TQM-based self-assessment in educational organizations : help or hindrance?

Abstract: This thesis comprises research of TQM-based self-assessment at organizational level within Swedish educational organizations. Here TQM (Total Quality Management) refers to a management system consisting of core values, methodologies and tools that support each other. The research has been made by studies of three projects, in where organizations giving advanced vocational education (kvalificerad yrkesutbildning), adult education initiative (kunskapslyftet) or upper secondary school education respectively, have used self-assessment. The results indicate that TQM-based self-assessment might be a fruitful way to stimulate quality improvements in educational organizations, but hindrances are observed. The TQM-values seems to be useful, but usage of the word customer has been a hindrance to a lot of participants. The methodology self-assessment seems to be reasonable to use within educational organizations, but hindrances due to time resources have been found. Experiences from usage of the tools ‘Läroverket’ and ‘Lärostegen’ are partly connected to the mentioned results about the values and methodologies; the word customer is criticised and there is a clear need of less comprehensive tools. Other results are the development of the tools ‘Läroverket’ and ‘Lärostegen’, and a proposal of components of the planning phase within self-assessment and a proposed structure for the last phase (improvement planning) are presented.