’s image are: student
qualification (academic), student qualities (personal), faculty-student interaction,
quality instruction (faculty), variety of courses, academic reputation, class size,
career preparation, athletic programs, student activities (social life), community
service, facilities and equipment, location, physical appearance (campus), on
campus residence, friendly, caring atmosphere, religious atmosphere, safe
campus, cost/financial aid.
Athiyaman (1997) used eight characteristics to examine university
education services: teaching students’ well, availability of staff for student
consultation, library services, computing facilities, recreational facilities, class
sizes, level and difficulty of subject content and student workload. Owlia and
Aspinwall (1996) recommended six dimensions as follows: tangibles,
competence, attitude, content, delivery and reliability.
Meanwhile, more recent literature emphasized other dimensions of
academic quality which focus on student’s outcomes. Lee et al (2000) explained
that the two of the total quality experience variables ‘overall impression of the
school’ and ‘overall impression of the education quality’ are the determinant
variables in predicting the overall satisfaction. Brooks (2005) recommended the
following criteria to assess a quality of a university: reputation, faculty research
productivity, and student educational experiences and outcomes which include
program characteristics, program effectiveness, student satisfaction, student
outcome. In the same way, Sangeeta et al (2004) noted five factors/constructs:
competence, attitude, content, delivery, reliability. In his empirical research,

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Hadikoemoro (2002) identified following five dimensions: academic services,
readiness and attentiveness, fair and impartial, tangible and general attitudes.
Theoretical Framework
This study is anchored on the proposition of Barett et al. (2006) that
educational quality has five dimensions, namely: effectiveness, efficiency,
equality, relevance and sustainability. The authors noted that effectiveness is
concerned with outputs of education and provides emphasis on the role of
education in development. Educational economists naturally tend to emphasize
the links between educational effectiveness and individual income or national
economic development (Psacharopoulos and Woodhall, 1985). On the other
hand, efficiency brings in considerations of the inputs required to meet those
outputs. These inputs may be measured in monetary or non-monetary terms but
whichever is used efficiency refers to the ratio of outputs to inputs. That is,
efficiency measures the extent to which we make best use of inputs to achieve
our educational goals.
Meanwhile, equality as a component of educational quality commonly
arises from a position that takes a “quality education‟ as a human right (Sayed
1997, UNESCO 2000). This in turn builds on the relationship of education to
development models based on human development and poverty reduction, social
cohesion, social diversity, peace, etc. (Michaelowa 2001; Chapman et al 1996).
A key element in the discussion of equality in education is the identification of
groups that are disadvantaged in terms of access and achievement. Although
certain groups can be identified as being commonly disadvantaged across a

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range of countries (eg. girls, the poorest, the disabled), it is important to analyse
each context and understand both the sources of disadvantage and their
complex interaction (e.g. between gender, ethnicity and social class) (UNESCO
2000; Watkins 2000). A tension between concerns over efficiency and equality
appear in the literature (Welch 2000), often in relation to the high costs of
bringing education to disadvantaged groups such as those in remote areas.
Moreover, the relevance dimension takes into consideration the purpose
of education. It includes subsistence, security, trust, livelihood, lifelong learning,
and sustainability (McDowell, 2002; Michaelowa, 2001; Akkari, 2005; Romano,
2002; Kagia, 2005). Finally, the last component of academic quality is
sustainability. This component essentially implies that all of our considerations in
relation to the other elements must bring in thoughts not just of the present but of
the future. The UN MDGs (UN, 2000) emphasize the need for sustainability in all
development options, but even what this might look like in broad terms remains
an area of debate. Its translation into educational systems and practice remains
even more in its infancy (UN, 2003).
Conceptual Framework
Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of the study. The framework
reveals the interrelationship of the six constructs, namely: effectiveness,
efficiency, equality, relevance and sustainability. Effectiveness is the capability of
producing a desired result or the ability to produce desired output.
Efficiency signifies a level of performance that describes a process that uses the
lowest amount of inputs to create the greatest amount of outputs. Equality

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refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities, and
sustainability refers to organization's ability to address current organizational
needs and to have the agility and strategic management to prepare successfully
for the future.

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Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Study
CHAPTER 2
METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the research design, research locale, respondents,
research instruments, data gathering procedure, and statistical tools to be used
in the study.
Research Design
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This study utilized the exploratory sequential mixed method. This design
starts with an initial phase of qualitative data collection and analysis followed by a
phase of quantitative data collection and analysis (Cresswell, 2003). Moreover,
the purpose of this design is to explore a phenomenon in which this is commonly
useful when developing a questionnaire (Plano Clark, 2005).
The qualitative data is suitable where variables have not yet been
identified or a theory not yet built (Morrow, 2007). It includes content analysis
which assumes that people have beliefs or opinions about something, and that
these can be reliably inferred from analysis of what they say (Wilkinson, 2004).
Therefore an aim of content analysis is to identify participants’ beliefs about
something. Content analysis involves categorizing what people have said into
collective and coherent groups of opinions; it can be very systematic. With this
design, the initial items based from the interviews of participants will be drafted
and categorized.
Meanwhile, the quantitative approach includes construct validity to
determine the factor structure of the construct or measures. Construct validity is
considered an overarching term to assess the measurement procedure used to
measure a given construct because it incorporates a number of other forms of
validity (i.e., content validity, convergent and divergent validity, and criterion
validity) that help in the assessment of such construct validity (Messick, 1989). It
is for this reason that construct validity is viewed as a process that you go
through to assess the validity of a measurement procedure, whilst a number of
other forms of validity are procedures (or tools) that you use to more
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practically assess whether the measurement procedure measures a given
construct (Wainer & Braun, 1988).
Research Locale
The study was conducted in Private Higher Education Institutions in
Region 12 and officially labelled as “SOCCSKSARGEN” (see Figure 1). The
name is an acronym that stands for the region’s four provinces (South Cotabato ,
Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani) and one of its cities (General Santos).
The region used to be called Central Mindanao. The regional center is
Koronadal located in the province of South Cotabato, and the center of
commerce, industry, transportation and the most populous city is General
Santos. Soccsksargen encompasses Cotabato City situated within the borders of
Maguindanao.
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Figure 1. Map of Region 12
Research Respondents
For the preliminary (qualitative) phase of the study, a total of 7 senior
teachers from higher education institutions were invited for in-depth interview.
The results of which were used to identify the emerging themes and as well as
the items to generate the questionnaire. The participants were determined using
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the snowball sampling technique. Snowball sampling is a nonprobability method
of survey sample selection that is commonly used to locate hidden populations.
This method relies on referrals from initially sampled respondents to other
persons believed to have the characteristic of interest (Johnson, 2014). In this
study, the informants who are senior teachers were purposely chosen so that the
information needed to attain the study goal will be achieved.
For the succeeding quantitative phase, the constructed survey
questionnaire from the qualitative interviews was disseminated to 400 teachers of
Private HEIs in Region XII. A purposive sampling technique was utilized in
selecting the school and the participants. This technique aims to achieve a
homogeneous sample whose units share the same characteristics or traits
(Cresswell, 2003). To attain homogeneity, the following criteria were set: should
be a full time teacher in the higher education institution, and at least have three
years tenure in the academe.
Research Instrument
In the qualitative phase, the researcher formulated an interview guide that
asked questions about their definition of academic quality. The interview provided
an insight into how a group of teachers thinks about academic quality, about the
range of opinion and ideas about academic quality, and the similarities and
variation that exists in their beliefs, their experiences, and practices at school.
Meanwhile, the items of the questionnaire were constructed based from
the frequency of occurrence as results of focus group discussions. The

27
construction of the tool from qualitative phase revealed the academic quality
scale. This tool was subjected to dimension reduction to look for the factors that
constitute the teachers’ conception on academic quality
On the other hand, five experts were invited to perform content validity of
the interview questions and check the suitability of the items that captured the
underlying dimensions on academic quality. The purpose is to ensure the
readability and comprehensibility of the questionnaire.
Data Gathering Procedure
Letters requesting to conduct the research study were sent to the school
presidents of private higher education institutions in Region 12. After the
approval was obtained, the researcher with the help of the representatives have
contacted the teachers of the target schools and request for the dates of data
gathering without disrupting classes and also to give enough time to facilitate the
giving of instruction in answering the questionnaire.
At the day of data collection, the respondents were requested to sign the
letter of consent which is specified in the instrument for their voluntary
participation of the study. Only those who signed the consent letter were
considered as part of this study. Respondents were assured that their responses
were kept confidential and that their names did not appear in any part of this
study. After the data were retrieved, encoding of the data with proper label was
carried out.
Statistical Tools
28
The notes that were obtained from in-depth interview were analyzed using
thematic analysis. This method emphasizes pinpointing, examining, and
recording patterns (or "themes") within data. Themes are patterns across data
sets that are important to the description of a phenomenon and are associated to
a specific research question (Boyatzis, 1998).
In quantitative data, the Factor analysis was used in this study. It
determined empirically how many constructs, or latent variables, or factors
underlie a set of items. Factor analysis is a multivariate analysis method which
aims to explain the correlation between a large set of variables (items) in terms of
an independent set of underlying factors. This statistical method can serve as an
important tool for validating the structure of instruments (Nunnally, 1978;
Carpenter, 2006) pointed out that factor analysis is not a simply defined statistical
method, but a broad category of methods for conceptualizing groupings of
variables that includes mathematical procedures for assigning variables to
certain groups. Hare et al. (1998) defined factor analysis as the name given to a
group of statistical techniques that can be used to analyze interrelationships
among a large number of variables and to explain these variables in terms of
their common underlying dimensions (factors). The approach involved
condensing the information contained in a number of original variables into a
smaller set of dimensions (factors) with a minimum loss of information.
The preliminary phase involved testing the data for suitability using KMO
(Kaiser-Meyer-Okin measure of sampling adequacy) which signal in advance
whether the sample size is large enough to reliably extract factors (Field, 2009)
29
and Bartlett’s Test which test for the over-all significance of the correlation within
a correlation matrix (Hare, 1998).
The next step involved the determination of dimensions of the unrotated
factors of the data by initial extraction using principal axis factoring of Exploratory
Factor Analysis (EFA). The first half of the data was utilized in this phase. Only
the variables or items that will appear on the matrix data that has a communality
value of .40 will be included. After which, it involved rotating the factors using
Promax rotation. Rotating the factors is done in order to simplify the factor
structure. It is in this phase which the numbers of dimension or factors are
determined using the Kaiser rule. Using this method, only the extracted factors
whose eigenvalues greater than or equal to 1 are retained. In addition, Cattel’s
scree plot criterion will be used in which eigenvalue of each factor is graphed.
The scree plot will further validate the number of extracted factors to be
retained. Eigenvalues are defined by factor loading coefficients (factor loadings).
These factor loadings are the correlation coefficients between the items or
variables presented in rows and the factors or dimensions presented in columns
which are labeled as Factor Rotation Matrix (Carpenter, 2006). This stage
answered the underlying latent dimensions on teachers conceptions on
academic quality scale. The obtained factors or dimensions were labeled
according to the common theme of the items clustered.
The fourth phase focused on verifying the factor structure of a set of
observed variable using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In this phase, the
second half of the respondents was used. CFA would allow the researcher to test
30
whether the obtained factor structure in EFA is the best fitting model or could still
be improved. Latent variables were allowed to correlate, but negative and high
correlations were properly checked. Additional within-factor error covariance was
not allowed. This phase answered whether the latent dimensions that were
derived in the first phase would exhibit a parsimonious fit. Moreover, several
statistical tools were also considered in making decisions on the best fitting
model such as Chi-square test, Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis Index
(TLI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and PCLOSE.
The last phase focused on testing the reliability of the obtained factor
structure and each item of the factors were subjected to inter-item correlation and
determination of the Cronbach’s alpha.
Ethical Considerations
General safeguards of the teacher respondents were taken into
consideration by informing them of the nature and purpose of the study. An
informed consent was made available as attached to the questionnaire survey
wherein participants were asked of their voluntary participation of this study.
In order to ensure that the study was conducted in an ethical manner, the
study was reviewed by the Ethical Research Committee of the University of
Immaculate Conception. Permission from appropriate authorities was sought to
ensure that the objective conduct of the study and that it followed the prescribed
parameters. In administering the survey questionnaires, the researcher ensured
that a full disclosure of the nature of the research explaining thoroughly and
31
properly the purpose and benefits of the study as well as the confidentiality of
their response. The respondents were also given a chance to ask questions
related to the study.
Moreover, the questionnaire that was used in the study does not contain
any degrading or unacceptable statement that could be offensive to the
respondents. Likewise, it will be designed purely to collect information related to
the study and no private questions were asked. Coding will be applied to protect
the identity of the respondents and the results of the study depend upon the
participants for them to decide whether the results would be known to other
groups of people. The manner of storage of data would be done in electronic
saving or sent it to my personal email so that it would not be lost and can be
retrieved anytime when badly needed for the benefit of the research
respondents. The researcher has stored and safeguards all answered
questionnaires in a secured steel cabinet or wooden cabinet with a padlock. The
data notebook and field notes will also be kept in a secured place to avoid
fabrication. The researcher made sure that formal permission from the respective
study sites is secured.
CHAPTER 3
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
This chapter deals with the presentation, analysis, and interpretation of
data. It includes the emerging themes of Filipino teacher’s views on academic
quality, construction of the tool, derivation of factor structure, and development of
the final version of the Academic Quality Scale.

32
Emerging Themes of Filipino Teacher’s Concepts on Academic Quality
There are three themes that emerge from in-depth interview with HEI
Faculty that put emphasis on community exposure, faculty competence, and
quality assurance mechanisms.
Towards community exposure. Many teachers believe that community
linkages provide a very important role for learner’s growth and at the same time
improve student’s experiences. In fact, many are devoted to establish community
partnerships so that they can provide off-campus exposure to their students and
implement programs related to the field. This community exposure is a way for
the students to improve further their skills related to their profession. The Faculty
explain these ideas as follows:
Academic Quality involves partnership with the community to

provide more students’ exposures related to their field. The
exposure can provide them experiences that can be used in
their field/course that they are enrolled in. The more relevant
community exposures, the more that they can best
experience the application of their selected career.
(P1)
Academic Quality can be attained based on how the institution

contributes to the community. It is a core responsibility of the
institution to serve the community aligned to the expertise or
programs offered. This is the reason why it is important to
exposed the students to off campus activities.
(P7)
Academic quality is when the College provides a venue for the students
develop their potential through experiential learning particularly in the
community. There’s a need to connect the curriculum beyond the
classroom and learn more through exposure and applications in the
community.
(P3)
33
The quotes below provide emphasis on the relevance of well-establish
community extension office and its role in establishing academic quality.
Moreover, most of the participants agree that being in the provincial region their
only way to enhance the skills of the students is through community exposure.
The Faculty explain these ideas as follows:
Being in the province where there are fewer opportunities for

the students to develop their experiences, we opt to let them
understand their field through community activities and apply
their skills and learnings based on the community needs.
(P6)
I am concerned about what will happen to the career of the

students if they don’t have actual exposure to the course that
they are studying. With this, we always encourage our CES
office to find linkages that can give exposure to our students.
(P2)
Our community extension office provides a very important role

particularly in collaboration with different stakeholders such as
businesses, government and non-government organizations. In
this way, we are able to send our students to different
organizations for on-the-job training.
(P4)
This result on the relevance of community exposure of students is
supported by Kolb (2005) that community exposures can provide experiential
learning to the students and promote development of knowledge, skills, and
cognitive capacities necessary for students to deal effectively with the complex
issues related to their course.
Towards Faculty competence. Most of the participants suggest that
academic quality can be achieved if there are qualified faculty who are experts in
their field. Many of them considered Faculty as the core component of the
34
academe that’s why hiring the best faculty is a must among higher education
institutions. Nevertheless, it is necessary to engage those teachers who have
great desire to teach. These views are presented by the quotes of the
participants as discussed below:
It is necessary to employ qualified and competent faculty to

ensure academic quality. As higher education institution, the
vertical alignment is very important to guarantee that they are
teaching based on their expertise.
(P2)
There’s a need to engage teachers who have the determination

and passion in teaching and select teachers with expertise in
the course content
(P4)
The human resource department must hire qualified and

competent teachers.
(P1)
Meanwhile, the participants acknowledge that in order to have a positive
student’s outcomes, the Faculty must have continued professional development
and training. They believed that institutions must provide a wide range of
services, opportunities, and resources to enhance the potential of the Faculty.
The participants believe that Faculty members need to be prepared enough by
through trainings and capacity building in order to deal with the rapid changes in
the educational system and new trends in education. The Faculty explain these
ideas as follows:
The school must provide Faculty development programs to

develop the teaching skills of the teachers and grow the key
areas of their expertise.
(P7)
35
There’s a need to train and develop their Faculty

(P3)
The findings imply that Faculty competence is considered as a factor of
academic quality. This is supported by Umbach and Wawrzynski (2005) that
Faculty expertise and qualifications are important quality measures in the
academe.
Towards quality assurance mechanisms. For some teachers, quality is
not only on the aspect of instruction but with the services that the school have
rendered to the clients. This quality services can be establish through quality
assurance mechanisms. Many believe that processes and procedures must be
establish to have a smooth flow operations both in academics, human resource,
and utilization of facilities, all for the purpose of client satisfaction. These are
presented in the narratives of participants below:
To ensure academic quality, there should feedback mechanisms to

improve services performance. Moreover, the a quality management
system shall be employed to ensure customer satisfaction (P5)
Academic quality can be established if the school provides complete

facilities in curricular and extra-curricular activities, and also continuously
put in place the support to students (P3)
In case of human resource process, the school needs to adopt competitive

selections and recruitment procedures to prospective instructors or
professors (P7)
Adopt accreditation and quality assurance certifications and put standard

mechanisms and processes in place (P4)
The result denotes that quality assurance mechanism provides a critical
role in students’ satisfaction. It involves processes and procedure that will make
36
operations easier and effective. This is congruent to the findings of Dill (2000)
that quality assurance focuses on those processes implemented by HEIs in order
to assure and improve the quality teaching and learning.
Construction of Academic Quality Scale
Based from the narratives of the participants, the Table 1 presents the
academic quality scale items which are selected based on their frequency of
occurrence from the responses in qualitative interviews. This 24-item
questionnaire was subjected to data reduction technique using the exploratory
factor analysis (EFA). Hence, the number of factors was fixed to three based on
the a priori qualitative analysis dimensions.
Table 1
Academic Quality Scale Items
ITEMS
1 Expose the students to off-campus activities
2 Establish linkages with the community
3 Have feedback mechanisms to improve services performance
4 Adopt accreditation and quality assurance certifications
5 Train and develop the Faculty
Improve student experience through off-campus exposure that are
6 related to their field
Adopt competitive selections and recruitment procedures to
7 prospective instructors or professors
8 Establish monitoring and evaluation of academic process
9 Employ educated and experience Faculty
10 Put standard mechanisms and processes in place
11 Have well established community extension office
12 Employ quality management systems leading to customer satisfaction
13 Promote good partnership with the community
14 Continuously put in place the support to students.
15 Hire experienced and seasoned faculty
16 Employ qualified and competent teachers
17 Ensure hands-on training of the students
37
18 Engage teachers who have passion to teach

19 Continually innovate the curriculum
20 Have teachers with expertise in the course content
21 Sustain quality of professional exposure and research.
22 Have complete facilities in curricular and extra-curricular activities
23 Prepare students for exposure to community extension activities
24 Establish outside linkages related to the program offerings
Preliminary Screening of the 24-item Construct. Initial result of three-
factor analysis is revealed in Table 2. The analysis suggest several issues on
face validity based on their factor loadings on the items “Establish outside
linkages related to the program offerings” and “Sustain quality of professional
exposure and research”, which fall on the dimension of quality assurance. Also
with the item “Continually innovates the curriculum” which is placed in the
category of faculty competence, and the items “Hire experienced and seasoned
faculty” and “Establish monitoring and evaluation of academic process” falls in
the community dimension. On the other hand, the item “Ensure hands-on training
of the students” have small coefficient less than .40.
Meanwhile, those items having face validity issues and low loading
coefficient are removed in the model. This is supported by Hair et al. (2010) that
those items having no sense and not reflective with the factor can be removed in
the model. Also, Hair et al. (2010) loading coefficient can be set by the
researcher to select only those items that best represents the factor, and those
low coefficient may not be included in the factor structure. Moreover, Field (2005)
stated that the suppression of loading less than .4 and ordering variables by
loading size will make interpretation easier because there’s no need to scan the
matrix to identify substantive loadings.

38
Table 2. Pattern matrix of 24-item Construct of Academic Quality
Factor
1 2 3
Have feedback mechanisms to improve services .858
performance
Have complete facilities in curricular and extra-curricular .786
activities
Employ quality management systems leading to customer .737
satisfaction
Adopt competitive selections and recruitment procedures .622
to prospective instructors or professors
Adopt accreditation and quality assurance certifications .600
Put standard mechanisms and processes in place .596
Establish outside linkages related to the program offerings .585
Sustain quality of professional exposure and research .549
Continuously put in place the support to students .476
Have teachers with expertise in the course content .855
Employ qualified and competent teachers .835
Engage teachers who have passion to teach .803
Employ educated and experience Faculty .784
Continually innovate the curriculum .725
Train and develop the Faculty .621
Establish linkages with the community .799
Improve student experience through off-campus exposure .777
that are
related to their field
Prepare students for exposure to community extension .621
activities
Expose the students to off-campus activities .608
Hire experienced and seasoned faculty .558
Have well established community extension office .530
Promote good partnership with the community .442
Establish monitoring and evaluation of academic process .438
Ensure hands-on training of the students <.40
After removal of items that are having issues, the construct is reduced into
18-item which was again tested using exploratory factor analysis. This test is
used to explore the underlying theoretical structure of the scale which is the
primary objective of this study. Moreover, De Coster (1998) emphasized that
EFA is used when a researcher wants to discover the number of factors
influencing variables and to analyze which variables “go together”. Hence, the
items were preliminary tested if it’s suitable for factor analysis as precondition in
factor analysis.
39
Dimensions of Academic Quality Scale
Testing of the 18-item Academic Quality Scale. To ensure that the
construct can be tested for factor analysis, the Kaiser Meyer-Olkin Measure
(KMO) of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were performed. It
can be gleaned in Table 3 that KMO value is .881 which is above the recommend
value of .5, which indicates that the sample is meritorious and adequate for
Factor analysis. Kaiser (1974) recommends accepting values greater than .5 are
acceptable. Furthermore, values .5 to .7 are mediocre, values between .7 and .8
are good, values between .8 and .9 are great and values above .9 are superb
(Kaiser, 1974)
Meanwhile the Bartlett’s test was performed to check if there is a certain
redundancy between the variables that we can summarize with a few numbers of
factors. The results revealed that the p-value is significant (p<.05) which
indicates that the data has patterned relationships, and factorability is assumed.
It is emphasized by Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) that the Bartlett's Test of
Sphericity should be significant for factor analysis to be suitable.
Table 3
KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .881

Approx. Chi-Square 2216.898
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Df 153
p-value .000
40
As shown in the preliminary analysis, it can be generalized that the 18-
item academic quality scale is suitable and adequate for extraction of factors,
and thus ready for factor analysis.
Derivation of the Number of Factor Structure. The derivation of factor
structure was determined through a priori results of qualitative data analysis
wherein there are three dimensions of academic quality. Hence, the three-factor
model exhibit clean patterns as shown in Table 4.
After which, the 18-item construct is then subjected for rotation. The
Promax rotation was used since the factors seem to be correlated with a
coefficient above .50 which reflects that the data is not assumed as orthogonal.
The Table 4 shows the pattern matrix using principal Axis Factoring with a
rotation method of Promax with Kaiser Normalization. It can be observed in the
results the loadings of items in the three factors are above .4. It can be supported
by Field (2005) that .4 is recommended and necessary to obtain the desired
factors. Furthermore, it can be observed that there is no item cross-loading or not
loading at all which means that the items best represent their factors. It is
emphasized by Hair et al. (1998) that loadings indicate the degree of
correspondence between the variable and the factor, with higher loadings making
the variable representative of the factor.
Table 4
Pattern Matrix Three-Factor Model
Factor
1 2 3
Employ qualified and competent teachers .861
Have teachers with expertise in the course .855
content
41
Employ educated and experience Faculty .822

Engage teachers who have passion to teach .771
Train and develop the Faculty .579
Have feedback mechanisms to improve .871
services performance
Have complete facilities in curricular and extra- .741
curricular activities
Employ quality management systems leading to .675
customer satisfaction
Put standard mechanisms and processes in .595
place
Adopt competitive selections and recruitment .578
procedures to prospective instructors or
professors
Adopt accreditation and quality assurance .578
certifications
Continuously put in place the support to .478
students
Establish linkages with the community .804
Improve student experience through off- .711
campus exposure that are related to their field
Prepare students for exposure to community .642
extension activities
Expose the students to off-campus activities .619
Have well established community extension .515
office
Promote good partnership with the community .473
The item loadings of each item to their factor indicate sufficient correlation
between factors and variables, and thus can be considered as component of the
factor. By using the EFA, the three-factor Model of academic quality with 18
items was developed as shown in Table 5, namely: community exposure, Faculty
competence, and quality assurance.
Table 5
18-item Academic Quality Scale
ITEMS
FACULTY COMPETENCE
42
2 Have teachers with expertise in the course content

QUALITY ASSURANCE
Employ quality management systems leading to customer
8 satisfaction
12 Continuously put in place the support to students
COMMUNITY EXPOSURE
Improve student experiences through off-campus exposure that are
15 Prepare students for exposure to community extension activities
16 Expose the students to off-campus activities
Confirmatory Testing. The 18-item construct was subjected for
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to ensure the final dimensions, representation
of items to its factor, and the goodness of fit of the 3-factor model. Since there
are items having cross-loadings with other dimensions, it was then removed in
the model to improve model fit. This is supported by Hair et al (1998) that
variables should relate more strongly to their own factor than to another factor.
Hence, it can be removed to address discriminant validity issues. After removing
those items that cross-load with another factor, the fit model of academic quality
is achieved. Figure 3 shows the best fit model of academic quality.

43
Figure 3. CFA Model of Academic Quality
It can be observed in the model that the retained indicators or items of the
first latent factor which is the faculty have sufficient factor loadings of items which
are above .60. The item loading magnitude accounts for significant unique
variance, and thus Fidell (2007) suggest using more stringent cut-offs going from
0.32 (poor), 0.45 (fair), 0.55 (good), 0.63 (very good) or 0.71 (excellent). These
include the following: Employ qualified and competent teachers (β=.66), Employ
44
educated and experience Faculty (β=.71), Engage teachers who have passion to
teach (β=.62), and train and develop their Faculty (β=.61).
The second latent factor which is the quality assurance also retained its
factors as can be gleaned in their factor loadings higher than .60. The items
retained in the factor are as follows: Have feedback mechanisms to improve
services performance (β=.66), Have complete facilities in curricular and extra-
curricular activities (β=.73), Adopt competitive selections and recruitment
procedures to prospective instructors or professors (β=.71), Adopt accreditation
and quality assurance certifications (β=.64), Put standard mechanisms and
processes in place (β=.75), and Continuously put in place the support to students
(β=.74).
Meanwhile, the third latent factor is the community. The lowest factor
loading is .55 in the item “Improve student experiences through off-campus
exposure that are related to their field” which is still considered “good” according
to Fidell (2007). Other items have reached a threshold of .60 which is considered
as “very good” based on Fidell (2007) cut-offs. These include: Establish linkages
with the community (β=.63), Have well established community extension office
(β=.60), and Promote good partnership with the community (β=.71).
The final factors of academic quality scale for Filipino educators elicit only
three dimensions as opposed to the nine factor model of Yarmohammadiana et
al. (2011).
Goodness of Fit of the Conceptual Model

45
The derived three factor model of academic quality scale was evaluated to
determine whether it exhibits parsimonious fit. As can be seen in the results in
Table 6, all model fit values have successfully met the criteria set by each index
(CMIN/DF < 3.0), (TLI, CFI, and GFI > .90), and RMSEA < 0.08 with a PCLOSE
> 0.05. This means that the model fits well with the data and therefore assert as
the best fit model of academic quality. This is supported by Arbuckle and Wothke
(1999) denoting that CMIN/DF should be less than 3.0, and Tucker-Lewis Index
(TLI) and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) should be close to 0.90. Moreover, the
RMSEA and PCLOSE values are supported by MacCallum, Browne and
Sugawara (1996) indicating 0.01, 0.05, and 0.08 as excellent, good, and
mediocre fit respectively, with P of close fit (PCLOSE) that is greater than 0.05.
Arbuckle (2009), posited that the CMIN/DF should be < 3.0 and the p-value
should be greater than 0.05. Moreover, MacCallum, Browne and Sugawara
(1996) have used RMSEA 0.01, 0.05, and 0.08 to indicate excellent, good, and
mediocre fit respectively. Furthermore, P of close fit (PCLOSE) should be greater
than 0.05 (Kenny, 2011) and the NFI, TLI, CFI, and GFI should exceed .90 to
indicate good fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999).
Table 6
Goodness of Fit of the three-factor model
INDEX CRITERION MODEL FIT VALUE
CMIN/DF <3 1.283

p-value >.05 .056
NFI > .90 .923
TLI > .90 .976
CFI > .90 .982
GFI > .90 .943
46
RMSEA < .08 .038

PCLOSE > .05 .814
Reliability Test of the Scale. The instrument was evaluated for reliability
to determine the internal consistency of items. It can be observed in the Table 7
that the overall reliability is high with a Cronbach’s alpha value of .895. The
subscale or dimension also is above the criteria of reliability above .70 alpha,
namely faculty (α=.744), quality assurance (α=.862), and community (α=.715).
This indicates that the tool has good internal consistency. This is supported by
Nunnally (1978) that instruments used in basic research should have reliability of
.70 or better.
Table 7
Reliability Analysis Academic Quality Scale
Scale Cronbach’s alpha

Faculty .744
Quality Assurance .862
Community .715
OVERALL .895
Final Version of Academic Quality Model. The final version of the
instrument, which is the output of this study, is presented in the form provided in
Table 8. This scale consists of 14 items. Specifically, a total of four items in
Faculty dimension, six items in quality assurance dimension, and four items in
community dimension. The 5 point Likert-scale from 5-strongly agree to 1-
strongly disagree is shown below.
Table 8
47
14-item Academic Quality Scale
ITEMS
FACULTY COMPETENCE
QUALITY ASSURANCE
10 Continuously put in place the support to students
COMMUNITY EXPOSURE
Improve student experiences through off-campus exposure that are
Legend:
5- Strongly Agree
4 – Agree
3 – Moderately Agree
2 – Disagree
1 – Strongly Disagree
CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
This chapter presents the summary of findings, conclusions, and
recommendations.
Summary of Findings
Based from the analysis, the following are the summary of findings:
48
1. Based from qualitative interviews, there are three themes that emerge that
put emphasis on faculty competence, quality assurance, and community
exposure.
2. The three underlying dimensions of academic quality model based from
exploratory factor analysis include faculty, quality assurance, and community.
3. The derived three factor model of teacher commitment scale exhibits
parsimonious fit as all model fit values have successfully met the criteria set
by each index (CMIN/DF < 3.0), (TLI, CFI, and GFI > .90), and RMSEA < 0.08
with a PCLOSE > 0.05. This means that the model fits well with the data and
therefore assert as the best fit model of academic quality.
4. The overall reliability is high with a Cronbach’s alpha value of .895. The
subscale or dimension are also above .70 which is the criteria of high
reliability, namely faculty (α=.744), quality assurance (α=.862), and
community (α=.715). This indicates that the tool has good internal
consistency.
Conclusion
In the light of the study, the following conclusions were drawn:
1. The emerging themes highlight how teachers conceived academic quality
which put emphasis on community exposure, quality assurance mechanism,
and faculty.
2. The results derived from factor analysis indicate that academic quality has
three factors that include faculty, quality assurance, and community.

49
3. The three-factor structure exhibit a parsimonious fit. This result supported the
multidimensionality of academic quality which is aligned to the previous
studies. Although, it has been reduced to three factors from the previous
literature, it can be noted that the samples are coming from Filipino norms.
4. The reliability of academic quality scale is high which provides evidences that
the items being measured are consistent in measuring the underlying factors.
It also indicates that as a tool for measuring academic quality, it captured the
characteristics based on the nature and norms of the respondents.
Recommendation
Based on the results of this study, the following recommendations were
enumerated:
1. One of the limitations of this study is the exclusivity of the respondents to one
Region in the Philippines. With this, it is suggested that research on other
regions will be ventured. Hence, increasing the population size can enhance
the generalizability of the scale.
2. The instrument may be utilized by other norms to further test its validity and
reliability.
50
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Title: Exploring The Views of Filipino Teachers On The Dimensions of Academic Quality

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Title: EXPLORING THE VIEWS OF FILIPINO TEACHERS ON THE DIMENSIONS OF

Background of the Study

Higher education institutions are implementing quality assurance

their selected profession.

frequently and intentionally pursued in new contexts among schools,

Newton, 2007). Even in developed countries such as Europe, the United

encouraged this transformation is the urge of increasing productivity through a

well-educated workforce (Harvey & Newton, 2007).

In order to address issues on quality, the school many schools even in

developed countries like US and Europe seek educational accreditation from

in the European Higher Education (European Association for Quality Assurance

in Higher Education (EAQAHE), 2005).

In Southeast Asia, the release of ASEAN University Network Quality

Assurance Guidelines and Indicators (AUNQAI) echoed identical movements.

when it comes to academic quality when compared to western standards

(Umemiya, 2008). In the Philippines, the study of Philippine Institute for

Development Studies (PIDS) as cited by Gonzales (2012) noted that lower

spending on state-run colleges and universities have contributed to deterioration

20%, and Malaysia, which spent 50%.

assurance system, by setting up a national accreditor whose principal role is to

the establishment of national accreditor, the local accreditors, including

professional accreditors, had emerged in Asian countries (Jung et al., 2011). In

It has two recognition bodies certified by the Commission on Higher Education of

the National Network of Quality Assurance Agencies (NNQAA) and of the

Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines. However, there are no

specific standards for recognition.

Nevertheless, there is no clear idea of how to define the term quality as it

pertains to education, stakeholders seek and, pursue a quality education. A

commonly accepted definition of quality, as it specifically applies to higher

asserted that a simple approach to quality assessment may be to describe

on academic quality in Higher Education Institutions. Furthermore, the academic

academic quality as viewed by teachers in Private Higher Education Institutions

Statement of the Problem

This study aimed to examine the underlying factor structure of academic

quality as viewed by teachers in private higher education institutions (HEI) in

Private HEI regarding academic quality?

2. What are the underlying dimensions on academic quality as viewed by

teachers in Private HEI?

3. Do the underlying dimensions on academic quality exhibit a

5. Based on the results of analysis, what measurement tool is suitable for

the evaluation of academic quality?

Review of Related Literature

This section presents the review of related research on academic quality.

of the previous researches.

agreement on the concept (DAAD 2010). An objective definition of quality does

means. This is because quality is often subjectively associated with certain

concepts and certain expectations held by individuals with regard to the

perception of what is good. As a result, quality seems to have many facets.

According to Stensaker (2007), quality in general can be defined as value,

conformance to specifications, and conformance to requirements, fitness for use,

loss avoidance, or meeting customer expectations. Because quality is multi-

contributions by researchers focusing on the difficulties of defining quality

discussion on quality in higher education, was conducted by Harvey and Green

quality as perceived by different stakeholders in higher education. According to

them, stakeholders’ views on quality could be categorized based on five

definitions: quality as exceptional, quality as perfection, quality as fitness for

purpose, quality as value for money, and quality as transformation.

According to Barrow (1991), quality in higher education is a high

evaluation accorded to an educative process, where it has been demonstrated

autonomy, of the ability to participate in reasoned discourse, of critical self-

evaluation, and of coming to a proper awareness of the ultimate contingency of

all thought and action.