posted on 2011-02-03, 11:48authored byJohn R. Calvert
Increasingly Institutions in Higher Education are being required to
justify themselves. In the absence of agreed objectives, this is
difficult. The Author proceeds by representing the objectives of
an institution by the mix of activities it chooses to involve itself
in. Each activity is examined in turn and the problems of measurement
of inputs and outputs for that activity are identified. The point is
made that measures of performance implicitly relate to some concept
of the process that turns inputs into outputs. The Author, therefore,
discusses the various suggestions that have been made. There are few
acceptable measures of overall performance and so the Author suggests
the use of a profile of performance or an input-output list instead.
The thesis draws on the research carried out by the Author (with
others) in the area and discusses in detail two approaches; variance
analysis and the efficiency frontier, which it is suggested are
fruitful areas for further research.