German and Saudi Arabian higher education accreditation systems. New-institutionalist perspectives and vertical case studies

Abstract

Abstract

The current research is classified as an international comparative educational study. The research’s central concern is providing a better understanding for the spreading worldwide quality assurance and accreditation practices in higher education sectors. Through the lens of new-institutional theory, this study aims to illustrate the agendas behind their adoption and how these practices were integrated and implemented in higher education institutions. German and Saudi Arabian higher education institutions represent cases in which this phenomenon can be analyzed to provide explanations for its expansion and application worldwide. This research investigates the reasons behind the adoption of quality assurance and accreditation practices in both countries and the ways in which these educational reforms are implemented, as well as how to explain the differences between these two cases in this regard. The first part of this research identifies the local systems of quality assurance and accreditation of higher education in Germany and Saudi Arabia. In its second part, the applied study, this research includes two vertical case studies of the literature and policy documents of German and Saudi higher education systems regarding application of these procedures as well as expert interviews from these countries. The research found that the different relationships and events at each level of the quality assurance and accreditation phenomena (macro-meso-micro) and in the different directions of the two case studies (transversal-vertical-horizontal) contributed to creating the changes and reforms in both higher education systems. The research provided a significant degree of evidence-based understanding from the two cases relating to the different aspects of the research’s theory perspectives, i.e., the new-institutional perspectives. The place of the phenomena and its contributions in dissemination, the role of international organizations in this reform, the effect of seeking international legitimacy in encouraging the local change, and the different policy makers’ resources affect the national reforms in Germany and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the different local meanings of this global phenomenon in Germany and Saudi Arabia are affected by the respective context’s culture, norms, and political structures.