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Do academic disciplines matter? An analysis of organizational responses to the accreditation of graduate programs by field of study and sector

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Abstract

Accreditation in higher education has become omnipresent and, on many occasions, has been used as a synonym for quality assurance. The establishment of accreditation agencies as a worldwide phenomenon, however, is relatively recent in the history of higher education. Through a predominantly qualitative approach, this paper aims to analyze how programs from different academic disciplines perform in terms of the accreditation of graduate programs in Argentina and how different programs respond to the same accreditation process. Additionally, it analyzes the performance of private sector programs. As expected, academic disciplines play a vital role in the accreditation process, programmatic performance, and responses to this quality assurance mechanism while sector may not play a vital role. Surprisingly, soft pure programs perform better than both hard and soft applied programs. The results highlight the importance of considering both the paradigm (hard or soft) and level application (pure or applied) when analyzing the role of academic disciplines in higher education studies.

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Notes

  1. This section provides a brief overview of the accreditation system in Argentina. For further details on the history and features of the accreditation agency and the overall accreditation process, refer to Salto (2014, 2018a, 2018b).

  2. Private–public comparisons (e.g., Levy, 2011; Rabossi, 2011) have systematically shown differences in organizational features (e.g., governance) that may imply differences in the behavior of higher education institutions depending on the sector.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments that greatly contributed to improving the final version of the article. All views expressed in this article are those of the author.

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Research for this article was made possible by financial support from the University at Albany, State University of New York, Fulbright Commission, and the Organization of American States.

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  1. Department of Administrative Leadership, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Dante J. Salto

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Salto, D.J. Do academic disciplines matter? An analysis of organizational responses to the accreditation of graduate programs by field of study and sector. High Educ 84, 569–587 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00789-2

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