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Shadows over accreditation in higher education: some quantitative evidence

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Abstract

Accreditation systems in higher education are widespread both in the USA and in Europe. However, numerous reservations have appeared in the literature about whether these systems can comprehend and represent the quality of university courses. This study sets out to contribute to this debate by discussing whether the results of the recent university teaching accreditation system in Italy are influenced by the characteristics of degree programmes, their performance, and the characteristics of incoming students. Whilst addressing this research question, this paper intends above all to give a methodological contribution by proposing an evidence-based approach that tackles the limits found in the literature in relation to university accreditation and quality assurance.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper and, in particular, editor Hugo Horta for his advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Martino Andreani

  2. Department of Human Sciences, Territory and Innovation, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Varese, Italy

    Daniel Russo

  3. Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Silvia Salini & Matteo Turri

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  1. Martino Andreani
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  2. Daniel Russo
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  4. Matteo Turri
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Correspondence to Matteo Turri.

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Andreani, M., Russo, D., Salini, S. et al. Shadows over accreditation in higher education: some quantitative evidence. High Educ 79, 691–709 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00432-1

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