SCALE A: COURSE STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

The discussions and questionnaire results for this scale fell broadly into two areas in relation to quality - course presentation and structure, and course content which includes the issues of relevance and student workload.

7.2.1 Course Presentation and Structure

All three groups of subjects consistently identified the same characteristics of a ' good' extramural course in terms of presentation and structure. However, it was also clear that not all courses met these criteria. This is an area where adhering to 'good practice' could result in enhancing students' perceptions of quality and also accrue other benefits to the faculty and the university by way of cost savings and increased effectiveness.

From the students' point of view, receiving materials that are coherently structured, well written with clearly stated aims and obj ectives and which are durable and easy to use, creates a positive impression, gets their study off to a good start and facilitates the learning process. This also helps to develop a positive image of the institution which is important in

students' overall perceptions of quality. This aspect of quality is part of what is variously defined as the dimension of tangibles (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry 1 985), physical quality (Lehtinen & Lehtinen, 1 982) and technical quality (Gronroos, 1 990).

For students, the course materials are central to the extramural experience and are the linchpin of the learning process. It was clear that they valued a high degree of structure and guidance in the learning process itself, low experience students feeling this more acutely than high experience students. This also came through on Scale C : Assessment, and confirmed the findings in the literature about the need for structure and guidance for adults learning at a distance (see for example Rowntree, 1 992; Morgan, 1 993).

For the institution, transferring good practice throughout the organisation can be a useful and effective strategy for improving quality (Barnes, 1 997; Wood, 1 996) and increasing efficiency and effectiveness. There are three main reasons for this. First, it reduces duplication of effort. Something that has been proven to be effective and valued does not need to be 'reinvented' by someone else. Second, it has the potential to reduce costs by reducing student complaints and the need to seek clarification. It can further lower costs by reducing the amount of rework and scrap that results from 'faulty' study materials. Third, it may result in increased levels of job satisfaction on the part of academic staff who may find it easier to produce good quality study guides and therefore feel that they are making better use of their time and that their job is more rewarding.

However, neither staff nor students favoured a standard format for all courses, suggesting an appreciation of the need to be able to individualise courses to suit particular circumstances. A standardised approach tends to make quality control easier and can facilitate branding, an important notion in developing customer loyalty and retaining customers (students). This is potentially more profitable to the university than continually dealing with new and relatively inexperienced students. This could well be an issue that the university needs to consider further.

The Centre for University Extramural Studies (CUES) provides some assistance to academic staff for materials preparation. An Administrative Handbook, which is also available on Massey University's World Wide Web page, provides information about the administrative aspects of planning and teaching extramural papers. There is some basic information about course presentation and structure in this. A template for a course handbook and study guide is available on disk from CUES . These approaches are generic and not tailored to the needs of the faculty or the particular course. However, academics may seek individual assistance from the two teaching consultants at CUES.

In order to get an estimate of staff knowledge of the availability of the Administrative Handbook on the Web and the template for a course handbook and study guide, an informal survey of teaching staff was conducted in the largest academic department in the faculty. Of the 48 questionnaires distributed there were 3 0 replies, giving a response rate of 63%. Seven staff members did not have access to the World Wide Web, five knew that the Administrative Handbook was available on the Web, and none knew about the template. This suggests that CUES may have a communication problem and that it needs to be more proactive in marketing these services to the academic community.

Consistent with the collegial culture of the university, it is common for academics to share good practice on an informal basis. This has particular value within faculties or colleges as different disciplines tend to employ different teaching and learning techniques. While laboratory work is frequently used in Science, it is rarely used in Business, whereas case study analysis is used frequently in Business but rarely in Science. Harnessing good practice within faculties and sharing it in more formal ways, for example in a Handbook of Good Practice, may be a positive way of enhancing effectiveness and has the potential to increase student perceptions of quality.

7.2.2 Course Content, Relevance and Student Workload

The results of the research indicated that there were differences in perception among the three groups in relation to course content, relevance and workload.

Whilst all groups of subjects attributed a high value to courses being intellectually challenging and developing students' critical thinking abilities, managers and staff valued these aspects more highly than students. Managers in particular stressed this as an essential aspect of learning and were the only group to relate quality to aspiring to excellence and developing independent learners. Students tended to prefer a practical approach and felt that courses should be skills based rather than knowledge based which reflected their vocational orientation to education (Gibbs, Morgan, & Taylor cited in Morgan, 1 993). Staff also had a sense of the importance of skills development, no doubt a reflection of the applied nature of Business as a discipline.

The question of relevance also produced some marked differences in perception. Students conceived of relevance as being something that they could learn from their study materials and apply immediately in their work situations. Staff viewed relevance in terms of the currency of material, i .e. being up-to-date and contemporary. They also felt that students should be able to apply it in their individual work situations.

Managers, however, tended to view relevance as the relationship of the material to the wider body of knowledge in the discipline and consequently students might not always be able to see the immediate relevance of what they were learning. They felt that making material too applied could compromise quality standards.

These perceptions echo Larnpikoski ' s ( 1 995) findings that students rate the benefits of a course of study to their work situations and career prospects more highly than managers and teachers. What is required in an applied faculty such as Business Studies, is an appropriate balance of theory and practice with every assistance given to students to apply the material.

Some students may have unrealistic expectations about how relevant courses will be to their immediate work situations. In order to enhance student perceptions of quality, it is important to set expectations at a realistic level. This can be achieved in various ways. In the first instance, information about the faculty's courses in handbooks and other marketing material, should state the relative balance between theory and practice. Second, course aims and obj ectives should make explicit the balance of theory and practice in a course and show how students will be encouraged to apply the material. This may be through assignments and exercises. In addition, the relevance of material, particularly some theoretical material, to the wider body of knowledge in a discipline should be clearly explained. The course writer may need to help students to make appropriate links to other learning and study material and to see how aspects of the course relate to the wider discipline, as this is an important part of a university education.

All participant groups agreed that the subjects taught in the Business Studies Faculty were subject to rapid change. These were often legal changes such as in Business Law, Accounting and Finance, or changes in practice and methods as is common in Management, Marketing and Human Resource Management. Therefore, as one student said, "having the same extramural course material year after year is a bad idea." The implication from this is that the university must have production systems that are capable of making the rapid responses necessary in disciplines where vocational and professional relevance are so important. Thus an industrialised approach with the expectation of a long shelf life for courses is counterproductive to meeting market needs. The Post-Fordist approach (Raggett, 1 993) which is flexible, responsive and focused on meeting customer needs is appropriate for an applied faculty such as Business Studies. Furthermore, given the nature of the client group, any attempts to further industrialise the extramural production process may be detrimental to the faculty's well-being.

Another area where there were differences in perception was student workload. It was obvious that both students and managers felt that the expected workload in some courses was unrealistic. Students also perceived the inconsistency in the expected amount of

reading across papers as unfair. Staff tended to focus on the importance of including a range of additional readings in courses to complement the set text rather than looking at the overall quantity of reading required. If deep rather than surface learning (Chambers, 1 992) is to be encouraged, this issue may need to be addressed as an excessive workload is related to a surface approach.

CUES has set a general printing limit of 1 000 pages for a study guide. There are also some guidelines for an appropriate number of pages for study guides which are considerably lower than this. What is needed is a policy, either for the faculty or the university, which links a maximum number of pages to the different points value of papers. This would mean that a 1 2.5 point paper could have a maximum of a certain number of pages. For a 25 point paper the maximum would be higher. Whether or not a course used a text book should also be taken into account when calculating the page limits. This does not imply that reducing the size of some courses will necessarily improve their quality but it may encourage better learning. It would also encourage more consistency across papers and help diminish the feeling that some students have about being unfairly treated in terms of expected reading load.

An additional benefit of this relates to institutional costs. Reducing the size of courses reduces the costs of printing and dispatching them to students.