Elsiana Guido

Percepción del impacto de la aplicación de mecanismos de aseguramiento de la calidad en la Educación Superior en Costa Rica: proyecto Alfa-CINDA-Universidad de Costa Rica / Perceived impact of quality assurance mechanisms on costa-rican higher...

The article presents actions carried out in Costa Rica, in the frame of the project Alfa Nro. DCl-ALA 2008/42: Quality assurance: public policies and management in universities. This project is funded by the European Commission and its general coordination is in charge of the Inter-university Center for Development (CINDA), in Chile. The Costa-Rican component has been coordinated and carried out by the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) since 2009. Sixteen Latin-American and seven European universities are participating in this project. Its general objective is to improve the quality management of higher education both on the national level, and on the individual level of each institution, as well as to generate acquaintances and mutual trust among Latin- American and European countries regarding the quality of their higher education. As a part of the activities of the project, 7 studies were made in 5 Latin-American and 2 European countries to evaluate the impact of the quality assurance processes that have been implemented in their universities. In Costa Rica, the study considered two state universities and two private ones. There, 26 interviews and 8 group sessions were carried out from October 2010 to May 2011 with the populations of interest for the study. Additionally, 652 active students and graduates from accredited careers of the selected universities were interviewed. A summary of the main results from the qualitative and quantitative interviews made in Costa Rica, are presented in this article