A third way for QA systems? Navigating external quality demands and meaningfulness for teachers and students

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to account for and measure quality for external stakeholders while providing meaningful tools for quality improvement to their own members. We apply Dreyfus’ model of skill acquisition in a case study of VIA University College (Denmark) to analyze HEIs’ quality assurance (QA) capacity and development and the challenges HEIs face when navigating between demands of external accountability, societal responsibility and internal meaningfulness whilst trying to meet competing quality conceptualizations. Furthermore, we discuss challenges in improving HEIs’ QA systems and how HEIs can tackle these challenges in pursuing a third way for QA systems.