Improving Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Can Learning Theory Add Value to Quality Reviews?

This work emerged from D'andrea's participation in an European think-tank style seminar entitled "Dynamics and Effects of Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Various Perspectives of Quality and Performance at Various Levels" sponsored by the European Consortium Hedda, and CIPES, the Portuguese Research Centre for Higher Education Policy. D'andrea's contribution was published as this chapter in a book intended for European higher education policy makers.

The approach taken was to apply directly five aggregate categories of learning theory to specific examples of quality assurance and quality enhancement activities in higher education. The key outcome of this process was to identify those theories that had the greatest explanatory power for supporting quality assurance and enhancement policies. It also further advanced my own work on ‘quality development’, a term which I originated.