Abstract
This paper describes a recent effort to infuse the Total Quality Improvement (TQI) approach, popularized by Deming and others, into an upper-division, junior-senior economics course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The process of infusing TQI into instruction has received relatively little attention. Most efforts to bring TQI into higher education focus on improving administrative operations and establishing courses and programs for students to learn how to apply TQI in their future jobs. The challenge is in using TQI to help students realize their potential for learning in traditional courses.
The TQI instruction approach developed for use in the course had three major elements. Customer Focus is represented by the proficiencies emphasized in the course and expected of graduating economics majors. Student Involvement is represented by team-centered research projects whose purpose is to enhance the proficiency of creating new knowledge. Continuous Improvement is represented by ongoing student evaluations of the course and instructor, carried out by a student team.
After discussing the motivation for adopting this approach and the independent development of the concept of proficiencies in the economics major, the paper moves on to discuss the planning, implementation, and execution of the course. Particular attention is given to discussing the operation of the teams and the development of a multi-faceted ongoing evaluation process to assess the effectiveness of the TQI Instructional Approach.
The evaluation results indicate strong student satisfaction with the TQI orientation of the course, while at the same time pointing out ways of improving what was done.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bawden, D. Lee and Skidmore, Felicity (eds.) (1989).Rethinking Employment Policy. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press.
Beveridge, William I.B. (1950).The Art of Scientific Investigation. New York: Norton.
Bowen, Howard R. (1977).Investment in Learning: The Individual and Social Value of American Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.
Brassard, Michael (1989).The Memory Jogger Plus+: Featuring the Seven Management and Planning Tools. Methuen, MA: GOAL/QPC.
Burtless, Gary (ed.) (1990).A Future of Lousy Jobs: The Changing Structure of U.S. Wages. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
Deming, W. Edwards (1986).Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
Ehrenberg, Ronald G. and Smith, Robert S. (1991).Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company (4th edition).
Finster, Mark P. (1991). ‘The Quality Revolution at a School of Business’,ASQC Quality Congress Transactions. Milwaukee, WI.
Freeman, Richard (1976).The Overeducated American. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Hansen, W. Lee and Kelley, Allen C. (1973). ‘The political economy of course evaluations’,Journal of Economic Education. 5, 10–21.
Hansen, W. Lee (1986). ‘What knowledge is most worth knowing — for economics majors’,American Economic Review. 76, 149–152.
Hansen, W. Lee (1988). ‘“Real” books and textbooks’,Journal of Economic Education. 19, 271–274.
Hansen, W. Lee (1993). ‘Teaching a “writing intensive” course in economics: an evaluation’,Journal of Economic Education. Forthcoming.
Hau, Ian (1991).Teaching Quality Improvement by Quality Improvements in Teaching. Madison, WI: Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement, College of Engineering Report No. 59, February.
Imai, Masaaki (1986).Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Kaufman, Bruce E. (1989).The Economics of Labor Markets and Industrial Relations. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden (2nd edition).
Keller, George (1983).Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in American Higher Education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Leonard, George (1986).Education and Ecstacy. New York: Dell Publishing Co.
Light, Richard J. (1990).The Harvard Assessment Seminars, First Report. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government.
Light, Richard J. (1991).The Harvard Assessment Seminars, Second Report. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government.
Miller, Richard I. (ed.) (1991).Applying the Deming Method to Higher Education. Washington, DC: College and University Personnel Association.
Pirsig, Robert M. (1974).Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Scholtes, Peter R. (1988).The Team Handbook: How to Improve Quality with Teams. Madison, WI: Joiner Associates.
Sherr, Lawrence A. and Deborah J. Teeter (1991).Total Quality Management in Higher Education, New Directions in Institutional Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.
Siegfried, John J., Bartlet, Robin L., Hansen, W. Lee, Kelley, Allen C., McCloskey, Donald N., and Tietenburg, Thomas H. (1991) ‘The Economics Major in Liberal Arts Education’, in Schneider, Carol G. (ed.),Liberal Learning and the Arts and Sciences Major, Vol. 2. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges. For an abbreviated version (1991), see ‘The economics major: can and should we do better than B-?’American Economic Review.
Stampen, Jacob O. (1987). ‘Improving the quality of education: W. Edwards Deming and effective schools’,Contemporary Education Review. 3, 423–433.
Spanbauer, Stanley J. (1992).A Quality System of Education. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press.TQ Magazine, 1992.
Walton, Mary (1990).The Deming Management Method. New York, NY: Putnam.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The author is grateful to Jacob O. Stampen and Mark Finster for helping him learn about TQI, and to Ian Hau whose seminar stimulated this effort to infuse TQI into the classroom. Helpful comments on a draft of this paper came from Jacob O. Stampen, Maury J. Cotter, Charles A. Liedtke, Paul Weiss, and Michael L. Williamson. Special thanks for generating much of the underlying data go to the Evaluation Team of Kevin Brumm, Kimberly Klatt, and John Kittilstad, and to the Proficiency Team of Evan Anderson, Deana Lynn Grobe, and Tom Yale. Ilona Loser and Kris Feggestad assisted in assembling the results of the surveys. Suzanne Vinmans handled the typing, Vicki Szypulski made the visuals, and Elaine Moran provided helpful editorial suggestions. Laura A. Guy, Data and Program Library Service, facilitated access to the Current Population Survey tape used by several teams, and Kurt Neuwirth, Social Science Microcomputer Laboratory, created a user-friendly approach to the Current Population Survey data.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hansen, W.L. Bringing Total Quality Improvement into the college classroom. High Educ 25, 259–279 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01383854
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01383854