Alex Radloffa’s scientific contributions

Universities are increasingly focusing attention on the quality agenda and its impact on their standing and success. Institutional responses to enhancing and assuring the quality of learning and teaching and the overall student learning experience typically focus on developing plans and policies, implementing systems, creating organisational structures and roles, and devising special initiatives. As AUQA Audit report commendation and recommendations show, the effectiveness of these responses varies across the sector. A number of factors may impact on the success or otherwise of these approaches. Drawing on our experiences and the literature on learning and teaching in Higher Education and on change management, we suggest that a crucial factor often overlooked is the values and beliefs that academic staff have about quality and the impact of these on their engagement with institutional efforts to respond to the quality agenda. Addressing this oversight has important implications for maximising institutional efforts aimed at quality learning and teaching. change. 1. Background The quality of learning and teaching is now being taken seriously across the Higher Education sector both nationally and internationally. The key drivers for this increased focus include a growth in student numbers and a more diverse student body, a view of the student as customer, a rise in internationalisation and global competition, a reduction in government funding, and an increased demand for accountability (Harvey, 2006; Marginson, 2006). In addition, universities have recognised the importance of improving and evidencing quality for both institutional reputation and standing as well as for long-term sustainability. There are many ways in which universities, both in Australia and internationally, have responded to the quality agenda in order to demonstrate their commitment to quality enhancement and assurance of learning and teaching. For example, universities have developed learning and teaching strategies (Gosling, 2004; Newton, 2003); introduced performance review and student feedback systems (Anderson, 2006), created special roles to support learning and teaching such as Associate Deans,