Faculty Perspectives on Independent Accreditation of Pedagogical Programs in Kyrgyzstan

FACULTY PERSPECTIVES ON INDEPENDENT ACCREDITATION OF PEDAGOGICAL PROGRAMS IN KYRGYZSTAN

A dissertation submitted to the Kent State University College of Education, Health, and Human Services in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Chynarkul Ryskulova

May 2019

ii A dissertation written by

Chynarkul Ryskulova

Specialist of Philology, Interpreter, Teacher of English, Kyrgyz State University, 1982

Candidate of Philological Sciences (Ph.D.), Kyrgyz-Russian Slavonic University, 2009

Approved by

______, Director, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Martha C. Merrill

______, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Mark Kretovics

______, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Linda F. Robertson

Accepted by

______, Director, School of Foundations, Leadership Kimberly S. Schimmel and Administration

______, Dean, College of Education, Health and Human Service James C. Hannon

iii

RYSKULOVA, CHYNARKUL S., Ph.D., May 2019 Higher Education

Administration

FACULTY PERSPECTIVES ON INDEPENDENT ACCREDITATION OF PEDAGOGICAL PROGRAMS IN KYRGYZSTAN (210 pp.)

Director of Dissertation: Martha C. Merrill, Ph.D.

Kyrgyzstan shifted from the Soviet state attestation system to independent accreditation of academic programs to assure the public about the quality of higher education in fall 2016.

The purpose of this interpretative qualitative study was to explore faculty perspectives on new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs at three public universities in Kyrgyzstan. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with sixteen faculty, participant observation and review of Government regulations on the new accreditation system, accreditation standards, policies and procedures. Schlossberg’s

Transition Theory (Schlossberg et al., 1995) guided the study in understanding the distinct experiences of faculty with the new program accreditation process conducted by the independent accreditation agency EdNet. The data analysis identified various factors that impact faculty attitudes towards the independent accreditation. The findings showed how the faculty professional lives changed as a result of multiple transitions related to the

Bologna Process reforms in higher education. Faculty expressed both positive and negative attitudes towards the new independent accreditation. Some faculty found the new accreditation system as an opportunity for quality improvement and professional

development; others considered it to be a challenge that would not promote the quality of education.

The study provides valuable insights on the new accreditation system that will help both the Ministry of Education and Sciences and the accreditation agency EdNet to review the accreditation regulations, standards and procedures for further quality improvement of higher education programs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my professors at Kent State University, my adviser, dissertation committee chair and members, my fellow students, friends and my family who helped make it possible for me to undertake and complete my Ph.D.

I am very grateful to Dr. Merrill, who was my academic adviser, mentor, leader and best friend throughout the Ph.D. program. Dr. Merrill and I have known each other since 1998 when she became Vice President of American University of Central Asia. It was her who encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at

Kent State University. She continues to support me and my daughter in every way, for which I am eternally grateful. Your advice and long comments in ‘blue’ on my papers were the best way to learn from you. Those later changed into ‘red’ in my dissertation drafts, which were the best guidelines to improve and complete my dissertation thesis.

Your patience and responsiveness to my complaints and myriad of questions has and will always amaze me. You are the kind of adviser and mentor that every graduate student wishes to have.

I would like to thank the dissertation committee members: Dr. Kretovics and Dr.

Robertson for their time, advice, and constructive feedback. Thank you for your constant support outside of classroom. It is an honor to have you on the board.

Thank you to my friends and fellow students. Thank you to Sharon Bailey,

Carolyn Schlemmer and Lola Raimbekova for proof reading my early drafts. A big thank you goes to Gyorgyi Mihalyi-Jewell for helping me format the dissertation thesis. Thank

you to Shakhnoza Yakubova, Ilfa Zhulamanova, Kevin Spence, Jessica Jewell, Judy

Lightner and Mayagul Satlykgylyjova for sharing resources, supporting me and keeping me motivated to finish my dissertation.

I would also like to thank my family. Thank you to my mother, Sakatai Asanbai kyzy, who at the age of 82 managed to save 50 000 soms (about $700) from her monthly pension of 4600 soms (less than $100) to support my education in the USA. I am grateful for my daughter, Eldana, who was my motivator and moral support on a daily basis in our life far from home. She was the one who proof read and edited my papers, and encouraged me to persist.

Thank you to my extended family: especially, my sister Tynarkul and her daughter, Aidana, my brother, Turusbek, my niece, Gulnura and nephew, Amantur for believing in my academic success and their encouragement.

I am also very grateful for the opportunity to have received the International

Peace Scholarship and for the support of P.E.O. Chapter members. I would especially like to thank Janet Mather from Hudson Chapter ET and Deb Saito from Kent Chapter

DG for supporting me throughout my Ph.D. journey. I learned a lot from these women and understand how much people can do to each other to make life better.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to my father, Sheishe Ryskulov; to my mother, Sakatai

Asanbai kyzy; and to my daughter, Eldana Ryskulova. My parents played a special role in my educational journey. Because of their wisdom, I was able to value education and respect educators since my childhood.

Originally, I am from a traditional Kyrgyz family with 10 children. My parents viewed education as a powerful tool to get rid of the hardships of the rural life and poverty, which is why they created conditions for all of their children to get education with their limited resources. My father had only 7 grades of secondary education and 2 years of vocational school. He was a very intelligent, knowledgeable and hard working person. My mother has never attended any school because of the World War II. Despite the fact that she cannot read and write, she and my father were able to support the education of 10 children. We did not have a TV-set but we had our father’s collection of books and that is where I got my love for reading.

As for my daughter, I hope I was able to pass on the value of education that was instilled in me by my parents. May this experience serve as a symbol of perseverance.

Without them, I would not be able to get to where I am today.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iv

DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………....vi

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Problem Statement ...... 7 Purpose Statement and Research Questions ...... 10 Significance of the Study ...... 11 Theoretical Framework ...... 12 Organization of the Dissertation ...... 15

II. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 17 Introduction ...... 17 The Concept of Quality ...... 19 Shift from Input Assessment to Outcome Assessment ...... 27 Accreditation as a Quality Assurance System ...... 29 Changes in the Accreditation System of Post-Soviet Countries ...... 42 Faculty in the Context of Multiple Transitions ...... 47 Quality of Teacher Education Programs ...... 57 Summary ...... 61

III. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS ...... 62 Introduction ...... 62 Research Approach ...... 63 Research Sites ...... 64 Participant Selection ...... 66 Data Collection ...... 69 Review of Documents ...... 69 Interviews ...... 73 Participant Observation ...... 75 Data Analysis ...... 75 Trustworthiness and Reflexivity ...... 79 Positionality ...... 80 Ethics ...... 81 Summary ...... 81

IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS ...... 83 vii

Introduction ...... 83 Demographics ...... 88 Findings According to Research Questions ...... 90 Faculty Understanding of Accreditation ...... 90 Faculty Motivations to Participate in the Accreditation Process ...... 95 Sub-Question 1: What are the Main Factors that Influence Faculty Attitudes towards Independent Accreditation? ...... 97 Positive attitudes of Faculty towards Independent Accreditation ...... 97 Improved atmosphere...... 98 Independent accreditation as an opportunity ...... 98 Accreditation can promote quality of education ...... 100 Negative Attitudes of Faculty towards Independent Accreditation ...... 102 Too much paper work ...... 102 Insufficient training and limited information ...... 105 Poor management of the accreditation process ...... 107 Stressful atmosphere at the university before the accreditation ...... 109 Accreditation cannot promote quality of education ...... 110 Sub-Question 2: To What Extent Do the Accreditation Processes Impact Faculty Lives in the Context of Multiple Transitions? ...... 111 Faculty Relationship with University Administration ...... 114 Faculty Attitudes towards Themselves in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Self” ...117 Findings in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Support” ...... 119 Faculty Challenges in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Situation” ...... 121 Findings in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Strategy” ...... 123 Faculty Performance Evaluation (Faculty Attestation) ...... 124 Faculty Attitudes towards Students ...... 125 Faculty Attitudes towards the State Educational Standards for the Pedagogical Programs ...... 129 Faculty Attitudes towards Curriculum for the Pedagogical Programs ...... 133 Sub-Question 3: What Do University Professors Change in their Teaching Approaches to Achieve Student Centeredness and Improve Quality of Student Learning? ...... 136 Interactive Methods ...... 137 Student Centeredness ...... 140 Independent Work of Students ...... 141 Make-Up Classes ...... 143 Sub-Question 4: How Do Professors Determine Whether or Not Students in Pedagogical Programs Are Meeting Learning Outcomes? ...... 144 Learning Outcomes and Competences ...... 145 The New Assessment Approaches ...... 151 The New Grading System ...... 153 Module Rating System ...... 155 Summary ...... 156

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V. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS ...... 160 Overview of the Study ...... 160 An Overview of the Significant Findings of the Study ...... 162 Discussion of Findings and Their Relations to Existing Literature ...... 164 Faculty Understanding of Accreditation ...... 164 Evidence of Quality ...... 166 Changes Happened as a Result of Accreditation ...... 168 Changes Occurred in the Educational Process ...... 170 The Impact of Accreditation on Faculty Members ...... 172 Discussion of Findings and Their Connections to Theory...... 173 Recommendations for Policy and Practice ...... 179 Recommendations for Future Research ...... 181 Limitations ...... 181 Conclusion ...... 182

APPENDICES ...... 183 APPENDIX A. LETTER OF CONSENT ...... 184 APPENDIX B. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ...... 187

REFERENCES ...... 191

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The education system in Kyrgyzstan is under the reform since the country gained its independence in 1991. Since then the new Law on Education of the Kyrgyz Republic was adopted (The Government of the KR, 2003) and major changes in higher education were introduced. The reasons for the educational reforms are several: first, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was natural for Kyrgyzstan to develop its own education system, improve the quality of education, and strengthen “the orientation of all the institutional structures of the professional education system toward meeting the real cadre needs of the economy” (Dzhaparova, 2005, p. 80). Second, the influence of changes in the higher education system of Europe with implementation of the Bologna Process pushed the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic to take certain steps towards reforms by making amendments to the Law on Education (The Government of the KR, 2013) in an attempt to integrate Kyrgyz higher education into the European education system. Third, due to the economic and political situations in the country, corruption in educational sphere has had a negative impact on educational development in the country. Drummond and Gabrscek (2012) pointed out that “the collapse of the USSR had a dramatic impact on higher education in myriad ways and fostered an environment for corruption to flourish” (p. 8). Fourth, the quality of education declined while the number of educational institutions increased, leading to dissatisfaction of stakeholders (Ministry of Education and Sciences, teachers, students, parents, and employers) about the poor quality of education. Finally, international donor organizations contributed to the reforms of

education. They came with their own “donor agenda” to provide with resources for faculty and curriculum development through various educational projects. Numerous projects on quality assurance systems and accreditation initiated by Soros Foundation in

Kyrgyzstan, TEMPUS, and GIZ took place since 2007 (Umankulova, 2015). There were many workshops and training sessions to introduce European approaches to quality assurance and accreditation. Umankulova (2015) made a point that the main result of the preparation for independent accreditation is to change the mindset of academic community and the approaches towards defining and building quality. The transition from a Soviet approach of quality control to the new quality assurance practices used in the countries of the Bologna Process is complex and painful (Umankulova, 2015).

Kyrgyzstan does not meet the territory requirement of the Bologna Process but nevertheless tries to follow some principles of the European higher education system.

Thus the Ministry of Education and Sciences (MoES) introduced changes in the higher education system such as a three-tier structure of academic degrees, a credit hour system, and independent accreditation of educational institutions based on legal documents and amendments to the Law on Education in the Kyrgyz Republic (The Government of the

KR, 2013). The main purpose of these changes is integration into the European system of education, and implementation of a new quality assurance system through independent accreditation as one of the tools to achieve this goal and to improve the quality of education.

The Kyrgyz Republic is one of the Soviet Socialist Republics that achieved independence on August 31, 1991. Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked, mountainous, lower

middle income country located in Central Asia, west of China and south of Kazakhstan

(Kyrgyzstan, 2018). The population is 6.1 million people as of January 2017(NSC of the

KR, 2017, p. 5). The total population’s literacy rate is 99.5% (Kyrgyzstan, 2018).

There are 31 state and 19 private higher education institutions in Kyrgyzstan

(MoES, 2018) with 153,500 students (NSC of the KR, 2017, p. 13). State expenditure for education is 30634, 2 million soms, which comprises 39.5 % of the state budget for social and cultural sphere (NSC of the KR, 2017, p. 28). By the beginning of the academic year

2017-2018, 162,000 students were enrolled in Kyrgyzstani higher education institutions, of which 84 % are contract (tuition paid) students. The total number of students has decreased by 7.6% from the previous academic year. The number of faculty employed in higher education institutions is about 12 thousand (Radio Azzattyk, 2018, January 27).

The idea of replacing of the Soviet state attestation system with quality assessment by independent accreditation agencies was initiated by the Kyrgyz

Government in the course of the Bologna Process reforms. Kyrgyzstan has been trying to create its own model of an independent accreditation system (EdNet, 2016; AAEPO,

2016) based on European Standards and Guidelines (ESG, 2015). Currently, there are five independent accreditation agencies for quality assurance in education in Kyrgyzstan:

Agency for Quality Assurance in Education “EdNet” (2017); the Accreditation Agency for Educational Programs and Organizations (AAEPO, 2016); Agency for Accreditation of Educational Organizations and Programs “Sapattuu Bilim” (2018); Independent

Accreditation Agency “Bilim – Standart” (n.d.); Independent Accreditation Agency “El

Baasy” (n.d). The first nongovernmental accreditation agency was EdNet Agency on

Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Higher Education Institutions established on June

22, 2012 (EdNet, 2016), the second was Accreditation Agency for Educational Programs and Organizations established on August 20, 2014 (AAEPO, 2016). The criteria for independent accreditation and procedures were based on the European Standards and

Guidelines (2015) taking into account the accreditation experiences of European Union and the USA. EdNet works in close cooperation with European Network for Quality

Assurance (ENQA) and became a member of the International Network for Quality

Assurance in Higher Education (INQAAHE) in October 2015. It conducted five pilot accreditations of academic programs with participation by local and international experts, and trained more than 200 experts on independent accreditation. The Accreditation

Agency for Educational Programs and Organizations conducted pilot accreditation of 28 vocational schools and colleges; trained more than 100 experts on independent accreditation, and developed methodological materials for independent accreditation

(Ismailov, March 10-11, 2017). These activities towards establishing new independent accreditation agencies and conducting pilot accreditations were made possible with funding from European organizations (Ismailov, March 10-11, 2017). The assistance of international organizations came through the German Corporation for International

Cooperation Educational Organization (GIZ), the projects of TEMPUS (European

Union), the Central Asian Network for Quality Assurance (CANQA), and Quality of

Engineering Education in Central Asia (QUEECA) to implement independent accreditation in Kyrgyzstan. The goals of CANQA included setting up independent accrediting agencies in the three participating Central Asian countries: Kyrgyzstan,

Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan (Ismailov, March 10-11, 2017). Kyrgyzstan does not have a specialized accreditation agency for teacher education programs because the accreditation system is under the control of the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz

Republic (MoES). According to the Law on Education of the Kyrgyz Republic (The

Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments; The Government of the KR, 2013), one of the competences of the Government in the field of education is “the quality assurance of education through institutes of licensing, testing, and accreditation” (Chapter V,

Article 35). Moreover, even though the new independent accreditation agencies accredit educational institutions or programs, “the regulations on accreditation procedures, minimum requirements to institutions under the accreditation, and also the basis for accreditation or denying accreditation are established by the Government of the Kyrgyz

Republic” (Chapter V, Article 40).

This is an interpretative qualitative study of faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs at three public universities in Kyrgyzstan: one in the capital city Bishkek, the second in the Southern region, and the third in northwestern part of the country. I have chosen these institutions because the focus of my interest is the faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of pedagogical programs, and primary goals of these institutions are to educate future teachers. I have chosen the institution in Bishkek for this study for three reasons: First, it is the primary pedagogical institution in the country to educate teachers with the mission “to train a new type of education specialists who are able to educate independent thinkers and creative personalities (BU, 2014, p. 5); Second, this is the first pedagogical institution that EdNet

accredited its pedagogical program in 2014. EdNet accredited the Natural Sciences

Education Program at this university, which prepares secondary school teachers in three subject areas: Chemistry, Biology, and Geography (EdNet, 2014).Third, the university introduced bachelor’s and master’s programs in 2011 to follow the Bologna Process reforms in the country, and it actively takes part in designing new standards and curricula for teacher education programs. I have chosen two regional institutions because their educational programs including pedagogical programs have been accredited by EdNet in

2017 and 2018 that data from these institutions will be a valuable contribution to my dissertation and allow me to draw more objective picture of the independent accreditation process in the country.

All higher education institutions including pedagogical institutions shifted to a 4-year Bachelor’s plus a 2 -year Master’s degree programs to follow the Bologna

Process in 2012 (Merrill & Ryskulova, 2012). The MoES has developed new State

Educational Standards and curricula in the course of shifting from traditional academic hours to a credit hour system. According to the traditional Soviet system of organizing educational process, an academic hour was considered 45 minutes of classroom teaching time (compared to the chronological hour of 60 minutes). This 45-minute hour is currently maintained. However, according to the new State Educational Standards, “an academic hour is equal to 50 minutes [classroom contact hours]” (MoES, 2015, p. 9).

Furthermore, “one credit hour is equal to 30 academic hours of a student (including classroom, independent work, and all types of attestation)” (p. 9).

The new Curriculum of 2012 for teacher education programs consists of seven sections with certain number of credits for each section: 36 credits for Humanities, Social, and

Economic sciences; 14 credits for Mathematics and Natural Sciences; 152 credits for

Professional (major) courses; 2 credits for Physical Education; 30 credits for Practicum; and 6 credits for a BA thesis. That comprises in total 240 credits for a four-year

Bachelor’s degree (MoES, 2015). The total number of 240 credits is aligned with the

European system of education. Currently, a 4-year Bachelor’s degree qualifies graduates to teach at secondary schools.

Problem Statement

As a part of the Bologna Process reforms, Kyrgyzstan is moving towards independent accreditation of academic programs to assure the public about the quality of higher education. To achieve quality assurance of higher education institutions, the

MoES developed certain regulations approved by the Kyrgyz Government that created the legal basis to start independent accreditation of university academic programs in

September 2016.1 According to the Law on Education (The Government of the KR,

1Regulations on National Accreditation Council under the Ministry of Education and Sciences, #438, August 4, 2014; Regulations Recognizing Accreditation Agencies,

#670, September 29, 2015; Regulations on Accreditation of Educational Institutions and

Programs #670, September 29, 2015; Minimum Requirements for Educational

Organizations of Elementary, Secondary and Higher Education Levels of the Kyrgyz

Republic to be accredited, #525, June 4, 2016.

2013), the National Accreditation Council (NAC) is a body that recognizes or denies the activities of independent accreditation agencies based on the regulations established by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic (2015). The chair of the National Accreditation

Council (NAC) is the Minister of Education; and NAC functions on a pro bono basis.

Although the accreditation system is under the control of the MoES, and while the relationship between the MoES and newly established independent accreditation agencies is not clear, accreditation of higher education institutions is nevertheless a requirement for granting university degrees. According to the Law on Education of the Kyrgyz

Republic (The Government of the KR, 2003), “Accredited educational organizations have the right to award its graduates a state approved document (diploma), or their own documents according to their own decision of the educational organization” (Chapter V,

Article 40; The Government of the KR, 2013). Thus new amendments to the Law on

Education allow individual higher education institutions to award their own degrees that were not possible until now except for a few international institutions such as American

University of Central Asia that award its own degrees.

As Hou (2011) stated, “The establishment by the MOES of the proposed National

Accreditation Council, covering all areas of the post-secondary system, is the most important immediate step towards improving the quality of higher education” (p. 4). The new accreditation system tries to fill the gap in quality assurance of higher education institutions. The first standard of independent accreditation in Kyrgyzstan is an educational policy that requires that all educational institutions should have a policy on

quality assurance including mission, strategic plans, goals and objectives of education, learning outcomes and the quality monitoring system (Ismailov, 2017, March 10-11).

Today, the requirements for newly established independent accreditation agencies, their relationship with the MoES, and their roles are widely discussed on various levels from academic spheres to the Kyrgyz Parliament sessions. Those discussions raise numerous questions about who should assess the quality of education in higher education institutions, what should be assessed, how it should be assessed, and who should fund the accreditation of educational institutions. However, the discussions rarely consider faculty perspectives on a new process of accreditation. In addition, part of the problem is the lack of scholarly research on this topic. University faculty experiences have not been researched yet especially in relation to the accreditation system reforms taking place in higher education of the Kyrgyz Republic. There are no publications that discuss the quality of teacher education programs, the changes in the curricula, and the impact of the Bologna Process on teacher education curricula in Kyrgyzstan from the point of university faculty.

My argument is that the implementation of independent accreditation will not be successful without active involvement of faculty members in the accreditation process. It is important for the MoES and administrators of higher education institutions to know the opinion of faculty members about the implementation of the independent accreditation and their reactions to the process because faculty members are the key participants of the educational process who can provide useful insights on the new system. They are the ones who design measurable learning outcomes; they are the ones who facilitate student

learning and assess their learning outcomes; and they are the ones who can provide accreditors with evidence for quality of education of their institutions.

Purpose Statement and Research Questions

The purpose of this interpretative qualitative study was to explore faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs at three public universities in Kyrgyzstan. The data for the study were collected through semi-structured interviews with professors of three institutions: one in the capital city Bishkek, the second in the Southern region, and the third in northwestern part of the country. I also reviewed new policies on accreditation of higher education institutions, new accreditation standards, and conducted the qualitative analyses of the institutional self-study reports, and the report of the EdNet Accreditation agency (EdNet, 2017). Finally, I observed faculty discussions of the accreditation process during the field work.

The Law on Education of the Kyrgyz Republic (The Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments) defined accreditation as:

a process of evaluation of the level of quality of an educational organization as a

whole or its individual educational programs with the purpose of recognizing the

compliance of the educational organization or educational programs with the

requirements and criteria established [that are] not lower than the requirements

and criteria, determined by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic (Chapter 1,

Article 1).

For the purpose of this study, independent accreditation was defined as an external quality assessment of educational programs by independent accreditation agencies.

Accreditation agencies are independent of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic because by definition they are “nongovernmental’ and “noncommercial” organizations established for the main purpose of “accredit[ing] educational organizations and educational programs” (The Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments, Chapter 1,

Article 1).

The study addressed the research question: What are the perspectives of faculty at three public universities on the new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs?

Sub- questions:

 What are the main factors that influence faculty attitudes towards the new

independent accreditation?

 To what extent do the accreditation processes impact faculty life in the context of

multiple transitions?

 What do university professors change in their teaching approaches to achieve

student centeredness and improve quality of student learning?

 How do professors determine whether or not students in pedagogical programs

are meeting learning outcomes?

Significance of the Study

The study of faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of pedagogical programs is necessary to better understand the new quality assessment system at this beginning stage of new accreditation system in the country. The university professors are the main actors in the process of quality assessment of the programs, and thus understanding their perspectives about the new independent accreditation system is

crucial. The academic commitment of the university professors is important to enhance the quality of education as the main purpose of accreditation is to improve the quality of education. The academic commitment of university professors is described by the Law on

Education (The Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments) as a part of their rights and duties, and one of educators’ duties is “to provide students with learning of the educational program at a level that is not lower than State Educational Standards”

(Chapter III, Article 29). First, this study informs faculty members, university administrators, the Ministry of Education and Sciences, and independent accreditation agencies about the advantages and disadvantages of the new independent accreditation system. Second, the study provides feedback to assist EdNet to review its accreditation standards, procedures, and documents for further improvement. Third, the study suggests higher education institutions' possible resources to improve a quality assessment system with active involvement of faculty members. Finally, the study generates questions for future research on continuous quality improvement of higher education programs.

Theoretical Framework

As a theoretical framework to guide the current study, I used Schlossberg’s

Transition Theory (Anderson et al., 2012; Goodman et al., 2006; Schlossberg et al.,

1995). As Goodman, Schlossberg, and Anderson (2006) defined, “a transition, broadly, is any event or non-event that results in changed relationships, routines, assumptions, and roles” (p. 33). Anderson et al. (2012) emphasized the importance of understanding the types of transitions, the perspectives, and the context of transitions and the impact of transition (p. 47). The new accreditation system is an anticipated event, planned by the

Government of the Kyrgyz Republic. So it is important to understand how this anticipated event, accreditation, changes faculty life, how different their teaching and grading are after the implementation of the independent accreditation, and which one is most important—the planned event itself (accreditation of the programs) or extent to which the accreditation process impacts the life of faculty. For the purpose of this study, I defined transition as the process of reforms that changes the work conditions of university faculty.

The Schlossberg’s Transition Theory (Anderson et al., 2012; Goodman et al.,

2006; Schlossberg et al., 1995) helped me understand and describe transition process of faculty through the changes related to the independent accreditation in their pedagogical programs. The theory also helped me with the identification of the change (What changes were impending?), and degree of transition (How did the new independent accreditation change the attitude of individual faculty to the external quality assessment system?), and the stage of transition process (Where did a faculty find itself in this transitions process: moving in, moving through or moving out?) (Goodman et al., 2006, p. 32).

The Schlossberg’s 4S’s: Situation, Self, Support, and Strategies are “four major sets of factors that influence the ability of the individual to cope during a transition”

(Anderson et al., 2012, p. 61). Anderson et al. (2012) defined these four factors as:

1. The Situation variable -- What is happening? Does the transition come at a

time of multiple stressors?

2. The Self variable – To whom is it happening? Each individual is different in

terms of life issues and personality.

3. The Support variable -- What help is available? Support and available options

vary for each individual.

4. The Strategies variable – How does the person cope? People navigate

transitions in different ways (p. 61).

This theory guided my study in understanding faculty perspectives through examining these four factors in the context of Kyrgyzstani pedagogical institutions.

1. The Situation. The study looked at the ways faculty members perceived the new system of accreditation and how they characterized the conditions that they were going through.

2. The Self. The study examined each individual faculty ‘self’, their personal and demographic characteristics, and their experiences in transition that helped me examine the impacts of the independent accreditation process on individual faculty’s professional life: teaching; research; their role in the accreditation process; and their interaction with administrators, colleagues, students, and accreditors.

3. The Support. The study investigated what type of support faculty members got from the institution, the department, the Ministry of Education and Sciences, international organizations, accreditation agencies, colleagues, friends and family members to better understand the new independent accreditation system.

4. The Strategies. The study searched how university faculty coped with challenges and what tactics or approaches they used to overcome those difficulties related to implementation of the new accreditation system.

Analyses of these factors helped me interpret and explain faculty experiences of the new accreditation process from their point of view.

Organization of the Dissertation

The dissertation comprises five chapters. Chapter 1: Introduction describes the background of the study briefly; discusses the problem statement, significance, theoretical framework, the purposes and research questions of the study. Chapter 2:

Literature Review presents a comprehensive review of the literature relevant to my study.

The review relies mainly on Western sources, because there is a very little literature available that addresses accreditation in Kyrgyzstan because the accreditation system is new in the post-Soviet countries. The chapter examines the literature on European and

American accreditation system, educational reforms in Kyrgyzstan and in other post-

Soviet countries, amendments to the Law on Education of the Kyrgyz Republic, the

Government legal documents on implementing the new accreditation system, challenges in implementing European system of accreditation, the challenges with the shift from input assessment to outcome assessment, and how assessment is used to enhance student learning in different countries, the role of faculty in enhancing student learning, and concepts of quality of education. Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods outlines the research design, data collection methods, and data analysis. It also discusses the approach to participants’ selection, relevant ethics issues, and my role as a researcher. Chapter 4:

Research Findings presents a detailed description of the research findings, and Chapter 5:

Discussion and Implications presents my analysis of research findings and discusses

practical implications of the research for policy and practice, and offers directions for future research in the quality assurance system in higher education of Kyrgyzstan.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter presents a review of the literature on six topics: first, the concept of quality and standards; second, the challenges with the shift from input assessment to outcome assessment, and how assessment is used to enhance student learning in different countries; third, accreditation as a means of quality assurance in higher education in the

United States and Europe; fourth, changes in accreditation system of post-Soviet countries, fifth, the role of university faculty in the context of multiple transitions; and sixth, quality of teacher education programs and educational policy. While a number of studies on the accreditation process have contributed to my understanding of different forms of accreditation in the United States, some European countries, and the former

Soviet Union countries, few studies analyze the faculty perspectives specifically on accreditation standards and policies for teacher education programs and on accreditation policies, and the impacts of the program accreditation on university faculty members. The literature review relies on Western sources and mainly on the sources in English language, because there are very few published research works available in Russian that addresses accreditation systems in the post-Soviet countries like Kyrgyzstan, where the accreditation system is new. There are no research articles in Kyrgyz language on quality assurance system in Kyrgyzstan. There is a considerable body of literature on quality assessment in higher education, but most works (Ferren & Slavings, 2000; Maki, 2004) are based on North American and Western systems of education, where higher education

is better financed and more consistently regulated and assessed. There is more limited literature on quality assessment in the former Soviet Union countries.

The analytical report of Brunner and Tillett (2007) on the tertiary education system, changes in management, teaching, and research in four Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union is a useful source to understand the challenges that higher education institutions experienced after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The main challenge is funding of the higher education institutions. Brunner and Tillett (2007) stated that “a lack of effective monitoring” in Kyrgyz higher education is coupled with the

“deterioration of quality of educational services” (p. 62), which they argued stems from poor legislative system and lack of resources, among other reasons. However, economic and financial statuses of the Central Asian countries are different, and that impacts the educational reforms in five Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Tampayeva (2015) analyzed the implementation of a testing system in Kazakh higher education and discusses Western researchers’ views on educational reforms in

Central Asian countries under the umbrella of “European standards.” Kazakhstan’s situation is different from Kyrgyzstan mainly in terms of funding; Kazakhstan is “the most –donor independent country in Central Asia and the Caucasus” as Tampayeva

(2015, p.76) quoted Kalikova and Silova (2008), while Kyrgyzstan is pretty much dependent on international donors in terms of higher education reforms. Thus few pilot accreditations were sponsored by European Accreditation agencies through the EdNet

Agency on Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Higher Education in the Kyrgyz

Republic (EdNet, 2016). Another difference between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that affects the success of Bologna Process reforms is the geographical position of two countries: Kazakhstan could join the Bologna Process due its territory, partially located in

Eastern Europe, while Kyrgyzstan does not meet the territory requirement of the Bologna

Process and can just follow some principles of the European higher education system.

Nonetheless, Kyrgyzstan still seeks to integrate the Bologna Process. As Kyrgyzstan shifts from the Soviet state attestation system to the European model of independent accreditation, the Ministry of Education and newly established independent accreditation agencies should revisit the concepts of quality and standards in higher education to assure the public of the quality of university education, identify the roles of all stakeholders

(employers, faculty, students and parents, and society) in promoting quality of higher education, and determine the functions of accreditation agencies and their relationships with the government organizations and higher education institutions.

The Concept of Quality

Harvey and Green (1993) analyzed the concept of quality in relation to higher education. The authors explicitly explained that quality might mean different things to different stakeholders of higher education and that it is “relative to processes or outcomes” (p. 1). Harvey and Green conceptualized quality in five interrelated categories: exception, perfection, fitness for purpose, value for money, and transformative (p. 1). Harvey and Green characterized the exceptional notion of quality as

“distinctive,” “excellence,” and “passing a set of required (minimum) standards” (p. 3).

Quality is perfection or consistency and “focuses on process and sets specifications that it

aims to meet perfectly” (p. 8). Kubow and Fossum (2003) further elaborated on the contradictions between exceptionality and consistency, writing that “Quality in terms of exceptionality connotes tolerance for difference” (p. 132), while “consistency implies emphasis on equality” (p. 132). Fitness for purpose relates “to the purpose of a product or service” (Harvey & Green, 1993, p. 9). In other words, quality is defined by the extent to which the product or educational services fit the purposes of higher education and as

Kubow and Fossum (2003) stated, “quality of education shapes students for specific roles” (p. 126). For instance, if the mission of pedagogical programs is to educate teachers, graduates should “fit” that purpose to be only teachers, not researchers in education or interpreters. The graduates should have all the characteristics of teachers that make them “fit” for their roles in Kyrgyzstani schools, such as being able to teach in rural, under-resourced schools, or working with children of multiple ethnicities, as well as up-to-date knowledge of their subject matter, methodology of teaching and pedagogical techniques. Fitness for purpose may conflict with the transformative notion of quality that assumes “qualitative change, a fundamental change of form” (Harvey &

Green, 1993, p. 18).

Harvey and Knight (1996) explicitly discussed the concept of quality and standards, their interrelationships, and the transformative approach “to assess the enhancement of students” (p. 23). The authors described “the transformative notion of quality” as a “participative process” (p. 7), in which qualitative transformation of students occurs. Two elements of transformative quality in education are: enhancing and empowering the participants. A quality education, using the transformative definition of

quality, “enhances the knowledge, abilities and skills of students” and gives them “power to influence their own transformation” (p. 8). As Harvey and Knight (1996) quoted

Harvey and Burrow (1992), there are four ways of empowering students: (1) student evaluation, (2) guarantee students minimum standards of provision, (3) more control over their own learning, and (4) develop students’ critical ability (pp. 8-10). In other words, quality education enables students not only to fit the demands of the labor market but also to transform the society. However, Kyrgyzstan still uses the Soviet system to educate the certain number of qualified specialists for the labor market. The Government of

Kyrgyzstan determines the list of specialties “on the basis of an estimate of the republic’s overall requirements in regard to each of the necessary disciplines” (Tiuliundieva, 2008, p. 77). Finally, Harvey and Green defined value for money as “quality products at economy prices” (1993, p. 15).

The European Standards and Guidelines (2015) for Quality Assurance in the

European Higher Education (ESG) focus on “quality assurance related to learning and teaching in higher education” (ESG, 2015, p. 7). The document supports the idea that different stakeholders “can view quality in higher education differently and quality assurance needs to take into account these different perspectives.” It further conceptualizes quality as “a result of the interaction between teachers, students and the institutional learning environment” (p. 7). Kehm (2010) described quality-management systems in European higher educational institutions that sought to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The author described “quality as an aspect of accountability or of a standard-setting” (p. 42) and argued that quality teaching and learning was in conflict

with quality in research. The author described quality in the context of the Bologna

Process, analyzed the Tuning Project2 efforts to enhance quality, and discussed the influence of ranking of higher education institutions on notions of quality. In contrast,

Harvey and Green (1993) defined quality assurance as “ensuring that there are mechanisms, procedures and processes in place to ensure that the desired quality, however defined and measured, is delivered” (p. 13). According to Harvey (2004),

“accreditation is not distinct from quality issues and there is nothing to suggest that accreditation will not be wrapped round with audit, assessment and other forms of quality evaluation” (p. 221).

Higher education reforms in many countries “aimed at expanding access, improving educational quality, and ensuring financial responsibility and sustainability”

(Hartley, Gopaul, Sagintaeva, & Apergenova, 2016, p. 278), as higher education is a key economic and social driver. According to the authors, leaders at several of the institutions in this study were able to clearly articulate the benefits of promoting academic mobility of faculty and students as a way to enhance educational quality through the exchange of ideas with other countries (p. 278).

A number of scholars (DeYoung, 2011; Joldoshalieva, 2007; Merrill, 2012;

Shamatov, 2010; Silova & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008) have studied the reforms in higher

2 “The Tuning Project started in 2000 to align curricular structures, programs, and teaching across the various national systems and to integrate quality standards into the structures and content of program curricula such that they can be evaluated in comparable ways” (Kehm,2010, p.43).

education system of Kyrgyzstan and challenges related to the reforms, such as implementing the principles of the Bologna Process and carrying out structural changes in higher education degrees, quality of education, assessment and curriculum, Almost all scholars emphasized the poor quality of education, lack of educational resources and corruption in the education system of Kyrgyzstan. Some achievements in improving the situation with pedagogical programs and provisions of quality teachers and textbooks were discussed in the report of the Asian Development Bank Strategic Approaches in the

Kyrgyz Republic for 2013-2017, Education sector (Summary) that listed the following improvements:

Law on accreditation of university programs enacted and pedagogy program

accredited in at least one reputed university in the country. Learning environment

improved in competitively selected schools, including in poor and harder-to-reach

areas. Curriculum updated and approved. Learning and teaching materials

developed and provided to students in grades 7–9. Teachers’ training institutes

initiate new e-learning modules. 4,000 teachers, including 85% female teachers,

trained to deliver the new curricula, with quality or competency standards.

Percent of higher education institution graduates with a specialist diploma who

gain employment at schools increases to 30% in 2015 and 50% in 2020 (2011

baseline: 19.3%) (ADB, 2013, p. 6).

On the other hand, Joldoshalieva (2007) contradicted the Asian Development Bank report

(2013), writing that teachers were highly concerned about deteriorating quality of teacher professional development in content and pedagogy, structure, and relevance (p. 292).

Three articles (Drew & Klopper, 2014; Shamatov & Sainazarov, 2010; Stewart,

Scalzo, Merino, & Nilsen, 2015) discussed quality of teacher education programs, assessment of teaching and learning, and strategies of quality improvement that were relevant to my study of independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs in

Kyrgyzstan. These studies examined different countries including Kyrgyzstan, Australia,

Finland and the USA and covered different levels of assessment of quality of education.

Drew and Klopper (2014) examined and described the peer review process of teaching and observation from multiple perspectives in an Australian university. The study found significant evidence for using the Peer Review and Observation of Teaching approach to improve the quality of teaching. Stewart et al. (2015) specifically focused on assessment, reflection, and academic language rubrics, and analyzed the many different ways of planning the lesson, assessing student learning, and reflecting on teaching strategies in the USA. The purpose of the study was to examine teaching and learning process in constructing teacher candidates’ performance assessments, through a comparison of the teaching practices of the teacher candidates with the highest scores and the lowest scores on Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT). The authors’ purpose was

“to inform a larger audience of teacher educators utilizing performance assessments to measure teacher candidates learning” (p. 35).

Teacher education programs carry significant responsibility for educating well- qualified teachers. High quality teachers are products of a well-designed curriculum in university-level teacher-education programs, which will provide balanced theoretical materials on pedagogy, psychology, and methodology, subject knowledge, and pre-

service teaching practicum. The statistics from the Asian Development Bank (2015) report and World Factbook (Kyrgyzstan, 2018) demonstrated how poorly the government in Kyrgyzstan funds the education sector. According to Asian Development Bank (2015):

In 2012, the government allocated Som 13 billion ($21.2 million) to higher

education, or around 4.9% of the total education budget, which represented an

improvement from the 3.5% allocated in 2008. However, it is well short of the

25%–33% allocations in most Organization for Economic Co-operation and

Development countries (p. 8).

The World Factbook date proves this information, for example, in Finland, education expenditures are 7.2% of GDP (2013), and GDP per capita is $44,000 (2017 est.)

(Finland, 2018), while in Kyrgyzstan, education expenditures are 5.5% of GDP (2014), and GDP per capita is $3,700 (2017 est.) (Kyrgyzstan, 2018). Kyrgyz mass media informs the public about funding for textbooks, increased salary for secondary school teachers, or for faculty with scientific degrees of Kanditat Nauk or Doctor Nauk4.

However, the government funding is insufficient for quality improvement in education.

The government provides small state educational grants limited to state-run institutions, and primarily for pedagogical programs. As Tiuliundieva (2008) mentioned, these grants

3 In 2012, the USD exchange rate was 47.1484 KGS per one USD. (National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2012, p.19).

4 Kandidat Nauk and Doctor Nauk are scientific degrees that are awarded after the defense of kandidat dissertation and doctoral dissertation by Higher Attestation

Commission (Government of the KR, 2012).

were not linked to the results of university academic performance or research activities and they were not competitive. Moreover, the amount of state educational grants is not sufficient to cover all costs of educational services and there is no mechanism to ensure that universities are motivated to provide quality education to state-funded students (p.

86). Since 2002, grants have been allocated to higher education institutions on the basis of the number of students who earned higher scores in the national test for secondary school graduates (p. 77); state funding is allocated on the basis of the quality of the students admitted rather than the quality of the education provided at the institution.

Consequently, as Joldoshalieva (2007) wrote, “The demand for continuing professional development that is foremost in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan comes from the desire to raise the quality of education” (p. 299).

In Kyrgyzstan in the early 2000s, the Programme for International Student

Assessment (PISA)5 results indicated low quality in the secondary schools, which triggered widespread discussions on different levels of education system. Some researchers (Shamatov & Sainazarov, 2010) attempted to find the factors of low PISA assessment results for Kyrgyz students by analyzing the school system, teaching and learning environments and provision of teachers. In contrast, Hartley et al. (2015) examined cultural norms of the centralized system of governance that differed from decentralized governance by compliance with regulations as a means of demonstrating

5 The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students (OECD, 2018).

quality (attestation). In Hartley et al.’s (2015) point of view, quality should be established through periodic review of progress toward goals (accreditation) (p. 286).

The literature shows that there is a need for quality improvement and quality assurance of learning and teaching in Kyrgyzstan. The literature review also reveals that there is no common definition of quality of higher education shared among different stakeholders. However, there is no study on faculty perspectives on quality of higher education, on how faculty members conceptualize quality of education or the role of faculty member in quality assurance process in Kyrgyzstan.

Shift from Input Assessment to Outcome Assessment

The shift from input assessment to outcome assessment is posing challenges not only in Europe (EGS, 2015), but also in the United States (Bennett & Brady, 2014), as all areas of higher education move toward more standardization. In Kyrgyzstan, the reforms in higher education system that include structural changes in degree programs, introduction of an independent accreditation, implementation of European credit hour system, and development of new educational standards are based the amendments to the

Law on Education (The Government of the KR, 2013). According to Asian Development

Bank (2015), the TEMPUS6 and EdNet projects contributed to the development of necessary capacity that “allow(s) the country to move from input indicator-based licensing systems of quality assurance to output- and outcome-based internationally compatible systems” (pp. 7-8).

6 The trans-European mobility scheme for university studies (TEMPUS).

(European Commission, 2013).

Researchers have different perspectives on outcome-based assessment. For instance, Bennett and Brady (2014) were critical of the socio-practical context of the learning outcomes assessment movement in the United States. As they quoted Hussey and Smith (2008), “Outcomes become a device for monitoring and auditing” educators rather than tool of teaching and learning (p. 147). Curriculum theory at the beginning of the 20th century focused on outcomes to control efficiency of the schools. Starting 1980s the learning outcomes assessment became a hot topic on different levels from accreditation agencies to the Congress of the USA. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) “claims that accrediting agencies had historically focused only on inputs rather than outcomes” (Bennett & Brady, 2014, p. 148). Bennett and Brady (2014) argued that “the problem students face with outcomes are related to inputs… the actual reasons that students drop out of school,… or are unable to secure a ‘good job’ have nothing to do with the factors that can be measured by learning outcomes assessment” (p.

150). They concluded that “learning outcomes assessment is really measuring and maintaining inequality” (p. 150).

The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration’s

(NASPAA) five competencies for graduate public affairs programs were the focus of two articles (Meek & Godwin, 2014; Powell, Saint-Germain, & Sundstrom, 2014). Powell,

Saint-Germain, and Sundstrom’s (2014) research was a case study of a well-designed assessment of students’ research skills in a capstone course. Meek and Godwin (2014) discussed the interactive learning approach as a program-level assessment process which included assessment strategies and reports to integrate “with NASPAA competencies that

includes mission-specific and program concentration learning outcomes” (p. 306).

Further, the article described other assessment processes, including mission assessment, teaching evaluation, alumni evaluation, and course-embedded assessments which aligns the curriculum with learning goals and competencies (p. 313). NASPAA standards rely on input assessment of program quality, including “number of students, student-faculty ratio, admission standards, and graduation rates” (p. 316). This is the typical approach to accreditation in Kyrgyzstan. During the process of Ministry of Education and Sciences state attestation, the universities should provide data on the number of textbooks in the library, number of faculty with advanced academic degrees, the number of graduates employed after the graduation, etc. The only outcomes-based evidence of learning was testing carried out by the accreditors during their site visit, and they generalized over the quality of education in the program based on this test. The major challenge in assessment of the quality of educational programs is the shift from input assessment to outcome assessment.

Many researchers are concerned about how to promote student learning, how to improve teaching and how to assess the quality of teaching and learning (Bennett &

Brady, 2014; Meek & Godwin, 2014; Powell, Saint-Germain, & Sundstrom, 2014).

However, faculty perspectives on accreditation process and student learning outcomes have not been sufficiently studied.

Accreditation as a Quality Assurance System

Accreditation within the Bologna Process is focused on the development of a quality assurance system. The European Standards and Guidelines (2015) for Quality

Assurance in the European Higher Education (ESG) were approved by the Ministerial

Conference in May 2015 (ESG, 2015). The ESG were prepared by several European organizations: European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

(ENQA), European Students’ Union (ESU), European University Association (EUA),

European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), and Educational

International in cooperation with Business Europe, and European Quality Assurance

Register for Higher Education (EQAR). The ESG (2015) are a set of standards and guidelines for internal and external quality assurance in higher education. They provide guidance for successful quality provision and learning environments in higher education

(p. 6). The ESG (2015) can be applicable across the European Higher Education Area

(EHEA) and they are based on the following four principles for quality assurance in the

EHEA:

• higher education institutions have primary responsibility for the quality of

their provision and its assurance;

• quality assurance responds to the diversity of higher education systems,

institutions, programmes and students;

• quality assurance supports the development of a quality culture; and

• quality assurance takes into account the needs and expectations of students,

all other stakeholders and society (p. 8).

According to the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher

Education (ADB, 2015; EGS, 2015; ENQA, 2013) “compatible quality assurance systems” of a country are prerequisites to joining the Bologna Process. One of the

objectives of the Bologna Declaration (The EHEA, 1999, June 19) is “Promotion of

European co-operation in quality assurance with a view to developing comparable criteria and methodologies” (p. 4).

Although the Bologna Process is in practice, there remains room for discussion about the purpose of quality assurance and its feasibility. Berlin Communique (2003) defined the main goals of establishing national quality assurance systems with

“accreditation, certification or comparable procedures” (Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007, p.

3). The report of Confederation of European Rectors on Accreditation Schemes (2003) for Higher Education in Europe explored the feasibility of accreditation in the European higher education space. The rectors discussed possible functions of accreditation in

Europe such as minimal quality control and promotion of quality assurance.

Issues and challenges related to the development of new quality assurance systems, to accreditation of higher education institutions and individual programs within the Bologna Process countries have been described by a number of authors (Amaral &

Magalhães, 2004; Billing, 2004; Damian, 2011; Maassen & Stensaker, 2011; Qefalia &

Totoni, 2012; Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007; Tampayeva, 2015). The European higher education has been under reform for more than two decades. Maassen and Stensaker

(2011) described three phases of the reform related to the consequences of the transformation, external pressure for change and challenges in constructing knowledge and governing the higher education institutions. Saarinen and Ala-Vahala (2007) compared the definitions of the word accreditation by various scholars (Harvey, 2004;

Kohler, 2003; Valimaa, 2004; Westerheijden, 2001; Woodhouse, 1999), concluding that

“the word accreditation has political implications in the participating countries” and “the

Bologna Process gives new meanings to the concept” (p. 334) as well as to national policies (p. 335). Amaral and Magalhães (2004) analyzed “the dangers that may result in commoditization of the European higher education system, in emergence of rigid accreditation systems and centralized bureaucracy that will impair innovation and creativity” (p. 79). The authors identified the possible dangers as “a decrease of the

European Higher Education systems’ diversity” (p. 86). According to Amaral and

Magalhães, the majority of participants at a Validation Seminar hosted by the Association of European Universities in Lisbon in 2001 “strongly opposed any idea of moving to a system of accreditation” (p. 90). Harvey (2004) analyzed the views of academics and managers who had been involved in accreditation in Britain, the United States and

Canada. The author described accreditation as “a struggle for power” (p. 221) and it was

“about shift of power from accreditors to managers and bureaucrats” (p. 222).

European educators are concerned about methodology and purposes of external evaluation, such as the Bologna Process entails. Amaral and Magalhães (2004) wrote that the Bologna Process may be interpreted as “another move in the neo-liberal movement to decrease the state’s social responsibility” (p. 95). The first cycle of university studies is shorter and less expensive and allows students to be responsible for their own employability, while in the second cycle education becomes “more a private good” paid by students (p. 95). Billing (2004) explored commonality or diversity in the models of external quality assurance defined by the National Qualification framework, the purposes and methodology of external evaluation, and the possibility of converging the features of

the national external Quality Assurance frameworks internationally. Amaral and

Magalhães (2004) compared the European and the U.S. accreditation systems and explored the difficulties related to mobility of students and faculty. In terms of student mobility, the authors pointed out that the number of students who moved between universities “is limited to a small percentage of total enrollment” and concluded that

Despite all European funded mobility programmes the percentage of European-

mobile students dragged ashamedly behind that the same percentage in the early

17th century, and it is very unlikely that this percentage will increase in the future

due to the costs of international mobility (p. 94).

There are many studies of the evolution of quality assurance and accreditation in specific countries. Saarinen and Ala-Vahala (2007) analyzed higher education accreditation policy documents of four countries: Finland, the Netherlands, France and

Sweden. Qefalia and Totoni (2012) explored professors’ perspectives on the importance of accreditation, continuous quality improvement and the Bologna process in Albanian public universities. Dima et al., (2011) and Damian (2011) examined the development of quality assurance system in Romania. Accreditation was a “need for transferability of degrees and labor policy” (Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007, p.333). Saarinen and Ala-

Vahala (2007) truly pointed out that each country’s historical context and national traditions leads to different approaches to implementation. For instance, “the accreditation –based quality assurance system started to develop before the Bologna

Process” (Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007, p. 337) in the Netherlands. In response to the

Bologna process’ requirement of quality assurance the Netherland Accreditation

Organization (NAO) was established in 2002 and later changed into the Netherlands-

Flemish Accreditation Organization (NVAO) (p. 337). In France, evaluation of higher education degree programs, which is called habilitation, is conducted by the Ministry of

Education and it gives an official status guaranteed by the State. The independent evaluation is conducted by National Evaluation Committee (NEC). As the authors quoted

Chevaillier (2004) “until the mid-1990s, the contents of university curricula were stated by the Ministry of Education, and habilitation was a sort of “conformity check” (p. 338).

Until 2001, there was no need for accreditation in Finland, and in 2003 ministerial meeting, the Ministry of Education did not mention accreditation in its report but it was mentioned in 2005 report in the context of the polytechnics’ licensing and specialized professional degrees. The Ministry of Education stated “that new educational programs will be accredited on the basis of their quality and need” (p. 339) in its memorandum in

2006. Two types of evaluation include institutional audits and program evaluation started in 1995 and the National Agency for Higher Education (HSV) carries out the evaluation process. As the authors quoted Wahlen (2004), “current debates on the future accreditation seem indicate agreement that accreditation should be conducted by an independent organization” (p. 340). According to Qefalia and Totoni (2012), the

Albanian universities use the following approaches to quality improvement: continuous improvement teams, benchmarking process, balanced scorecards and Baldrige Quality

Award and European Quality Award criteria. The study showed that in Albania “the majority of professors/pedagogies think that the correlation Accreditation-Bologna process-Continuous Improvement is a strong positive correlation” (Qefalia & Totoni,

2012, p. 265). Albania has Public Accreditation Agency for Higher Education (PAAHE) under the Ministry of Education and Sciences, which is responsible for quality evaluation in higher education (p. 261).

Many countries have been experiencing pressure from the Bologna Process requirements and challenges in developing transparency and a new quality assurance system (Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007; Damian, 2011). Damian (2011) wrote that the relationship between the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

(ARACIS), established in 1993, the Ministry of Education, and higher education institutions is “complex,” as ARACIS is an independent agency in its quality control evaluations and funding but “finds itself under permanent pressure” (p. 63). As in the former Soviet Union, the control from the Ministries of Education in some European countries over the evaluation process is huge. According to Dima et al. (2011), re- accreditation process is very difficult due to bureaucratic tasks related to the Bologna

Process changes. Curricula were redesigned, new courses and subjects were introduced.

The reorganization of the learning process was determined by the reduction of number of years of study from four to three and led to reduction of the number of teaching hours and consequently the academic staff incomes. Dima et al. (2011) found professors’ resistance to change, low funding, and bureaucracy as the challenges of the Bologna process, and students’ opportunity to study abroad, modern curricula and balanced design of qualifications and hope a better quality in education as the benefits from the Bologna

Process.

My literature review revealed that many countries outside of Europe, like

Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, try to follow the European system of accreditation, while, as Amaral and Magallanes (2004) quoted Van Vught (1991), who suggested designing “European system of quality assessment along the lines of the

United States’ accreditation system, with multiple accreditation agencies to avoid “the bureaucratic monopoly of some new European higher education agencies” (p. 97). This informs me as a researcher and an educator, that there are disagreements and doubts about constructing European system of quality assessment and there is “no consensus on accreditation within the Bologna Process has emerged” yet (p. 97).

The concept of accreditation differs from country to country due to the different historical context and traditions. Harvey (2004) defined accreditation as “the establishment or restatement of the status, legitimacy or appropriateness of an institution, programme (i.e. composite of modules) or module of study” (p. 208). He described the differences between institutional accreditation and programme accreditation in regard to

European and the United States systems. In Europe, accreditation of higher education institutions is the responsibility of “either the government departments or government initiated agencies”, while in the United States, it is a responsibility of “non-governmental voluntary associations” (p. 208). In the United States, six regional accreditation agencies recognize institutions that meet established criteria of quality. Judith Eaton (2012),

President, Council for Higher Education Accreditation defined accreditation as “a process of external quality review created and used by higher education to scrutinize colleges, universities and programs for quality assurance and quality improvement” (p. 1)

Some scholars (Aronson & Anderson, 2013; Bell & Youngs, 2011; Metzler &

Blankenship, 2008; Murray, 2012) researched various aspects of accreditation of teacher education programs in the United States, including accountability and how accreditation policies impact teachers. Aronson and Anderson (2013) examined why social foundations of education and multicultural education were not prevalent in teacher education programs through critical perspectives in neoliberal and neoconservative educational climate. Current top-down accountability practice and policy mandates do not allow teacher education programs to challenge teachers to be critical and empower students.

The authors expressed policymakers’ desire for “the establishment of quantifiable, data- driven results that prove student achievement” (p. 249) and the desire of teacher education programs to “meet national professional standards and provide evidence of competent teacher candidate performance” (p. 251) to get accreditation. Bell and Youngs

(2011) examined the same pressure on teacher education programs to meet both sets of standards – the state’s teacher preparation standards and the National Council for

Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE). Bell and Youngs’s (2011) case study aimed to articulate the range of program accreditation responses in the state of

Connecticut (USA) and to identify factors that contributed to the variations in higher education institutions’ responses (p. 298). The authors found that “resources, programme size and structure, and beliefs about professional practice shaped individual and institutional responses to NCATE in Connecticut” (p. 305). The authors further described

“three common responses: articulation of a programme-wide conceptual framework, greater focus on teacher candidate assessment, and creation of data collection system” (p.

298). Accreditation mandates go against teachers’ professional knowledge of what beginning teachers should know and be able to do. This idea aligns with Aronson and

Anderson’s (2010) findings, although Aronson and Anderson (2010) additionally focused on producing critically conscious teachers for diverse classrooms.

Metzler and Blankenship (2008) discussed how every teacher education faculty in the United States was in the process of designing mostly objective, performance-based assessment plans (p. 1100) under the new standards for accreditation reviews by NCATE.

The NCATE required programs to provide evidence that candidates successfully teach children, based on artifacts, performance assessments, and employer results (2000). In

2010, NCATE and TEAC approved plans to merge, a process completed in July 2013.

On August, 2013, the CAEP Board of Directors adopted five standards and recommendations and starting 2016 all Educator Preparation Providers (EPP) would be required to follow the standards (Sawchuk, 2013, September 11). The CAEP

Accreditation Processes include self-study report, a site visit and peer review. CAEP also suggests following one of the three ways of preparation of self–study report and its submission that will 1) demonstrate how the program meets the standards through a continuous self-improvement; 2) demonstrate evidences of the program quality and candidates’ competencies; 3) show the results of improvement (CAEP, 2013, Policy

Manual, p. 3). The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) criticizes the national accreditor for teacher colleges and approved a resolution expressing their lack of confidence in the new accrediting agency (CAEP): “Specific concerns are related to the accreditation standards, process for accreditation, costs

associated with accreditation, the capacity of CAEP to implement the accreditation system, and the representativeness of the CAEP governance structure” (Sawchuk, 2015,

March 18) in addition to the pressure from the U.S. Department of Education requiring more accountability for programs that prepare teachers. The AACTE argues that the

“outside pressure could detract from program innovation and integrity”. The AACTE considers the standards to be “confusing or ambiguous”. Some educators express dissatisfaction with CAEP work for being “disorganized.” I can evaluate this as any new organization where not everything is smooth at the beginning stage and there might be more shortfalls determined in the process of implementing the new standards “that puts a much heavier emphasis on program outcomes” (Sawchuk, 2013, September 11).

Murray (2012) discussed six misconceptions about teacher education accreditation, outlined by Terry Hartle, a senior vice-president of the American Council on Education (ACE) in 2011, that “threaten a seven decades arrangement in which accreditors have served the public by vouching for the quality of institutions and programs that receive federal monies” (p. 53).

Six misconceptions that Murray’s (2012) discussed were:

1. Accreditation does not protect students from bad schools;

2. Accreditation is focused on the wrong thing;

3. Accreditation is not transparent;

4. Accreditation is riddled with the conflicts of interest;

5. Accreditation reviews are too infrequent;

6. Accreditation is not always fair to institutions and programs (pp. 54-55).

According to Murray (2012), “While most of these misconceptions are rooted in differing views of the purposes of accreditation, they are only partly in error and need to be addressed if accreditation is to continue to provide its uniquely American form of quality assurance” (p. 53). The author explained the reasons for these misconceptions that:

 almost all 1400 teacher education programs in the United States satisfy

accreditation standards and acquire accreditation;

 standards or requirements that have no basis in established scholarship and are

little more than the untested preferences of a profession or a discipline and made

an analogy with “a practice of grading on the curve, which required a priori

failure rate is expected as a sign of the accreditor’s quality” (p. 54);

 the public sees only the outcome or decision of the accreditation process;

 conflicts of interest stem from the fact that institutions pay money to the

accreditor and that faculty participate in the governance of the accreditation

agencies;(p. 55); and

 accreditors make their decisions based on factors that have little to do with quality

(p. 55).

Metzler and Blankenship (2008) attempted to bridge the methodological and evidentiary gap between teacher education programs, research on teaching and program assessment (p. 1098). Metzler and Blankenship (2008) found four disconnections among teacher education programs, research on teaching, and program assessment through a research-based, comprehensive, longitudinal project at Georgia State University in the

United States. The Metzler and Blankenship’s (2008) first disconnection is that teacher

educators cannot apply the existing programme assessment models to design assessment models for teacher education programmes (p. 1099). The second disconnection is that teacher educators cannot connect teaching research with programme assessment. As the authors explain, while teacher education researchers are able “to generate valid and reliable data for peer reviewed publications,” they fail “to generate the kinds of assessment data they need to inform and guide their programmes” (p. 1099). The third disconnection is that “teacher educators do not know for whom or why they should be doing assessment.” The authors quoted Galluzzo and Craig (1990) to explain that there are five audiences for teacher education assessment: administrators and faculties; pre- service students and practicing teachers; accrediting agencies; programme evaluators; and the public. All of them have different interests and requirements for “the kinds and quality of data” (p. 1100). The fourth disconnection is that teacher educators fail to connect “assessment quality” data with “research quality” data (p. 1100). The authors pointed out that “too often teacher educators satisfy other audiences first (e.g., accrediting agencies), and are then left questioning the value of those efforts for their needs, wondering what they have learned about their programme in the process” (p. 1100).

Metzler and Blankenship (2008) used the Development, Research and Improvement

(DRI) model of program assessment to provide assessment data on outcomes and evidence from various sources for making decisions and reducing these disconnections.

All these studies suggest that there is still much to be learned about the teacher education accreditation in the United States, its implications, and effects on teaching, learning and quality of teacher education programs.

Changes in the Accreditation System of Post-Soviet Countries

The changes in the accreditation system of higher education in the former Soviet

Union countries were the research topics of several scholars (Chuchalin, Boev, &

Kriushova, 2007; Motova & Pykko, 2012; Pak, 2010; Umankulova, 2015; Webler, 2002).

Russia joined the European education reform process in 2003 (Motova & Pykko 2012) and the reforms have been perceived and implemented differently at different levels.

Motova and Pykko (2012) described the challenges that the Russian higher education system encountered in the course of the Bologna Process and incompliances of Russian quality insurance system with ESG. The authors pointed out the great pressure from state authorities to initiate Bologna Process reforms. The biggest difference between the former Russian system and the Bologna Process standards is that the external evaluation does not take into account the results of self –evaluation that differs from the ESG

(Standard 2.1). Another difference is that the state accreditation procedure was not voluntary because according to the Russian Federation Law on Education (1992)

“Rosobrnadzor was authorized to select and appoint external panel members, to approve

Accreditation Board membership and to take the accreditation decision” (p. 31). In addition, international experts have never been invited to participate in the Russian external review teams (p. 31). Chuchalin, Boev, and Kriushova (2007) described two types of accreditation in Russia: state accreditation and professional accreditation based on the Russian Federal Law “On Education” of 1992. The institutional accreditation conducted by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation is called state accreditation, and program accreditation conducted by public professional organizations

is called professional accreditation (p. 111). State accreditation evaluates a higher education institution in general and professional accreditation assesses the content and quality of individual programs. While in Kyrgyz accreditation system the terms attestation and accreditation are interchangeable, in Russian higher education system, state accreditation and attestation have different aims:

Attestation is the establishment of equivalency between the content, level, and

quality of the education offered and the requirements set by the State Educational

Standards. State accreditation grants to the HEI the right of awarding state

degrees and confirms the status of HEI (academy, institute or university) (p. 111).

Motova and Pykko (2012) argues that while it is obvious that state attestation allows universities to award state diplomas, it is not clear how different the criteria of state accreditation from those of state attestation and how state accreditation motivates higher education institutions to change their status. The findings suggest two scenarios of quality assurance system development in Russia: 1). State authorities will not allow the development of alternative forms; 2). Will allow differentiation and effective interaction between state and public forms of educational quality assessment (p. 35). There have not been follow up studies of this question.

Webler (2002) provided information on the EU-Tacis project to reform higher education and quality control in Ukraine; the main purpose of the project was to strengthen Ukraine’s accreditation system and quality control in higher education (p. 9).

What is interesting in this report is the recommendation that accreditation boards must be independent from the Ministry of Education and the schools, to ensure impartiality. “This

independence should be guaranteed through independence of authority, no vested interests, judgements only on the basis of accepted criteria and no membership in any rival institution” (p. 21).

Among recurring topics of debate at ministerial meetings and various conferences on independent accreditation across Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan,

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are the questions of who should define criteria for accreditation, who should carry out the assessments at program and institutional levels, who should make the final decisions, and who should pay. In her study of educational reform and accreditation in Kazakhstan, Pak (2010) put accreditation and ranking of higher education institutions on the same level as the responsibility of the National

Accreditation Center, stating that “Ranking is an integral part of the national control and quality assurance” (p. 48). Umankulova (2011) reflected on the early implementations of accreditation in Kyrgyzstan, and the perceptions of the academic community to the challenges that accreditation poses. Kyrgyzstan has been trying to create its own model of independent accreditation (EdNet, 2016; AAEPO, 2016) based on the European

Standards and Guidelines (2015). Since an independent accreditation system was introduced only in 2016, the criteria, procedures, tools and mechanisms of conducting independent accreditation have not been studied yet.

The third standard of independent accreditation in Kyrgyzstan is about student- oriented education and requires new approaches that will encourage students to participate actively in co-constructing the educational process (Ismailov, March 10-11,

2017). This is a new approach in the Kyrgyz educational context, and there is no study

yet on the role of faculty members in enhancing student learning and assessment.

However, there are sufficient number of studies in other countries (Badcock, Pattison, &

Harris, 2010; Doğan, 2013; Mitton-Kukner, Munroe, & Graham, 2015) that directly or indirectly point out the significant role of faculty involvement not only in developing assessment instruments and carrying out the assessment process, but also in integrating various approaches to enhancing student learning. Doğan (2013) conducted a correlational study to understand factors affecting assessment preferences of 719 pre- service teachers at 5 state universities in Ankara, Turkey. He correlated the relations among four variables: alternative assessment methods, critical thinking learning strategy, elaboration learning strategy, self-efficacy about learning. He demonstrated that the

“critical thinking learning strategy variable affected the alternative assessment methods variable directly” (p. 1623), which meant “the more pre-service teachers adopt critical thinking learning strategy, the more they prefer alternative assessment methods” (p.

1624). He argues that alternative assessment methods (performance tasks and portfolios) allow teachers to assess students’ higher order thinking skills in circumstances similar to real life settings (p. 1622). The author relates assessment to learning strategies, stating that “assessment should not only be thought as a way to measure and evaluate students’ success but also a component of instruction and facilitator of students’ learning” (p.

1625).

Most students view assessment as a summative event rather than formative one.

Mitton-Kukner, Munroe, and Graham (2015) described the attempt of educators to make students better understand the application of assessment to enhance student learning ,

while Badcock, Pattison, and Harris (2010) looked at the assessment from the point of its theoretical, practical and methodological implications. Mitton-Kukner, Munroe, and

Graham (2015) described various assessment strategies to enhance the preparedness of future teachers in Canada and to “model an inclusive practice of success for all” (p. 324) that “emphasizes learning over testing” (p. 325). The authors quoted Kohn (1999) who

“suggested that grades reduce students’ interest in learning, their preference for challenging tasks, and the quality of their thinking” (p. 326). Badcock, Pattison, and

Harris (2010) conducted a cross-sectional, correlational research at a research intensive university in Australia. They studied relationships between important aspects of a university education and the development of generic skills. They compared students’ grade point average, total length of study at the university, and entering competence against the students’ skills in critical thinking, interpersonal understandings, problem solving and written communication, as measured with the Graduate Skills Assessment.

Even though students’ GPA was directly related to scores for all four skills the researchers found it as “an imperfect indicator of levels of generic skills attainment”

(p.441). The analyses also revealed that study length related only to problem solving and

“significant interdisciplinary variations in students’ skill scores” (p.441). Taras and

Davies (2017) examined the UK academic staff developers’ (i.e. experienced lecturers in higher education) understanding of assessment terminologies such as summative and formative. The researchers found “inconsistent and differing understandings” of the concept of formative and summative assessment among experienced lecturers at colleges

and universities in the UK, which might have implications for the “pedagogic development” (p. 137) of academic staff.

There are many publications about accreditation in higher education in Western countries, but there are few studies on the new accreditation system in the countries of the former-Soviet Union including Kyrgyzstan. The United States has had more than 60 years of experience in the sphere of accreditation of teacher education programs, while

Kyrgyzstan does not have any professional accreditation agencies. EdNet is a pioneer in accreditation of education programs, but there is no study on effectiveness of its accreditation and on faculty responses to teacher education programs. Studies on accreditation demonstrate various forms, standards, requirements and policies of accreditation in western countries. However, the existing literature is not sufficient to understand what shapes new accreditation policies in post-Soviet countries and faculty perspectives towards accreditation. This suggests that there is a need to study faculty perspectives towards independent accreditation of pedagogical programs in Kyrgyzstan.

Faculty in the Context of Multiple Transitions

The researchers pay great attention to faculty role and their academic professionalism in the context of multiple transitions related to the Bologna Process reforms, and how the researchers have frequently examined how changes in university degree structures, curriculum, quality assessment systems, and pedagogical frameworks have been influencing the academic life of university faculty members, including their approaches to teaching and learning, their teaching load and their struggles with higher education reforms in various countries. The role of faculty is crucial in promoting quality

education by designing measurable and achievable learning outcomes for each individual program, because the main purpose of the accreditation is to find evidence for quality of student learning.

Some scholars have conducted quantitative and qualitative research in one specific country of the post-Soviet Union such as Russia (Androushchak & Yudkevich,

2012; Berdyklycheva & Grigorieva, 2006; Chuchalin, Boev, & Kriushova, A., 2007;

Sobolev, 2016; Yudkevich, 2015), Armenia (Karakhanyan, Van Veen, & Bergen, 2012;

Ohanyan, 2012), Latvia (Volkova, 2012), Kazakhstan (Hartley, Gopaul, Sagintaeva, &

Apergenova, 2015; Kalanova, 2012), and Kyrgyzstan (DeYoung, 2010; 2011; Nurakun kyzy, Begimkulov, Ismailova & Dündar, 2017). Others have described how global educational changes impacted teachers in the post-socialist countries of Central Europe,

Southeast Asia and Central Asia (Silova & Brehm, 2012) or described structural changes in several European countries such as the Netherlands, France, Finland and Sweden

(Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007).

The purposes of the Bologna process—to unify the rules of higher education on credit hour transfer, mobility of students and faculty, and accreditation to assure quality of higher education—were discussed in numerous European publications (Dima,

Brătianu, Glaser-Segura, & Voges, 2011; Qefalia, & Totoni, 2012; Saarinen, & Ala-

Vahala, 2007). Thus Dima, Brătianu, Glaser-Segura, and Voges (2011) studied faculty perceptions of the implementation of the Bologna process at Romanian higher education institutions. Qefalia and Totoni (2012) explored university professors’ perspectives on accreditation and the Bologna process in Albania. Saarinen and Ala-Vahala (2007)

described how the governments of four European countries (the Netherlands, France,

Finland and Sweden) initiated structural changes of academic degree programs in higher education institutions according to the Bologna Process.

Damian’s (2011) research showed that Romania has been experiencing almost the same changes as many post-Soviet countries as a result of the Bologna Process reforms in higher education. Romania had also adopted a new Law on Education in 2011, a top- down reform, structural changes with implementation of two-tier system, a new quality assurance system, a national qualification framework, and supports of international donors the reforms in higher education. The author pointed out that the academic community did not understand the “essence of Bologna.” While universities were under the control of the Ministry of Education, ideological control over the universities was under the Communist Party, as was also the case in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, other publications I reviewed did not mention the role of the Communist Party in the decision- making process in higher education system during the Soviet period. It was harsher in

Romania comparing to the former Soviet Union countries because professors did not need the approval of the Communist Party for an academic promotion or doctoral dissertation defense in the Soviet Union. Damian (2011) wrote, “Hiring academics, professional promotion to higher academic positions such as assistant professor and university professor, or even defending a doctoral thesis had to be approved by the party of each candidate” (p. 57). The findings showed that in Romania, faculty members identified the main goals of the Bologna Process as establishing the European Area for

Higher Education, quality assurance, a three-tier level of higher education system, and a

transferable credit hour system. However, the respondents pointed out the low level of information and knowledge on the Bologna Process, simplified curricula and shortened from a four-year to a three-year of study program did not allow students to find a job, and a labor market was not ready “to integrate the graduates with a lower level of knowledge and training” (Dima, Brătianu, Glaser-Segura, & Voges, 2011, p. 132).

My literature review identified some common themes discussed in the scholarly articles on the post-Soviet higher education, such as the changes in faculty teaching load, faculty salary, the status of teachers’ profession and quality of students at teacher education programs. These changes are not always positive and the reactions of the university faculty to the reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union are diverse. There are some positive changes in teacher education programs in Russia, such as an increase in interest among young people in pursuing careers as teachers and an increase in teachers’ salaries, wrote Sobolev (2016). The monitoring of the activities of teacher training institutions showed positive trend in the quality of students in Russia, where 270 higher education institutions offer teacher training programs (p. 126).

Faculty frequently do not understand the purpose of the Bologna process, according to studies of the Kazakh higher education system (Hartley, Gopaul, Sagintaeva

& Apergenova, 2015) and the Armenian higher education system (Karakhanyan, Van

Veen, & Bergen, 2012). Many academic leaders in Kazakhstan associated their involvement in the Bologna Process with introducing the credit hour system; only few understand any other purpose of the Bologna Process (Gopaul, Sagintaeva &

Apergenova, 2015, p. 287). The study in Armenia showed that teachers “have only a

superficial understanding of the target reforms and a dearth of background information to start the reforms” (Karakhanyan, Van Veen, & Bergen, 2012, p. 85). Moreover, “the organizational culture could not contribute to the promotion of the reforms as many teachers considered the milieu at their institutions to be nonconductive to change” and teachers “considered preservation of traditions and good practices from the Soviet regime to be crucial” (p. 85).

The key aspects of the Bologna process in Russian higher education system before and after joining the Bologna process were discussed by Chuchalin, Boev and

Kriushova (2007), and the positions of Russian pedagogical community towards joining the Bologna Process were discussed by Berdyklycheva and Grigorieva (2006). The academic community did not define yet the position of Russia towards the Bologna

Process, however, the highest points (6.4 out of 9) were given to the position that suggests taking cautious (thoughtful) position towards the Bologna Process, and taking part in the Bologna Process under the conditions that will not allow the academic community to lose values of own education. The study also found the negative attitude of chairs and professors towards the shift to European system of PhD degree (5.3 points out of 9); the issue was related to the correlation of PhD programs with Russian aspirantura and doktorantura7. In contrast, Chuchalin, Boev and Kriushova (2007) pointed out that

7 Aspirantura is a post-diploma or post-master degree program, and doktorantura is a post-kandidat nauk degree program to train researchers and faculty seeking kandidat nauk and doktor nauk degrees (Law on Education of the KR, 2003, Ch.II, Article 23).

the integration of Russian higher education system into the EHEA was received positively by faculty, as it allowed the participation of the Russian Association for

Engineering Education (RAEF) in the EUR-ACE project (European Accredited

Engineer) (p. 115).

My literature review revealed four main challenges university faculty have been facing during the transition period and in the course of the Bologna Process reforms in the post-Soviet countries: low faculty salary, heavy teaching load, poor quality of teacher education programs, and non-prestigious status of the teacher’s profession. The low salary of university professors has proven the biggest challenge. While emphasizing the prestigious status of the academic profession during Soviet period, several authors addressed the problem of low public funding during the transitions. The researches indicated the low salary of university professors and factors that determine the size of university professors’ salary.

In 2008, the average monthly salary of professors in Russia was $700 and young faculty receive by 30% less of this (Androushchak, & Yudkevich, 2012). In Kazakhstan, faculty salary size depends on “academic rank, length of service and academic achievements” (Kalanova, 2012, p. 200). A professor’s salary is $ 685 and the assistant’s is $308, and professors have additional monthly bonuses for academic degrees. The average salary in private higher education institutions is higher ($616) than in public institutions ($497). However, the status of national universities is high and faculty salaries are also high, a professor has $1200-$1500 per month (p. 200) due to the

coefficient of 1.75 added to the standard salaries of faculty at public universities. One workload for faculty is 36 hours per week. In Latvia, state funding for higher education was cut by 48% in 2009 (Volkova, 2012); the minimum salary for a lecturer is $850, the average salary in public schools is ($952) as of 2010 (p. 208). The faculty salary is not stable; it depends on teaching, research, and number of students, level of academic program taught and other issues (p. 210). But the salary cannot be lower than that set by the Cabinet of Ministers (p. 209). In Armenia, during the Soviet time higher education was funded by the state and Armenia had only public institutions as all other countries of the Soviet Union. Armenia joined the Bologna Process in 2005 and changed degree structure in higher education (Ohanyan, 2012). Faculty ranking system remained the same as in the old system and graduates with a diploma of specialist (now with master’s degree also) are eligible to begin a career as a lecturer, to be a docent a candidate of science should have at least 3 publications after the defense of kandidat nauk dissertation.

The size of faculty salary depends on academic degree, rank, and record of publications and research. Some institutions consider student evaluations of professors. The average salary ($290) in public universities in Armenia seems to be higher than in Kyrgyzstan. It is interesting that “professors in public institutions earn in average approximately 11 % more than their colleagues in the private sector” (p. 56) because in Kyrgyzstan, professors of private institutions always earn more than professors in public schools.

Silova and Brehm’s (2012) study on how global educational changes impacted teachers in post socialist countries of Central Europe, Southeast Asia and Central Asia, revealed the distinction between “good” education in private and public education space that leads

to certain contradictions in teachers’ lives. Teachers solve the problems related to low salary by private tutoring at the same time regulations and codes do not allow teachers to do business in public education facilities.

The next challenge is a heavy teaching load that was caused due to the low salary of university professors in all post–Soviet countries and how faculty members find the ways to increase their income. Thus Androushchak and Yudkevich (2012) pointed out that faculty members in Russia had to teach at several institutions and to tutor students privately. This article mentioned that professors also worked as salespersons, janitors or other employees (p. 265), which was not mentioned by other authors of the post-Soviet countries. Usually university professors try to increase their income within the academia by private tutoring or teaching the same courses at multiple institutions. Faculty teaching load is determined by the Ministry of Education and Sciences; teaching loads vary from

750 to 1000 hours for entry level positions and from 600 to 800 for more senior ranks including time for grading (p. 237). Ohanyan (2012) also mentioned in his article that young faculty members seek incomes by teaching at multiple institutions and there are no legal documents to limit the number of employment positions of faculty in Armenia.

Professors are engaged in private tutoring. There are no strategic policies to increase international involvement of Armenian scholars. In general, reforms in higher education are inconsistent and slow, faculty low remuneration levels, challenges of higher education institutions in attracting qualified people into academia due to poor conditions

(p. 58). The faculty members keep their positions at the universities and are interested in getting promotions even though the academic profession is not popular as it was during

the Soviet time. The role of social ties is important in getting promotions, renewing contracts and getting support to apply for external grants or to publish while there is not peer-review culture in Russian higher education system (Androushchak, & Yudkevich,

2012, p. 241).

The low salary and overwhelming teaching load to secure faculty income leads to the next challenge -- decrease of quality of education in teacher education programs that is part of the reason that makes academic profession unattractive for young people. Low salary, heavy teaching load, unmotivated students and teachers are interrelated to each other and result in poor quality of education of teacher training programs. Having in the classroom students with low motivation to become a teacher makes faculty teaching more difficult. Unfortunately, students of the teacher training programs are not motivated to increase their knowledge and skills in their subject areas because they are not interested in getting a teacher’s job. According to Steiner-Khamsi et al. (2011), “only 15% of those who graduate from pre-service teacher education enter the teaching profession” in

Kyrgyzstan (p. 204). Many students study at Kyrgyz pedagogical institutions for two reasons either these are the cheapest programs in terms of tuition or the students have the lowest scores in the national test. In addition, limited resources of universities do not enable students to develop classroom management skill, to gain modern methodology of teaching using high technology and other teaching materials.

As Volkova (2012) stated, the weaknesses of the salary system are insufficient funding, and high teaching load that impacts quality of education in Latvia; the same situation is in Kazakhstan (Kalanova, 2012). Silova and Brehm (2012) criticized the

notion of international education experts that were exaggerated by giving them the role of advisors in neoliberal education reforms and allowing them “to speak for those who supposedly lack expert knowledge to ‘help’ themselves” (p. 55). In this situation a teacher became a subject of various new educational policies and norms established by western countries. Thus this study examined “the occupational boundaries of teachers in order to regain professional authority and autonomy” (p. 56) and explored “how teachers navigate (neo) liberal education reforms in their daily lives by focusing on their participation in private tutoring activities” (p. 56). In terms of methodology, teachers determine themselves what is “good’ education for their students without international experts’ advice, and they “raise their professional status” (p. 67). Their students also benefit from one-to-one tutoring and have more opportunities for independent work (p.

67). I found it interesting that in Russia “the private sector of higher education system is associated with education of low quality” (Yudkevich, 2015, p. 228) based on the Unified

State Examination scores of students, poor infrastructures and low expenditures per student and part time positions of teachers (p. 229) while in Kyrgyzstan, international private institutions considered to have better quality of educational services and they are more competitive than public universities even though tuition is high (e.g. private international universities, such as American University of Central Asia or the

International Atatürk-Alatoo University).

Finally, the challenge that university faculty deal with is the changes in the field of teacher education programs and the status of teachers’ professions. Some authors argue “that the economic status of teaching profession in a country can influence

individual’s decisions to become a teacher” (Park & Byun, p. 327). This argument is close to Sahlberg’s description (2012) of the place of teachers in the society and how respected the teachers in Finland are. The teachers have high status in the society and public trust and appreciation; they are satisfied with their work and pedagogical conservatism in the collectivistic culture (Simola, 2005), socio-historical factors that increase the prestige of teachers in Finland. The author described five categories of teachers and the place of teachers in the society, mentions the scientific content and educational research in the teacher education curricula and specifics of educating teachers in Finland. This is absolutely different from the situation in Kyrgyzstan, where a teaching profession is not prestigious due to low salaries, poor conditions at schools and lack of resources, and young people are not interested in choosing the profession of teachers. The reason for that is a corrupted system that the government tries to eliminate for many years but it is unsuccessful until now. In this regard, DeYoing (2011) stated that “a strong teaching profession depends upon a social system where common purpose and the rule of law supersede the demands of family and clan” (p. 283).

Quality of Teacher Education Programs

Some scholars discussed the role of teacher training programs in enhancing pedagogical competencies of teachers (Kazu & Demiral, 2016; Renta-Davids et al.,

2016), while others (Sin & Amaral, 2017) investigated how academics and employers view their responsibilities for student employability in Portugal as one of the messages of the Bologna Process. Renta-Davids et al. (2016) focused on how individual characteristics or job requirements and methods of teacher training workshops are

correlated with the enhancement of teachers’ learning of pedagogical competencies and changes in their teaching practices at Spanish universities (p. 222). The results of this quantitative study showed a significant effect of delivery methods on teacher training outcomes. Kazu and Demiral (2016) researched how the Bologna Process affects teacher training programs in Turkey and determined faculty members’ views on the effectiveness of teacher training programs “to upskill life-long competence” through a qualitative phenomenological study. First, faculty members’ views showed that the Bologna Process is in practice inadequately reflected in the academic activities of teacher education programs in Turkey. Second, teacher training programs are insufficient to upskill life- long learning competence, to improve pre-service teachers’ self –improvement. Third, teacher training programs ignore the need to upskill life-long competence in the current programs. Turkey is one of the five countries (Russia, Turkey, Germany, the UK and

Ukraine) that “represent more than half (54%) of students in the Bologna agreement countries” (Motova, 2016, p. 318); that is why the study contributes to my understanding of the integration process especially from the point of university faculty. The Turkey

Higher Education Qualifications Framework (THEQF) and ECTS practices are intended to foster the curriculum’s compliance with the procedures of the process of learning outcomes; however, THEQF and ECTS are viewed as a tool that enables an easy transition for European universities rather than truly revising and improving the existing programs in universities in Turkey (Kazu & Demiral, 2016). The findings of Sin and

Amaral (2017) quantitative study showed two opposite perceptions of academics and employers about the development of student employability; academics’ perceptions were

positive while employers expressed either negative perceptions or ignorance (p. 109) that was explained by the limited involvement of employers in the higher education reforms as one of the stakeholders. Though both, academics and employers shared similar perceptions of the roles of different stakeholders in the development of student employability (p. 107).

The quality of teacher education was also related to the aging of faculty and language of instruction. Yudkevich (2015) stated aging of faculty and poor training of new faculty as the distinctive features of the academic profession in Russia (p. 227). The aging of faculty that threatens the sustainability of some programs in Latvia was emphasized by Volkova (2012) too. Moreover, Latvian language requirement for full time university faculty position does not allow attracting international faculty (p. 213).

Language of instruction is important not only in terms of attracting international faculty but also in terms of language proficiency of the target students and access to information that impacts the quality of student learning. For instance, in Kyrgyzstan high school graduates from rural places enter universities with low Russian language proficiency, and most universities continue offering their courses in Russian language and university libraries lack textbooks in Kyrgyz language.

In Kyrgyzstani context, the role of university professors is diminished that they have lost authority and students do not respect them due to their social status as low paid employees in educational sphere. In order to increase the role of professors and require teachers to improve the quality of education, the profession of teachers should be attractive. So students should choose this profession not because there was no other

choice but by passion; the social status should be improved and it is not only salary increase, but also creating good working conditions, improving resources, technology, classrooms, etc. To make structural changes in higher education did not seem to be difficult and it did not take long. However, implementing a two-tiered system or PhD programs, or renaming institutions as universities or academies do not bring any changes in terms of improving the quality of education, social status of professors, improving research capacity of institutions or reducing the corruption. All stakeholders students, parents, teachers, employers want changes for the best, but changes for the best come only with step by step development, not by the government mandating a policy on reforms towards the Bologna Process. It is necessary to conduct research-based analyses to find new forms of development not just blindly copying the practices of other countries under the umbrella of integration to the Bologna Process. There is no research that studies faculty perspectives in the context of changes related to the Bologna Process reforms in Kyrgyzstan. The existing few studies examined different aspects of education in relation to university or secondary school teachers. For instance, Nurakun kyzy et al.

(2017) evaluated the current situation of distance education in Kyrgyzstan and their research finding showed low level of computer literacy is the main issue with implementation of learning management system in Kyrgyzstan due to resistance of elderly faculty to change their attitude towards new information technology. DeYoung’s

(2010) research also showed that there was no sufficient support and understanding of distance education by university management. The learning management systems were developed to decrease the instructors’ course load, but in Kyrgyzstan, universities are

reluctant to implement such system (Nurakun kyzy et al., 2017, p. 660). Teleshaliyev

(2013) addressed the challenges secondary school teachers face in post-Soviet

Kyrgyzstan and supported the idea that teaching major is not popular among high school graduates. Those who have the lowest scores in the National Scholarship Test choose teacher education programs. He mainly discussed the concept of professionalism in regard to teachers of Kyrgyzstan that is relevant to university professors also as they are responsible for developing teacher candidates’ professional skills, their attitudes to the profession of a teacher while they are in the pre-service teacher training programs.

Summary

My literature review reveals that (a) the works on quality assessment in higher education are mainly based on North American and Western countries; (b) there are very few studies on assessment systems of the former Soviet Union countries; (c) sufficient number of scholars studied quality of teacher education programs and faculty roles in enhancing quality of student learning in other countries; (d) there is no study on faculty perspectives on independent accreditation in the countries like Kyrgyzstan that follow the

Bologna Process and have been implementing a new system of independent accreditation.

My literature review shows that there is a need to fill the gap in the body of literature on assessment of higher education and to study the view point of university faculty members on accreditation as the main actors in education process that will contribute to the development of the independent accreditation system.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Introduction

This chapter presents the research design and methods that guided my dissertation. I discuss my rationale for interpretative qualitative study design. I briefly describe the study settings, my approach to selection of participants and my criteria for selection. Next, I present the data collecting methods, including semi-structured interviews, documents, and participant observation and describe the process of organizing and analysing the data. I also discuss how I determined trustworthiness of my data and some ethical aspects of doing research in Kyrgyzstan.

The study addressed the research question: What are the perspectives of faculty at three public universities on the new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs?

Sub- questions:

 What are the main factors that influence faculty attitudes towards the new

independent accreditation?

 To what extent do the accreditation processes impact faculty life in the context of

multiple transitions?

 What do university professors change in their teaching approaches to achieve

student centeredness and improve quality of student learning?

 How do professors determine whether or not students in pedagogical programs

are meeting learning outcomes?

For the purpose of this proposal, the independent accreditation was defined as quality assessment of educational programs by independent accreditation agencies.

Research Approach

The major characteristics of qualitative research are “the search for meaning and understanding, the researcher as primary instrument of data collection and analysis, an inductive analysis process, and a product that is a rich description of the phenomenon”

(Merriam, 2002, p. 15). Data collection strategies include various formats of interviews, observations, and analyses of artifacts and other materials related to the given social context. Data analysis process includes inductive analysis explaining the meaning of a phenomenon through description and interpretation to draw the general conclusion.

I have designed an interpretative qualitative research for my study. According to

Leininger (1985), interpretative researcher identifies, documents and knows the context has been studied through interpreting “world views, values, meanings, beliefs, thoughts and the general characteristics of life events, situations, ceremonies and specific phenomena under investigation” from the research participants’ point of view (p. 5). I explored the faculty perspectives on the new process, how they reacted to the implementation of independent accreditation, and interpreted their view and experiences about independent accreditation. As Merriam (2002) stated “It is important to understand the perspectives of those involved, uncover the complexity of human behavior in context, and present a holistic interpretation of what is happening” (p. 25). A researcher’s purpose is to understand how individuals construct the meaning of their life experiences within the specific social settings.

My experience of teaching for fifteen years at the Kyrgyz National University and fifteen years of teaching at the western style private institution --American University of

Central Asia (AUCA), and my knowledge of how the Ministry of Education and Sciences administered the previous Soviet state attestation process helped me to better understand each participant’s perspectives and interpret the faculty point of view to the new system and accreditation standards. I was actively involved in the old state attestation and accreditation process as a Dean of Academic Affairs of AUCA. For instance, with

AUCA’s preparation for the U.S. accreditation, I led a self-study group comprised of faculty and administrators who studied the state of liberal arts and general education programs at our university back in 2008-2009.

My decision to employ interpretative qualitative research was informed by Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) statement that one of the “valid” reasons for choosing qualitative method is “the nature of the research problem” (p. 11). It is important for the Ministry of

Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic and administrators (rectors, prorectors, deans) of the higher education institutions to know the opinion of faculty members about the implementation of the independent accreditation because the faculty are the active participants of the accreditation process that can provide useful insights on the new system. The independent accreditation will not be successful without active involvement of the faculty members whose perspectives have not been studied yet.

Research Sites

The study was conducted at three public institutions in Kyrgyzstan: one in the capital city Bishkek, the second in the Southern region, and the third in northwestern part

of the country. I have chosen these institutions because the focus of my interest is the faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of pedagogical programs, and primary goals of these institutions are to educate future teachers.

The university in the capital city Bishkek was established during the Soviet time as the Pedagogical Institution. It changed its status beginning of 1990s, added new programs, increased its enrollment and follows the educational reforms in the country. It is one of the oldest universities in the country with ten institutes offering programs in fifty-nine majors with the main focus on teacher education. It switched completely to

Bologna Process-compliant bachelors and master’s programs in 2011 (Asian

Development Bank, 2015). The public university in the south of the country is also one of the oldest higher education institutions established as a pedagogical institution in the middle of the last century. Nowadays, even though the university provides training in a wide range of study areas, most departments offer teacher education programs. The institution in the northwestern part of the country is relatively young and small compared to the first two institutions. It offers undergraduate programs in seventeen majors, among them eleven programs are teacher education programs in various subjects.

The general impression about regional higher education institutions was different than I expected. The first university we have visited is one of the biggest and oldest higher education institutions in the country. The university is developing, building new campuses and facilities. However, the conditions in the classrooms are not good, the classrooms are small, the desks, chairs and blackboards are old, and there are no air

conditioners in the classrooms. Nevertheless, the faculty members seem to be satisfied with their job, most of them whom we met have their own cars, smart phones.

I started the negotiations with the Kyrgyz universities while I was in the USA via email to make appointments with the dean, deputy dean and director of international office of the institutions to get formal permission to obtain an access to the site, to the official documents such as institutional regulations on independent accreditation, State

Educational Standards of pedagogical programs, and other necessary documentation. I prepared letters of information, consent letters in three languages: English, Russian and

Kyrgyz. I set up meetings with the rector of one the regional universities, with the dean of other institution to introduce the purpose of my study and got some preliminary information before I started my interviews.

Participant Selection

I used purposeful sampling because it helped me reach a particular category of faculty members who could provide me with the important information I needed for the purpose of my study, and those who would be familiar with an accreditation system and be able to answer my interview questions. McMillan and Schumacher (1997) stated that

“The power and logic of purposeful sampling is that a few cases studied in depth yield many insights about the topic” (p. 397). Purposeful sampling was appropriate for this research that emphasizes in-depth understanding. The purposeful sampling approach helped me get in-depth responses for my interview questions to understand faculty perspectives on the new independent accreditation system.

The first criterion for selection was full time professors of the public pedagogical institution. I included those who did not have part-time teaching positions in other private institutions because private institutions had different style of teaching. For instance,

American University of Central Asia uses American style of credit hour system, and different approaches to teaching and grading. The second criterion was a minimum of ten years of teaching experience in higher education institutions. Thus the participants would have some experiences with the old Soviet state attestation system in order to be able to compare and provide insights of their understanding of the new system of independent accreditation. They observed the changes related to the implementation of independent accreditation to replace the Soviet style state attestation system. The third criterion was the representation of different subject areas because in Kyrgyzstan, the departments of teacher education programs within the pedagogical institutions are organized by subject areas. This is due to the differences in teaching methodology (e.g. methodology of teaching languages is different than methodology of teaching chemistry). Thus I recruited professors from different departments to get broad information across the institution.

Finally, the university professors might have administrative duties while they are holding full time professor positions, which would contribute to some aspects of the study such as the involvement of the faculty members in administering the accreditation process within the institution.

I used my professional connections to recruit targeted category of professors for my sampling. I communicated with my former colleague from the Kyrgyz National

University and current dean of the undergraduate program at one of the regional

universities via email. She was responsive and appointed a faculty member to help us with logistics. The faculty made a reservation for the hotel rooms and provided transportation from the airport and within the city. The person who helped us had a list of faculty members to be interviewed and a schedule for interview for four days we were there. They met my criteria in terms of years of experiences at universities, teaching various subjects and representing different academic programs including Linguistics,

Philology, and Natural Sciences. I had a classroom to interview university professors. At the second regional university, a director of the international office helped us to arrange interviews with faculty members and organized a meeting with a rector of the university.

At the university in Bishkek, I turned to a deputy dean of the undergraduate program, who provided a classroom for interviews and helped me with recruiting faculty members for this study.

Altogether, I interviewed sixteen university professors of pedagogical programs of three public universities. Among them: thirteen were from two regional universities and three were from a Bishkek university, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan; fourteen were female professors and two were male professors. Years of faculty teaching experiences at universities varied from eleven years to forty-eight years, and some university professors had also teaching experiences at secondary schools prior to their work at the universities.

Eight of them held administrative positions in addition to their teaching that might impact their attitudes toward the new system of accreditation. Among them: there is a dean of the undergraduate program and five department chairs. Three participants hold an advanced academic degree of Doktor Nauk, eight professors hold an academic degree of Kandidat

Nauk, two professors have Master’s Degrees, and three professors have a university 5- year diploma.

Data Collection

My data collection approaches included interviews, participant observations and collection of documents that fit well my study. These qualitative methods were appropriate to study in-depth and to answer my research questions.

Review of Documents

First, I started the data collection with intensive review of publicly available documents, namely the government regulatory documents on independent accreditation, accreditation criteria and procedures of the accreditation agency EdNet, self-study reports of the programs, State Educational Standards, curriculum for pedagogical programs, and institutional academic policies of selected universities. Review of all these documents helped me better prepared to the next step of my data collection—semi-structured interviews and gave me an opportunity to double check the information I got from the interviews. In addition, I had a chance to revise my interview questions after the close study of documents.

I got the Kyrgyz Government regulations from the official websites of the Kyrgyz

Republic. I found the State Educational Standards for pedagogical programs at official website of the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, and some of them were sent by colleagues via email and shared on Google Docs. The reports of the

Agency for Quality Assurance in Education “EdNet” were available at the EdNet site and

I had an access to its document in the EdNet office in Bishkek. Finally, I was provided

with self- study reports of the accreditations of the pedagogical programs and the academic policies of the institutions on assessment and qualifications of pedagogical programs during my first meetings with the university administrators.

The list of documents included:

 the Kyrgyz Government Regulations on National Accreditation Council under the

Ministry of Education(#438, August 4, 2014);

 the Kyrgyz Government Regulations on Recognizing Accreditation Agencies

(#670, September 29, 2015);

 the Kyrgyz Government Regulations on Accreditation of Educational Institutions

and Programs (#670, September 29, 2015);

 the State Educational Standards for pedagogical programs (Ministry of Education

and Sciences, 2015);

 self- study reports of pedagogical programs of three universities

 the reports of the Agency for Quality Assurance in Education “EdNet” (EdNet,

2018), the nongovernmental organization, which conducted t accreditations of the

pedagogical programs of all three universities; and

 the academic policies of the institutions on assessment and graduate qualification

requirements of pedagogical programs, and Teaching and Methodological

Complexes prepared by institutions for the EdNet accreditation.

The content of each document needed thorough full review to comprehend and get sufficient information and compare with the other research data.

1. Review of the Kyrgyz Government Regulations on National Accreditation

Council under the Ministry of Education revealed the selection criteria for the council and the responsibilities of the council members in promoting the independent accreditation. In addition, it helped me understand how the council has been building the relationships with the Ministry of Education and Sciences, the independent accreditation agencies, and universities that go through the independent accreditation.

2. I learned about the criteria for establishing independent accreditation agencies and the criteria for selecting experts from the Kyrgyz Government Regulations

Recognizing Accreditation Agencies and learned what took to be an expert on accreditation.

3. I spent more time on reviewing the Kyrgyz Government Regulations on

Accreditation of Educational Institutions and Programs because they were about the standards.

4. From review of the State Educational Standards for pedagogical programs

(Ministry of Education and Sciences, 2015; 2015a), I understood the nature of teacher training programs, missions, goals and objectives of the public pedagogical institution selected for my study, and how the curriculum, teaching and assessment system had been changed in the course of Bologna Process reforms in the country. I learned that learning outcomes and competences for each major were defined in the State Educational

Standards.

5. Self- study reports for accreditation of the public pedagogical institutions revealed the institutional achievements and challenges in meeting accreditation requirements, the process of accreditation, and faculty perspectives on the new system.

These reports showed me the faculty involvement in the process of self-study, the way how professors provided evidence for quality of teaching and learning, the tools for assessment of student learning and the quality monitoring system. These documents were crucial to my study because they provided the insights of the institutional perception of the independent accreditation, the scope of preparation work for accreditation, the strategies to eliminate the shortcomings that university administrators and faculty members encountered in the process of self- study, and strategies for improvement.

6. The reports of the Agency for Quality Assurance in Education “EdNet” (EdNet,

2018), which conducted the independent accreditations of the pedagogical programs gave me the insights of the whole accreditation process. Especially, I learned about the status of the institutions, their preparedness for independent accreditation from the perspectives of accreditors who did site visit and what they learned about faculty members from their meetings with them, their decisions on accreditation, strengths and weaknesses of the teacher education programs, curriculum and assessment system, quality of teaching and learning, and resources. All this information helped me understand criteria for independent accreditation used by EdNet to provide evidence for quality of teacher education programs in general and quality of student learning outcomes in particular.

7. I learned from the institutional academic policies about the mechanisms and tools of quality assessment system at pedagogical programs in public universities in

Kyrgyzstan. The qualifications requirements for graduates of pedagogical programs explained the graduation requirements for students of teacher training programs.

Academic policies provided with the definitions of new terms, introduced new formats of

exams and a new grading system, they also provided with instructions on compiling

Teaching and Methodological Complexes for each course of the program. All these documents helped me understand the preparedness of teacher candidates to start teaching with a four-year bachelor’s degree comparing to a Soviet five- year university diploma.

Interviews

Second, I used semi-structured interviews because this was a new topic, participants could come up with new topics related to the independent accreditation that I would not be able to learn about if I were using a different research methodology. I took enough time to explain the content of the consent form before I asked the participants to sign it and started the interview. This was a crucial moment for me because this might be the first time for my participants when they saw the consent form, which did not exist in the research context of Kyrgyzstan. My intuition, the knowledge of Kyrgyz culture and both languages: Kyrgyz and Russian, and my familiarity with the university environment helped me to set up scenarios that would be comfortable for research participants to talk to me. The interviews took place in participants’ natural settings i.e. in the classrooms, and their departments outside of the participants’ class time. The interviews were private and confidential, after classes when students were not there.

The interviews lasted 40-90 minutes and were conducted in both Kyrgyz and

Russian languages. Rubin and Rubin (2012) suggest three types of questions: main questions, follow-up questions, and probes (p. 129) to get the in-depth and comprehensive information on the topic you study. In my study, I used follow-up questions not only to clarify some of the participants’ answers and get “enough evidence

to draw conclusion” (p. 129), but also to identify questions and issues for further research.

I prepared interview questions in two languages, and these questions were divided into three sections. Based on my theoretical framework of Schlossberg’s Transition

Theory (Anderson et al., 2012; Goodman et al., 2006; Schlossberg et al., 1995) the first section of questions helped me to get the general information about each individual faculty ‘self’, their personal and demographic characteristics and their experiences in transition to build participants’ profile of the study, which included subject area, their academic degrees, and the years of their teaching experiences. The second section of my interview questions (main questions) helped me to depict the central aspect of my study—faculty perspectives on independent accreditation, how faculty members perceived the new system of accreditation and how they characterized the current situation that they were going through. It included the questions about the following: the context and impact of independent accreditation on university faculty life, faculty’s involvement in state attestation or independent accreditation process; their perspectives on the new independent accreditation system; the factors that impacted their attitudes; the types of support they received and the strategies they used in the process of changes related to a new system of accreditation; their concerns about implementation of independent accreditation (if they had any), why they had or did not have particular concerns; and the advantages and disadvantages of independent accreditation in the context of current pedagogical programs. The third section of questions (follow up

questions) helped me to identify issues for the further study on how to address the challenges related to the new system of independent accreditation.

Participant Observation

Third, I used participant observation during institutional and departmental faculty meetings that helped me to understand the professors’ authentic points of view on the independent accreditation and their preparedness to the new system. I also observed classroom settings to see teaching and learning conditions, and resources available for teachers and students.

I used multiple research techniques to organize and prepare my data for further analysis. With the permission of my participants, I recorded my interviews and kept field notes. I tried to write down my reactions to what I had observed during the interview in my research journal on the same day of the interview. Then I had chances to discuss some of the issues during my informal conversations with some of the participants and the dean of the program and other administrators after the interviews. I did member- checking after I had transcribed the interviews.

Data Analysis

My goal was to understand faculty points of view on independent accreditation based on their experiences and knowledge about the new system. At the same time, my knowledge and understanding of the evaluation system through the state attestation in

Kyrgyzstan shaped my interpretation of the data. I possess profound knowledge of academic regulations established by the Ministry of Education and Sciences of

Kyrgyzstan for state attestation (accreditation) and am familiar with the European

Standards and Guidelines (ESG, 2015), on which independent accreditation standards are based in the course of the Bologna Process reforms. I position myself as a co-constructor and tried to co-construct meanings out of what my participants said during the interviews in order to interpret accurately the meanings that participants made on independent accreditation.

Miles and Huberman (1994) distinguished three types of activities in the process of data analysis: “data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing / verification” (p.

10). Data reduction is a process of selecting, coding, identifying themes, clustering and writing memos. Data display means organizing the data in various forms such as matrices, charts or texts. Conclusion drawing is the process of deciding what information is important, interpretation and possible propositions. Qualitative data analyses will be an iterative and long process with an inductive approach “to developing or confirming a theory that begins with concrete empirical evidence and works toward more abstract concepts and theoretical relationships” (Neuman, 2014, p. 70).

I elaborated journal entries with memos on a regular basis. I reviewed the collected data and thought about the areas of exploration through revisiting and modifying my interview questions. I used various techniques of data analyses—coding, identifying themes, clustering by themes and generating bigger topics, writing my reflections on the interview transcripts, analysing my notes and other materials. I took the following steps to prepare, analyze and interpret the data:

1. As the data dictated, I listened to audio-recorded data and transcribed what was said in the language of individual interviewee (Kyrgyz or Russian) verbatim. This stage

was very important and required my careful attention to transfer accurately the verbal meaning into the written text, while keeping the voice and tone of the participants. Some participants’ speeches were not coherent with repeated words, Kyrgyz and Russian proverbs to describe the situation or to emphasize the intended meaning that was important for this research. Some participants had filler expressions and long pauses in their speeches, when they found the interview question (s) to be difficult to answer. I listened to the audio-recorded texts several times and reviewed the written texts several times before I started coding.

2. I started with line-by-line coding in Kyrgyz and Russian languages in order to save time because if I started translating first without coding and identifying themes, I might have to translate irrelevant information or repeated themes or issues that the whole process of data analysis would take more time. I reread multiple times the transcripts and my notes and wrote down preliminary codes in the margins and described in my journal what I found in the data.

Coding is the main categorizing strategy (Maxwell, 2013) by breaking down the written texts by themes or categories to develop theoretical concepts or organize the data into broader topics that would emerge during the coding. I looked for emerging themes and labeled the themes with a word or phrase that interviewees used and then highlighted words, phrases, or sentences by color on the transcribed text.

3. I clustered the data by themes identified as a result of coding of the written text.

At this stage, I reread the data and reviewed through the lens of the significance of the

information to address my research question. It helped me sort out and separate the information that is not relevant to the independent accreditation or my research problems.

4. I translated only the information sorted out by themes into English taking into account the differences of language structures of the three languages selected. I reorganized my data by bigger topics or issues emerged in the process of coding. In the process of translation, I paid close attention to the content of conversation and to the voice of participants to capture the intended meaning while leaving out repeated words and some irrelevant conversations that made my coding easier

5. I wrote memos or my reflections on regular basis. Maxwell (2013) stated the importance of memos in data analysis and suggested that they do not only “capture your analytic thinking about your data, but also facilitate such thinking, stimulating analytic insights” (p. 105). It was not easy to create a system to organize my data. Finally, I came up with a table of topics that made sense to me to manage the data collected from the interviews through identifying themes and clustering them into bigger topics.

6. Interpretation and writing. My understanding of the meanings of each theme and the participants’ perspectives on implementation of a new independent accreditation system to assess the quality of education of pedagogical programs informed my interpretation of the meanings that participants made from their experiences.

While using digital voice recorders (DVR) was easy and the sound quality was good, I was not able to use any software programs for transcribing or analyzing the textual data since the texts were in Russian and Kyrgyz languages. After each interview, I copied the voice file from my recorder into my personal computer, stored individual

digital voice files by pseudonyms to maintain confidentiality and have copies of files on a portable hard drive for safety reasons. Then I uploaded the voice files to transcribe them and stored a Word files with the same pseudonyms and copied Word files also on to the portable hard drive. I compared the recordings to my transcripts several times before I started translation for the accuracy and to be sure that I did not miss anything.

Trustworthiness and Reflexivity

Using multiple sources helped me determine the trustworthiness of the results of my study based on evidence emerged in the process of data collection and data analysis from multiple sites. An interpretivist researcher directly interacts with the participants of the study for a longer period of time in their natural settings to better understand the views of the participants, and to produce “high-quality, rigorous, and trustworthy research” (Niesz, n.d.). I found the member checking approach to be effective in confirming the accuracy of the data, and it was easy to send some findings and my interpretation, and questions in the process of data analyses to the participant by email or by social networks, this allowed me to communicate with them and check if my interpretation says what they mean. I also employed peer checking, a Kent State

University doctorate student from Central Asia, who understands the context of my research read my findings and gave her feedback. I stayed open-minded to admit multiple perspectives from different participants, and I was aware and kept my own perspectives, bias, subjectivity and beliefs under control and separate.

Positionality

My interpretation of the research findings was shaped by my background in academia for more than 30 years and by my interest in the topic of quality assessment in higher education, accreditation system in the USA and in European countries. During my

Fulbright year at Kent State University, I did research on the accreditation system in the

United States. I have solid understanding of the changes in the higher education system in

European countries through participating in various international conferences. For instance, I regularly attend and present at the conferences of Comparative and

International Education Society (Ryskulova, CIES, 2017) and Central and Eurasian

Studies Society (Ryskulova, CESS, 2016) on related topics. These conferences helped me get an access to updated information about the reforms in higher education including the assessment systems in various countries. Moreover, my understanding of the educational context in Kyrgyzstan and the culture of assessment through Soviet state attestation, and my awareness of the faculty life in Kyrgyzstani universities helped me better understand faculty perspectives on independent accreditation and interpret their point of view.

Finally, my knowledge of three languages (Kyrgyz, Russian and English) allowed me to translate my data from Kyrgyz and Russian languages into English. My previous doctorate research was in Comparative Linguistics and my dissertation topic was “The

Kyrgyz Postpositions and their Semantic and Functional Counterparts in English”

(Ryskulova, 2009). I am also one of the four editors of English -Kyrgyz Dictionary

(Sharshekeeva, Ryskulova, Sharshekeeva, & Ryskulova, 2005).

Ethics

I was aware of the ethical norms in the country where I conducted my research, and I was respectful to the participants and cautious to follow ethical norms of both countries during my study. For instance, in the research context of Kyrgyzstan, there is no concept of informed consent and people might feel uncomfortable to sign a paper or to have their speech recorded. I completed and obtained Kent State University Institutional

Review Board (IRB) permission to use verbal assent for these cases. I contacted each participant and explained the purposes of the study and how I would use the data before asking them to sign any consent forms.

The only risk, I oversaw was the professional risk that participants might be identified. In order to protect the participants of this study, I used a regional university one (RU1), a regional university two (RU2), and a Bishkek university (BU) without specifying the names of the institutions, and pseudonyms to all sixteen participants. I am the only person, who is responsible for confidentiality of all information for this study, and all data I collected and analyzed were stored by me on separate files/folders carefully arranged and labeled by pseudonyms.

Summary

In this chapter, I described the research approach and methodology to conduct interpretative qualitative research. My study explored the faculty perspectives on independent accreditation at three public universities in Kyrgyzstan. I used semi- structured interviews in both Russian and Kyrgyz languages with sixteen faculty members to address my research questions. Data analysis included coding, clustering the

data by themes, categorizing and interpreting. Using the multiple sources and member checking techniques provided trustworthiness of the study.

CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Introduction

In this chapter, I discuss the research findings generated from the data. The purpose of this study was to explore faculty perspectives on the new independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs at three public universities in Kyrgyzstan. The principal research question for this study was: What are the perspectives of faculty at three public universities on the new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs?

I had the following four sub- questions to guide the study:

 What are the main factors that influence faculty attitudes towards the new

independent accreditation?

 To what extent do the new accreditation processes impact faculty life in the

context of multiple transitions?

 What do university professors change in their teaching approaches to achieve

student centeredness and improve quality of student learning?

 How do professors determine whether or not students in pedagogical programs

are meeting learning outcomes?

To briefly review the new accreditation process that the participants are referring to, in Soviet times, educational programs went through state attestation every five years.

According to the Law on Education, “State Attestation is an appraisal of conformance

(non-conformance) of content, level, quality of education provided by a higher education institution to the requirements of the State Educational Standards” (The Government of

the KR, 2001). State attestation is designed to assure that universities provide an integrated program of study that prepares specialists possessing high professional, social and personal qualities. The state attestation process involved three stages: self-attestation or internal evaluation of a program, site visit or external evaluation by the state attestation commission established by the Ministry of Education and Sciences, and discussion the findings and decision making by the Ministerial Collegium. According to the regulations on the state attestation of higher education institutions (The Government of the KR,

2001), the state attestation was based on input assessment and included the following nine criteria:

1. Qualification requirements for preparing specialists (the complete higher

education degree, a five-year degree before the Bologna Process reforms).

2. Quality of faculty composition (scientific degree of faculty, teaching

experiences).

3. Academic and methodical work: curriculum analysis and its correspondence

with the State Educational Standards.

4. Informational and library support of an educational process: number of

computers and list of books for each required course, etc.).

5. Information on employment of graduates, potential employers and demand for

specialists.

6. Research activities and faculty development (number of publications,

conference participation, etc.).

7. Extracurricular Activities/University Service (work of academic advisors).

8. Assessment system (midterm and final exam results): analysis of students’

academic performance.

9. Physical facilities: square meters for classrooms, libraries, and computer rooms.

In 2016, Kyrgyzstan implemented accreditation by independent, nongovernmental agencies, which is a requirement of the Bologna Process (The Government of the KR, 2015). By 2018, five agencies had come into existence in Kyrgyzstan, but all of the participants in this research had been through the accreditation process with the oldest of these agencies, Agency on Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Higher

Education Institutions of the Kyrgyz Republic (EdNet) (EdNet, 2018). All of the agencies use criteria based on those developed as part of the Bologna Process, and all must report their findings to the National Accreditation Council under the Ministry of Education and

Sciences. The Ministry of Education and Sciences continues to award diplomas to university graduates based on the results of the accreditation. The EdNet accreditation is based on the following eight criteria:

1. Mission of a higher education institution.

2. Goals and learning outcomes of an educational program.

3. Content of an educational program.

4. An educational process and assessment of learning outcomes.

5. Faculty.

6. Satisfaction of stakeholders.

7. Infrastructure, educational resources and support.

8. Information and policy on accountability and transparency (EdNet, 2018).

The regulations on accreditation of the independent accreditation agency EdNet support findings from the faculty interviews. According to this document (EdNet, 2018), an expert commission visits the university for at least two days and EdNet requires the university to create the appropriate conditions for the work of the expert commission (the room, printer, computer and other office equipment, etc.). The expert commission sends the report and findings to the Accreditation Council of the Agency (EdNet) for consideration and the Accreditation Council of the Agency makes a decision within 30 days after the site visit. The Accreditation Council of the Agency is a collegial body appointed by the Supervisory Board of the Agency on the proposal of the Director of the

Agency on the basis of open competition. The Council consists of five people and it is elected for a five-year period from the representatives of various communities, who have a good business reputation in the field of their professional activities (EdNet, 2018). The purpose of the Accreditation Council is to make objective and informed decisions on the accreditation of institutions or programs. The Accreditation Council makes three types of decisions on accreditation of an academic program:

1. Accreditation for five years in the case of full compliance with the Agency's

criteria.

2. Conditional accreditation for one year in the case of non- compliance in one or

two criteria with an option to extend the accreditation.

3. Denial of accreditation.

The decision of the Accreditation Council of the Agency, together with the expert report on the results of accreditation is sent to the rector of the higher education

institution within three days after the Council’s meeting. The decision is also sent to the

MoES to be included into the registry8 of the MoES of the KR (EdNet, 2018, p. 2). EdNet regulations on accreditation procedures (2018) remind higher education institutions that if the program is denied accreditation, in accordance with the "Procedure of accreditation of educational institutions and programs" approved by the Government of the Kyrgyz

Republic №670 on September 29, 2015, the institution has no right to issue diplomas to the graduates (EdNet, 2018, p. 3).

I employed an interpretative qualitative design to answer my research questions.

The emerged findings respond to the research questions with distinct perspectives of faculty on a new independent accreditation system as result of their participation in the new accreditation process of the programs at their universities. The data analysis identified various factors that impact faculty attitudes towards the new accreditation, their views and understandings of the new system. The findings showed how the faculty lives changed in the course of the multiple transitions related to the Bologna Process reforms in higher education system in Kyrgyzstan. With some overlaps, faculty expressed their positive and negative attitudes towards the new independent accreditation of educational programs. Thus some faculty found the new system of accreditation as an opportunity for quality improvement and professional development, while others considered it to be a

8 The National Accreditation Council keeps registration of accreditation agencies.

Accreditation agencies also keep registration of the accredited institutions and programs and post on their websites (The Government of the KR, 2015).

challenge, and thought that accreditation could not promote quality of education. I discuss the findings in the following sections.

Demographics

Sixteen university professors were interviewed at three public universities.

Among them: thirteen were from two regional universities and three were from Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan; fourteen were female professors and two were male professors. They teach various subjects including English Language, Mathematics,

Physics, History, Physiology and Anatomy, Computer Sciences, Psychology, Russian

Language and Literature, Methodology of Teaching and other subjects. Unlike in the U.S. higher education programs, where the faculty in the disciplines would be in their programs, the Soviet education programs were set up in a way that faculty of one program would be part of another program depending on which part of the three main sections of curriculum9 they carry out. For example, Russian language professors are the faculty members of the Russian Language Department, but they might teach students of the Chemistry or Physics teacher education programs and to be part of so called ‘service’ programs. Years of faculty teaching experiences at universities varied from eleven years to forty-eight years, and some university professors had also teaching experiences at secondary schools prior to their work at the universities. Eight professors held administrative positions in addition to their teaching that might impact their attitudes

9 Curriculum for pedagogical programs consists of three sections: Humanities,

Social and Economic Sciences; Mathematics and Natural Sciences; and Professional

(major) courses.

towards the new system of accreditation. Among them: there is a dean of the undergraduate program and five department chairs. Three participants hold an advanced academic degree of Doktor Nauk, eight professors hold an academic degree of Kandidat

Nauk (abbreviated in the chart below as k. – n., with the middle letter standing for the subject, e.g. k.p. n. is kandidat of pedagogical sciences (nauk), two professors have

Master’s Degrees, and three professors have a university 5-year diploma.

Table 1

Faculty profile

Name Gender University Degrees Years of Administrative Year of teaching position accreditation Datka F RU1 k.f.n. 27 2018 Saikal F RU1 MA 28 2018 Burul F RU1 k.f.n. 17 Dean 2018 Jyrgal F RU1 U 5-year 35 2018 Ajar F RU1 Doktor 48 Department 2018 nauk Chair Mahabat F RU1 k.f.n. 21 Department 2018 Chair Omor M RU1 U 5-year 18 2018 Zuura F RU1 U 5-year 11 2018 Kamila F RU1 MA 26 Methodologist 2018 Atyrkul F RU2 k.p. n. 18 2017 Turar M RU2 Doktor 40 Former Vice- 2017 nauk President Sezim F RU2 k.p. n. 21 2017 Maripa F RU2 k.p. n. 16 2017 Cholpon F BU k.b.n. 42 Department 2014 Chair Indira F BU Doctor 19 Department 2014 nauk Chair Sajida F BU k.ps.n. 25 Department 2014 Chair

Findings According to Research Questions

The study addressed the principal research question: What are the perspectives of faculty at three public universities on the new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs?

I examined faculty understanding of the essence of independency of accreditation agencies, as well as their estimation of how independent accreditation differs from the old state attestation system. Seven faculty members found a new accreditation system to be a necessary process and viewed their role in this process to be important. The faculty members were motivated to participate in the preparation for accreditation of their academic programs for various reasons.

Faculty Understanding of Accreditation

From the responses to the researcher’s questions, it appeared that participants have not thought about the status of independent accreditation agencies and their relationship with the Ministry of Education and Sciences (MoES). Some of the participants believe that accreditation is not independent because it is a ministerial requirement. As Turar, Doctor Nauk of Pedagogical Sciences who has 40 years of teaching experience, and a former Vice-President for Academic Affairs at one of the regional universities explained, “EdNet took this requirement [requirement for quality improvement] from the Ministry. They say it [accreditation] is independent. No, it is not.

This is the Ministry of Education and Sciences requirement”. Likewise, Kamila, MA with

26 years of teaching experience, and a methodologist of the department at the RU1,

thinks that “accreditation is mandatory, and it is one of the requirements of the Bologna

Process”.

The findings suggest that university professors, who have administrative positions, understand better the notion of independency of accreditation than their colleagues, who do not have administrative positions. Those with administrative responsibilities are aware that the MoES awards academic degrees as a result of accreditation of the program. For instance, Indira, Doctor Nauk of Pedagogical Sciences with 19 years of teaching experience and a Department Chair at one of the universities in the capital city explained: “Legally it [accreditation] is independent; nevertheless, it is under the control of the Ministry. The results of accreditation are state diplomas. The

Ministry awards diplomas, and the accreditation agency emphasizes that the university provides quality education”. In other words, the accreditation agency assures the MoES about the quality of the program accredited and then the MoES makes a decision to award the academic degrees. Indira explains, “Accreditation agency accredits and gives conclusion and then the Ministry legalizes it. In our country, the state document is under the Ministry of Education, which is why they are dependent on each other”. Some believe that accreditation should be independent of the Ministry because as Cholpon, Kandidat of

Biological Sciences, with 42 years of teaching experience, and a Department Chair at the

BU explains:

The government cannot check itself. This is a state institution, we [students]

receive state diplomas, and again checking state workers [by state organization] is

not logical. Yes, Ministry of Education should take into account the results of

independent accreditation, but it should not make a decision or give its own

evaluation.

For Turar, it does not matter whether it is a government organization or an independent agency, which evaluates academic programs; the evaluation should be done properly.

According to Turar, what is important is that “the person who evaluates [the academic program] should be independent [should be free to be objective], but it does not matter whether the agency is independent or not”. In contrast to faculty members who have administrative experience, regular faculty members without administrative positions do not clearly understand why accreditation is conducted by independent agencies. As one of the participants, Omor who works at the RU1 for 18 years with a 5-year university diploma said: “As I understood it, the MoES gave its functions to them [accreditation agencies]”. He also found the question “who will make a final decision?” to be difficult but thinks that “the Ministry awards diplomas based on the decisions of the accreditation agency” (Omor).

The main differences between independent accreditation and state attestation, according to the participants of the research, is that accreditation involved the whole academic community, and it was a real objective evaluation, while the state attestation had a formal character with few people involved in the process, mainly university administration. Mahabat, Kandidat of Philological Sciences with 21 years of teaching experience, and a chair of the Foreign Languages Department at one of the regional universities, described the situation during the site visit of the state attestation team as follows: “During the state attestation the rectorat [president’s office] took them [site visit

team] to different places [e.g. restaurants], did something, give boxes [gifts], tea, something else (money) and finished with it”. In contrast, the participants recognized that the scope of work in accreditation was wide and requirements were strict, which required more work of faculty members. Comparing the two, Turar said that accreditation was realistic, not doing what the Ministry said to do. In addition, an interview with stakeholders, including graduates and employers, was the new procedure of the accreditation site visit. Independent accreditation is more objective, in the opinion of

Cholpon, and objectivity is expressed by the attitude of the site visit team.

Seven faculty members expressed their satisfaction with the new accreditation process. According to the interview data, the faculty satisfaction was attributed to their understanding of accreditation as a necessary process. Cholpon states, “I know and understand that it is a necessary process, it is an important process”, and Zuura, who has been working at the RU1 for 11 years with a 5-year university diploma believes that “it is the demand of the contemporary time”. Maripa, Kandidat of Pedagogical Sciences, who has been working for the RU2 for 16 years adds, “We carried it out because we need it”.

All seven participants think that accreditation is necessary because only students of accredited universities are eligible for university degrees awarded by the MoES of the

Kyrgyz Republic. Furthermore, the findings showed the awareness of faculty about the international integration of their educational programs: “We [faculty] felt the necessity of this process and we are integrating into the European system” (Omor). Sajiada, Kandidat of Psychological Sciences, and a Department Chair at the BU with 25 years of teaching experience shared her perspectives about the faculty members of her department as: “The

factor of awareness about that we are entering the world educational sphere makes the faculty understand the need for accreditation”.

However, faculty experiences with the accreditation process were not all positive.

Kamila had a negative perception of the interview process because the administration of her university pre-selected the faculty who would speak to the accreditation site visit team. As Kamila stated, “Interviews do not give good results because all of the people who were sent to interviews were from a list prepared by the department chairs beforehand”. The Dean’s office at the RU1 required two professors from each department and the department chairs sent two professors who spoke Russian well, because interviews were conducted in Russian. Not all professors speak Russian well. The same way students were sent to interview with accreditors by the list of the dean’s office that created negative impression about the new accreditation system (Kamila). Indira also expressed concerns about qualifications of the experts, “As we see the picture today, various groups of people can be experts: those who have good connections, good relationships”. It is important for her to know how the accreditation agencies select experts, what qualifications the accreditation experts have in a given program, about their experiences in higher education institutions, what the quality of their own teaching is, and about their personal and professional reputations in the academic community. The persistence of faculty skepticism about the objectivity and expertise of those participating in the accreditation process may point to a problem with transparency, as according to the procedures of accreditation of EdNet (2018), the agency seeks out an international expert, an expert on quality assurance or a specialist from the field of the program under review,

a representative of the labor market, a student representative, and a representative of the agency for each commission. Any university professor can attend EdNet’s three-day training session on accreditation criteria, requirements and procedures, and take a test and become an expert (EdNet, 2018).

As for the paper work, from the faculty perspectives, university professors did not like “paper work” required for the new accreditation as part of the self-study process, even though many professors emphasized that it was good to revise the academic programs, teaching materials, syllabi, and assignments and to revisit their teaching and grading approaches. In addition, the participants expressed their concerns about quality of accreditation. Turar expressed his perception that “there is no institution that has not been accredited, some were not accredited temporarily then after correcting their papers they got accreditation”. Moreover, there is “no policy yet to transfer students only from an accredited institution”, so accreditation cannot create any obstacles for students transferring from one institution to another. Turar stated that “A student can transfer to another institution and receive a diploma there; if that institution cannot give [a diploma], he can transfer to another one. We do not have a qualification framework”.

Faculty Motivations to Participate in the Accreditation Process

University professors were interested in being involved in the accreditation process of their programs for four reasons:

 they did not want to stay outside of the collective [academic community]

and to fall behind other professors;

 they wanted to get some additional points at the faculty performance

evaluation for the participation in the process;

 they cared about the reputation of the university; and

 they did not want to lose their jobs in case the program was not accredited.

As Cholpon articulated her point of view, “they [professors] understand that future fate of professors would depend on the results of accreditation”. Omor also noted that “Professors were interested in being involved, they worked collectively”. This personal investment in accreditation resulted in increased understanding of the essence of new accreditation and “how to build a quality assurance system” (Sajida). The faculty opinion at one of the regional universities changed dynamically from negative at the beginning of the self-study analysis to positive by the end of accreditation. Omor explained:

First, we [professors] thought accreditation took a lot of time, and then in process

we understood that it was a good thing. There are many good things to take from

accreditation, because I had inspiration not to fall behind other my colleagues, and

to take an advantage of this process to show my good sides. Faculty members do

not want to stay outside of the collective. And each faculty is a patriot of his

institution; no one wants to show bad sides of his home institution. It is a big

institution with a good reputation in the region.

Part of the faculty’s motivation to carry out accreditation is the belief that the paper work, although overwhelming, was a short term burden. They believed once they prepared documentation according to the criteria of the accreditation agency, and created the

Teaching and Methodological Complexes (TMC) with all the teaching materials, that they

believed would serve them forever or at least until the next accreditation i.e. five years.

“We got prepared, updated, added some things; this was a process that would take place every year. But if we approve it for five years it will serve us for many years” (Maripa).

In this, faculty members misunderstand the requirements of accreditation. The

Teaching and Methodological Complex is the requirement of the MoES and university professors create the TMC for each course they teach, and update it every semester.

According to Adamkulova, Simbard, and Bekboeva (2016),

An individual study plan [of students] must be supported by the Teaching and

Methodological Complex, which includes educational program for each discipline

of the curriculum, topics, outlines of lectures, plan of seminars, plan of

independent work of students, assignments for independent work of students,

exam questions, etc. (p. 9).

Ednet assesses this documentation to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. The faculty members recognize that the TMC ‘increases your [faculty] responsibility for education, improves the quality of professors [teaching], and promotes the quality of education in the program” (Maripa), but they did not seem to be aware of the expectation to maintain the TMC even in years when there was no accreditation visit pending.

Sub- Question 1: What are the Main Factors that Influence Faculty Attitudes

towards the New Independent Accreditation?

Positive Attitudes of Faculty towards Independent Accreditation

Nine participants expressed their positive attitudes towards the new accreditation system. The factors contributing to the faculty’s positive perceptions include:

 improved atmosphere at the university during the process of preparation for

accreditation and positive impressions of the accreditation process during the

site visit;

 opportunity for faculty to develop, to learn and to change

 faculty belief that accreditation can promote quality of education

Improved atmosphere. Six participants described the atmosphere at the university during accreditation as good and calm, because there were “no psychological attacks [from the visiting team], jitters, nerve –racking experiences” (Jyrgal). Five participants emphasized the atmosphere in the collective improved because “the whole collective was involved in the accreditation process” (Ajar). Moreover, university professors believed that the new independent accreditation was positive “because it motivates professors and students [to work better]” (Indira). The professors got a positive impression about the accreditation site visit, which was different from the state attestation site visit “when we [faculty] were invited to be reprimanded” (Jyrgal) and one of the participants described the whole process to be “benevolent with respect, with dignity”, because “from the beginning, the accreditors told us that they came not to criticize but to help; no critics, nobody yelled at us [faculty] and no quarrels” (Jyrgal). Faculty did not feel any pressure, but rather the visit was marked by “nice conversations and exchanging opinions” (Maripa).

Independent accreditation as an opportunity. Eight participants viewed the accreditation process as an opportunity to review and improve their teaching materials, their teaching approaches and their own qualifications. According to Jyrgal, accreditation

allowed them “to demonstrate themselves to what extent they [faculty] are creative and competent in their professional activities”. Datka agreed that it was an opportunity “to show their power and strength”. Maripa saw the accreditation process as a time to generate new “thoughts what and how to change after the accreditation”, and Indira saw the opportunity “to improve the quality of professors and the results”.

The review of the teaching materials and faculty’s approaches to methodology of teaching helped faculty to identify the shortcomings in their work. They found that recognizing those shortcomings to be an impetus to eliminate them (Jyrgal), “to focus the attention on further steps for improvement” (Sajida), and to plan new tasks for further development of their program and department. As a program chair, Sajida said, “I got a spectrum of additional tasks in the process of self-study that allows me to help professors of my department improve quality of teaching and quality of student learning”. Sajida also found the self-study process to be an opportunity to better understand the interests of each student and the students’ educational needs, as well as to increase the awareness of professors’ needs. Sajida explained that “We see more opportunities to work, and this work is real, lively i.e. not formal where we can evaluate [the program] not only by knowledge, skills and abilities [of students], but also by the final results [of the educational process]”. Accreditation allowed faculty to identify their strengths and weaknesses and improved their teaching quality. Saikal, a professor of literature at the

RU1 told me how accreditation changed her: “before, if I had a chance I talked only about my favorite authors, Joyce and Woolf, now I feel I am competent, we self-

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qualified and it [accreditation] increased our self-discipline and our attitude to documents

[Teaching and Methodological Complex]”.

Accreditation can promote quality of education. Nine participants of the research believed that the new accreditation system could promote quality of education in higher education institutions. As Indira described,

Independent accreditation improves quality of academic process, management of

quality of education, and monitoring of quality education process. Accreditation

allows participants to identify strengths and weaknesses of the educational

process. In the course of the educational process, the shortcomings and

advantages of the program are identified through well conducted SWOT analysis,

self-analysis, and self-evaluation of the program. Then, the quality of education is

examined on the level of accreditation agencies according to their criteria.

Zuura highlighted that accreditation aimed at quality improvement; while Omor pointed out that the accreditors measured quality by communicating with students using the criteria faculty gave them. Datka, a Kandidat of Philological Sciences, a professor at the

RU1 with 27 years of teaching experience thinks that “the evidence for quality is the fact that the university is in a good shape and the level of education meets its requirements

[State Educational Standards]”.

Moving on to evidence for quality, the majority of faculty members consider the employability of the graduates as evidence for quality, they equate the accreditors’ practice of speaking to alumni and employers with promoting program quality.

According to Atyrkul, a Kandidat of Pedagogical Sciences, a professor at the RU2 with

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18 years of teaching experience, the site visit team also met with graduates and school principals to determine quality of education of the program. Burul, a Dean of an undergraduate program at RU1, Kandidat of Philological Sciences with 17 years of teaching experience pointed out that

Accreditation gave us an opportunity to define the percentage of employment and

the percentage of employment indicates that we provide quality education. The

indicator of quality of education is the voice of stakeholders, because a workplace

gives their evaluation of our graduates.

Saikal added that “quality is when their [graduates’] education matches the sphere

[where] they work or will work” and “accreditors found out about the match between preparation and performance by interviewing stakeholders”. According to Jyrgal, “The issues with quality of education are not solved by one monitoring; we have connections with employers, students and prospective students. The ability of our students to find a job is evidence for quality”. While more than half of the professors interviewed believe that accreditation process will have a positive influence on quality of the program, they did not all agree on the specific markers of quality. Omor gave as an example of quality the percentage of professors with scientific degrees (they are described in Chapter 2), “I can say that 60-65% of our professors have scientific degrees”, and the reputation of the university “with 75 years of history”. Some professors are convinced that “first places of the students in regional and national contests in subject areas” are the indicators of the quality of their programs.

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Nine professors viewed the accreditation process as a positive professional development aspect that might contribute to the improvement of the quality of higher education. However, the review of the State Educational Standards for Pedagogy (MoES,

2015) and Philology majors (MoES, 2015a), EdNet regulations on accreditation (2018), and Minimum Requirements for Educational Organizations of Elementary, Secondary and Higher Education Levels of the Kyrgyz Republic to Be Accredited (The Government of the KR, 2016) showed that these documents did not define quality.

Negative Attitudes of Faculty towards Independent Accreditation

All sixteen participants expressed some negative perceptions about the new accreditation process and three of them thought that accreditation could not promote quality of education. All sixteen emphasized that accreditation required “too much paper work” that took a lot of faculty time, and distracted them from their main function -- teaching. Other reasons for their negative attitude were difficulties with understanding the new accreditation criteria, the requirements for filling out the accreditation forms, and rewriting the reports multiple times. Factors contributing to the faculty’s negative attitudes include:

 too much paper work;

 insufficient training and information;

 poor management of the accreditation process;

 stressful atmosphere before the accreditation site visit; and

 faculty belief that accreditation cannot promote quality of education.

Too much paper work. The negative attitudes of faculty towards the new

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independent accreditation were caused by faculty being required to produce “too much paper work” as preparation for the accreditation of the academic program. The faculty’s focus was taken away from teaching and students, while they were focusing on generating positive results of accreditation through putting in order the documentation and producing “too much paper work”. As Saikal described the situation, “Unnecessary paper work distanced faculty from teaching. It was very difficult for professors to work with much documentation. We forgot about students”. According to Saikal, the university administration at the RU1 was also at a loss to draw a connection between the paperwork and the faculty’s primary task of educating students: “We [faculty] were told that this is only this year, we should be patient, and then we will not ignore students”. Sajida expressed her concerns about the role and responsibilities of faculty in relation to teaching and doing paper work:

We have too many documents. Those are not significant, neither for professors

nor for students. Professor’s work should not be focused on administrative tasks,

but on opportunities to be creative in their classes. We do not see the scientific

approach or creative approach, due to the overwhelming flow of paper.

Similarly, Turar stated that “paper work harms [teaching], it is useless”, and Zuura stated,

“It was hard to conduct quality classes and work late with documents’. Kamila said:

But what we wrote on papers, we sacrificed with our hours, our students. We let

our students sit, gave them assignments and left to write reports, papers. In

practice, we did not teach for the year, we got ready for the accreditation. Now we

have so much paper, that I do not know what I wrote where.

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Because of the sheer quantity and complexity of documents, faculty found it difficult to remember the positive aspects of the reporting tasks.

The paper work increased due to the accreditation requirements to examine a

Teaching and Methodological Complex and to provide each statement with evidence

(minutes from the meetings, copies of tests and assignments, portfolios, lectures, presentations, etc.). Nine participants at the RU1 repeatedly mentioned the document called Bulletin #19 (RU1, 2017), a guideline for developing the Teaching and

Methodological Complex (TMC), which established the general requirements to the rules on compiling the TMC:

The document was recommended by the Methodological Council of the university

on October 25, 2017 and was approved by the Administrative Council of the

university on November 20, 2017. This regulation includes requirements on the

structure and content of the TMC by disciplines, order of development,

organization of control over the content and quality of the TMC, and

recommendations on developing the other parts of the TMC. It also includes

templates of a working program, course syllabus, information on new teaching

technology, approximate bibliographic description of documents [reference style

and citation] according to the State Educational Standard 7.1-2003 (p. 2).

The Bulletin #19 also includes definitions of the key terms such as ‘a fund of assessment means’, ‘a competency map’,’ a technological map’, and ‘a point accumulation map’ as well as requirements for independent work of students and the significance of interactive methods. All universities use these new terms introduced in the State Educational

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Standards with the implementation of the new assessment system. The terms might be slightly different from university to university. According to the State Educational

Standards,

To evaluate students’ personal achievements in meeting the step-by-step

requirements of the main educational program, a higher education institution

creates a fund of assessment means, which will include typical assignments, tests

and other forms of exams that allow the institution to assess knowledge, abilities

and skills (MoES, 2015a, p. 19)

During the interview, I observed the conference room at the regional university that was full of folders, which the deputy dean told me, were prepared for the recent accreditation of the program. Maripa explained, “Our Teaching and Methodological Complex turned out to be 300-400 pages [for one course] with lectures”. But even with several hundred pages of documents, the faculty still felt the paperwork an inadequate method of representing their work. As Sajida said, “The Teaching and Methodological Complex itself cannot reflect everything about the course, there might be materials and assignments that professors have not completely tested”. Thus, the faculty members were left with a feeling that accreditation required a very time-consuming exercise in documenting their teaching, but that it was in practice unconnected to their teaching.

Insufficient training and limited information. The faculty’s feelings about accreditation were colored by the amount of training and information they received before starting the process. Almost all faculty members repeatedly mentioned redoing the papers and forms, and resubmitting them multiple times to their respective universities’

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Department of Accreditation and Quality Assurance, which was in charge of preparing the programs for accreditation. The professors of the RUI had to rewrite the self-study reports and refill the forms multiple times because they did not get proper instructions on how to fill out the forms. The university administration of the RUI failed to train faculty members on the accreditation process and faculty did not have sufficient training to work on documents that addressed quality issues. The accreditation agency conducted a workshop for faculty members at the RU1 prior to the accreditation site visit, which the interviewees from that university say was not enough for them to understand the whole process of self-study of the program. In the two other institutions, faculty attended seminars organized by the university administration. As Burul, a dean of the undergraduate program at the RU1 said, faculty members at the RU1 had to search on the

Internet and used the self-study reports of the institutions from a neighboring country,

Kazakhstan as a sample.

Seven participants pointed out the insufficient training and limited information on accreditation procedures, self-study analysis and writing self- study reports; “we did not have sufficient instruction from our administration therefore we struggled for two years”

(Jyrgal). Faculty members were part of working groups that were established as ad hoc committees to prepare self-study reports for each accreditation criterion and to fill out relevant forms. Some working groups submitted their reports more than twenty times

(Atyrkul, Datka, Jyrgal).

The cause of the frustration, however, was not only lack of training and guidance from university administration. The forms and guidelines themselves caused much

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confusion. Some items, criteria, and the questions in the forms were repeated and it was difficult to understand the differences between seemingly similar questions (Atyrkul,

Datka). Faculty of the BU had the same perception of misunderstanding of accreditation criteria, “there was not a clear picture, we had criteria, but we did not know how to approach those criteria” (Cholpon). As a result, according to Saikal, “the word accreditation became an irritating word as you do the same form several times”. Zuura said, “Criteria [of accreditation] in the requirements sometimes were completely different and did not meet requirements of quality that the institution had. Sometimes we prepared documents that did not fully meet the accreditation requirements”. The situation with writing reports on criteria multiple times was almost the same in all three institutions due to the lack of comprehensive training and explaining the criteria of accreditation to the faculty members who were fully involved in the process and reviewed the program.

Poor management of the accreditation process. The accreditation agency’s

Criterion 6 is requirement for the institution to measure the level of stakeholders’ satisfaction that “examines whether or not a program developed and used mechanisms to evaluate the level of stakeholders’ satisfaction with the purpose to make necessary corrections to the educational process” (EdNet, 2018). Findings showed that faculty of the RU2, who were in charge of this criterion, did not understand the role of parents as stakeholders. As Kamila described,

We were forced to meet with parents as stakeholders since it was one of the

accreditation requirements, and the meetings with parents turned out to be “huge

nerve-wracking experiences” for advisors because parents kept calling advisors

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after the meetings and asking questions that advisors could not and should not

answer, such as “why their children were not at home at 8 p. m.”.

On the one hand, all four participants from the RU2 think that parents should be somehow involved in the evaluation process because they usually pay tuition for their children’s education. On the other hand, they also understood that faculty advisors were not responsible for the students who were over 18 years old, and they should not babysit the students or follow them after classes. Students did not like the idea of involving parents either, because they felt they were old enough to be responsible for their actions.

Some students were married and they asked whom to invite to the meeting -- their parents or spouses.

Another participant told a story how the faculty invited stakeholders (employers and graduates) to come for an interview with accreditors at the RU2. The professors found these stakeholders through their personal connections, invited them for tea, prepared the interview questions with them and instructed them what to say to the accreditors during the interview (Turar). In the perception of the interviewees, the administration at the regional universities seemed to fail to explain the purpose of this criterion.

There were also miscommunications between all three universities’ administration and faculty members. According to Sajida from the BU, “The main difficulty was to deliver information to faculty and students” and explain “the level of necessity and importance of accreditation”. As for Burul from the RU1, “Not everybody understands the essence of accreditation”.

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Poor management of the accreditation process at the institutional level was one of the main factors that caused a stressful atmosphere at universities.

Stressful atmosphere at the university before the accreditation. Many faculty perceived accreditation as a high-stakes activity and found it stressful. Some faculty members attributed the challenges faculty experienced during the accreditation to the fact that this was a new process for their programs and institutions. Other professors perceived the accreditation site visit as another inspection of the university activities, academic programs that might result in a certain type of punishment and affect the reputation of the university. Mahabat, a department chair at one of the southern universities, who has 21 years of teaching experience, gave an example of consequences of such an inspection. As a result of the previous state attestation at one of the regional universities, a few programs, such as Economics and Finance, were closed by the MoES because social science majors were found to be inappropriate at a technical university.

According to the perception of Sezim, a professor at the RU2 with 21 years of university experience, the faculty members got used to the old state attestation system and did not see the differences: “It [the accreditation] was not positive; it was the same as before”.

Kamila, a methodologist at the RUI with 26 years of teaching experience, reported her perception of the atmosphere at her program during the accreditation period at the RU1 as follows:

We cannot cope with difficulties related to the changes. By August 25th [academic

year starts on September 1st], everything should be ready including syllabi, tests

and modules. The university requires each test and module to meet Bloom’s

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Taxonomy. It is a very hard moral and psychological climate at our department

and professors are nervous.

Accreditation cannot promote quality of education. Three professors (Turar and Sezim from the RU2, Kamila from the RU1) did not observe meaningful differences between the state attestation and the new independent accreditation of the educational programs that can promote quality of education. These faculty members had negative perspective on accreditation because as Turar said, “new accreditation did not change anything”. Sezim reported her perception that the independent accreditation would not promote quality of education and the accreditation was the same as the state attestation.

From the perspective of Kamila, accreditation “was all about paper work; the professors were busy with preparing reports, papers and paid the least attention to the quality of knowledge for the last two years”. She concluded that “We [faculty] understood accreditation as follows: if all your papers are good, then we [university] will get the stamp of accreditation” (Kamila).

All three professors understood the purpose of accreditation as promoting the quality of education. However, they expressed their concerns about the same poor quality of education in their programs before and after the accreditation. As Turar reported,

In my personal opinion, with shifting to the Bologna Process, accreditation has to

be directed to the issue of quality; the main issue was to improve quality.

Accreditation cannot promote quality, it might promote quality insignificantly.

Since we were accredited, the quality had to be good, but our quality had not been

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improved. Accreditation did not change anything. If you [as a faculty] do not

change yourself, accreditation will not change you.

Turar, a professor at the RUI, former Vice –President of Academic Affairs at one of the regional universities with 40 years of teaching experience, compared accreditation requirements with the state attestation, “we had during the soviet time zun10 but we did not measure quality.” However, Turar was confident that “unless the faculty salary is increased, the quality will not be improved”.

Even though I did not ask the interviewees to define the quality and I was not able to find a definition of quality in the accreditation documents, the participants in this study spoke of it frequently and each participant was working from his or her own assumptions.

Some assumed that quality came before accreditation and could be basis on which accreditation is conferred, but more frequently they saw quality as something conferred by accreditation. For example, Kamila stated: “The department, the program does not guarantee the quality, but the stamp that we [the program] got accreditation will”.

Overall, nine professors believed that accreditation could promote the quality and three professors thought that it could not promote the quality of education in their program.

Sub- Question 2: To What Extent Do the Accreditation Processes Impact

Faculty Lives in the Context of Multiple Transitions?

The introduction for new expectations for quality assurance and accreditation into the faculty’s professional lives must also be viewed in the context of other transformations in the structures of higher education in Kyrgyzstan. The faculty

10 ZUN [znanie, umenie, navyky] i.e. knowledge, abilities and skills.

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recognized that accreditation was one of the multiple transitions that was impacting their lives. Schlossberg’s Transition Theory (Schlossberg et al., 1995) provided a framework for understanding the faculty’s views of the events happening in their professional lives which they may or may not view as a transitional experience. Some of the environmental changes that were happening at the same time as the replacement of state attestation with independent accreditation include: structural changes in academic degree programs, such as the bachelors, masters and PhD; a shift to a European credit hour system; replacement of the 5-scale grading system with points; and new requirements for independent work of students.

All these changes added more work to the everyday faculty work load. According to Zuura, the typical teaching load of full-time professors without advanced academic degrees at her program is 800 [contact] hours per academic year, which means 12-14 pairs of classes per week or 24-28 hours of classroom teaching. Zuura added, “We had to prepare documents on new requirements under deadlines. It was difficult to manage our time. It was hard to conduct quality classes, and work late with documents”. For the last two years, since independent accreditation was implemented in 2016, university faculty members at the RU1 were actively involved in all activities during the accreditation process of their academic programs, in addition to their teaching. They were part of the working group to do a self-study and to write reports on certain accreditation criteria.

Each faculty member compiled a Teaching and Methodological Complex for the courses he or she taught including a working plan, syllabus, course assignments, tests, lectures, modules (assignments and tests for midterm exams) and the grading system. They also

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developed learning outcomes and competences for each course and the program in general in the process of preparation for the new accreditation. Moreover, faculty during this new accreditation process worked with stakeholders in addition to their teaching.

They visited employers, organized meetings with students’ parents, graduates and employers, and prepared the stakeholders for interviews with the accreditors. The academic community (professors and administrators) discussed the curriculum and State

Educational Standards with employers, graduates and parents. The faculty members conducted open classes for accreditors to demonstrate their teaching approaches and participated in interviews with the accreditors during the site visit. Almost all faculty members attended seminars, training and workshops on accreditation criteria and procedures conducted by the accreditation agency or their university administration before the accreditation started. They also did SWOT analysis of their specific program.

There were some differences in the preparedness of faculty members for the accreditation among three universities (BU, RU1 and RU2). Part of the reason was that one of the three universities was accredited in 2014, two years prior to the formal implementation of accreditation in the country. That accreditation was a pilot accreditation of the pedagogical program by the independent accreditation agency EdNet.

As Cholpon, a department chair from the BU stated, “at that time, we did not have even a mission of the university and a strategic plan of the university”. Three faculty members interviewed from that institution were actively involved in the process because they were more prepared as the program chairs, and one of them led the accreditation process. Two of them mentioned that they received training to become experts on accreditation, had

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certificates and trained other faculty members and program chairs at their institution, but they did not mention working groups. The other two universities (RU1 and RU2) were similar to each other; both established working groups to write self-study reports and involved all faculty members in the program under review. However, the RU1 had more training for faculty; faculty members had more opportunities to attend seminars and training organized by the accreditation agency than did faculty members at the RU2.

As will be discussed in detail below, as a result of their participation in the accreditation process, all faculty members, who were interviewed, changed their relationships with university administration. The professors changed their attitudes to themselves, colleagues, and students. They evaluated the State Educational Standards and curriculum for pedagogical programs.

Faculty Relationship with University Administration

The majority of the faculty interviewed changed their relationship to the university top administration as a result of their involvement in the new accreditation process. “We rarely saw the administration before; now we see them frequently since we need consultations on accreditation. It is good to have contacts with the administration”

(Zuura). “Accreditation united all of us, a rector, students, four departments that were accredited at once. It was good to be involved in working groups” (Atyrkul).Close work with the dean and department chairs, and frequent interactions with the registrar’s office, with the prorectors [vice presidents] of academic affairs and other departments changed faculty attitudes to university administration for the good.

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At the RU1, those who had a chance to travel abroad for professional development courses on university projects with international partners expressed their satisfaction with the RU1 administration for the support. They think academic mobility of students and faculty is a positive factor for improvement; faculty and students gain rich experiences. For example, Zuura took a three-month course in Germany in 2017. At the

RU1, professors see the progress in academic mobility; the university administration supports such projects, and every year more and more faculty and students travel abroad.

However, professors from the other two universities mentioned that their universities did not have funding for university faculty professional development (Turar, Cholpon). And that impacts the faculty attitudes towards the university administration.

Not all the changes in the relations of faculty with the administration were positive; some found out that prorectors [university vice presidents], the people, who were responsible for the quality assessment at the university, were not sufficiently qualified to lead faculty and the university through the challenges of the new accreditation system. The findings suggested that the administration at one of the regional universities had some issues on the management level. During the site visit, accreditors also interviewed university administrators. Six professors think that administration does not understand professors because they do not teach and do not communicate with students. Mahabat expressed her dissatisfaction with the work of one regional university administration, saying,

Administration should listen to the voices of faculty and students, and follow their

advice to eliminate the shortcomings. They [administration] should improve

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themselves. They have to accept what they did wrong and, with suggestions of

faculty and students, should improve themselves. Accreditation might change the

habits of the administration.

Mahabat, a chair of the department, also described what she perceived as the unfair attitudes of the university administration to different groups of people within the academic community. She was upset when, after the accreditation, fourteen professors of her department were not invited to the university meeting. The professors were not invited to the interviews either. She thought,

Maybe they [administration] were afraid that our faculty would tell something

wrong to accreditors. In addition, all documents for the international accreditation

agency were translated by our professors; they spent two months for translation.

All documents submitted to the international accreditation agency were translated

into English, including our self-study report and we were not paid for the

translation work. I do not know, maybe they will add points during the faculty

attestation [annual faculty performance evaluation]. We have annual attestation of

faculty; they increase our salary depending on the results of the attestation.

Professors at the RU1 were always afraid of losing their jobs in case the administration did not like what they had said during the interviews with accreditors:

“We are afraid to lose our jobs, because, compared to other institutions, we have a higher salary” (Kamila).

To Mahabat, the unfair attitudes of the university administration to faculty members were obvious. When administration rewarded those who participated in the

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accreditation process,

The administrators received ten thousand soms, while faculty had four or five

thousand soms even though faculty did the main job. The Physical Plant

Department chair received a money reward of seven thousand soms, [and he] was

criticized for having too many staff -- 160 people by the accreditors. They say that

he is a relative of the rector (Mahabat).

The findings suggested that the university administration is not free of corruption. As

Mahabat told me, “The university administration (members) live very well, build big houses, buy new houses. If anybody goes abroad that is only the rector of the university”.

Findings showed that not all professors were happy with their relationships with the university administration.

Faculty Attitudes towards Themselves in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Self”

As a result of their involvement in the new accreditation process, faculty had a chance to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. For some faculty, participation in the accreditation process increased faculty self-confidence, “Full satisfaction with our own work, we did what was required well. We were proud that we could do it; we are not uneducated” (Jyrgal). For others, accreditation was perceived as an inspection or outside control that can make faculty accomplish their work: “In general, I like the inspection; you will finish the works you have to finish; if you have requirements, you will try to meet those requirements” (Sezim). “Feeling of responsibility makes us do our jobs well. I feel accreditation as a control. If there is a control, people work well (Atyrkul).

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In general, “accreditation made all faculty members work; everybody prepared thoroughly; professors who had never been involved before participated in the accreditation process” (Omor). Faculty worked on themselves: improved their professional qualifications and their self-confidence, revised their syllabus and teaching materials, as Saikal described her status, “It was a powerful shake off for me. I opened my eyes to many things: some methods of teaching and some new criteria”.

Professors considered their role in the accreditation process as important because they think “each professor is responsible not only for accreditation, but also for the whole academic process” (Zuura). Omor described his role in accreditation processes as a professor as follows:

not to miss my classes, to have the Teaching and Methodological Complex in

order, to be at work during the site visit. I need to show my class, my level, to

show the materials I collected according to the criteria, to show the good sides of

my work.

The majority of the faculty members understood the importance of self-improvement.

Zuura stated,

In the process of preparation, I understood that a teacher of English language

should always work on self-improvement. I must be a person comprehensively

developed, that could educate a student not only in terms of competences or

learning outcomes of the course, but support them fully to prepare for various

spheres of their life.

Turar stated,

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If you do not change yourself, accreditation will not change you. Accreditation

frightened professors a little bit. I am more prepared. I understand new

requirements, how to teach. I should be demanding to myself first, I need to

change myself; I need to teach differently, I need to make students be interested,

involve students and make them think.

Some were not happy with the responsibilities they took during the accreditation,

Very often I had to take the big portion of work. There might also be the

mechanism of interests, moral awards [incentives], I got material awards. Last

days before the commission, I slept two or three hours per day. I wrote the report

myself (Cholpon).

While others were proud of the work they accomplished during the accreditation. Omor said, “The university administration nominated me to the ministerial certificate for recognition of my active participation in accreditation process”.

Findings in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Support”

When the professors stayed late at work the family helped them, since majority of faculty are female, they have children to care of. As Zuura said, “Of course, it was difficult at the beginning to combine everything, we are a female collective, not everybody had enough time to manage work and house”. Some were lucky having family members in education who better understood the responsibilities of faculty when accreditation commission visited the university. Some had to struggle being a single mother. For example, Mahabat had a son in middle school and an old mother to take care of after work. Some faculty members complained about their health due to the stressful

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situation before the accreditation. For example, Kamila’s husband wanted her to leave the job since she constantly complained about headaches and did not sleep well.

All sixteen participants got some type of support in the process of getting ready for the accreditation of their programs: family support, institutional support, social

/colleagues support, and support from accreditation agencies. Eleven faculty members were supported by the institution, but the types of support were different; the universities organized seminars and workshops on accreditation criteria and procedures, or “created an environment to talk about accreditation” (Sajiada). Faculty members received some material awards and recognition for their active participation in the process of accreditation. Six professors were supported by their family members during the accreditation process. Five professors emphasized the social support of their colleagues in preparation for the self-study report, support that allowed them to learn from each other

(Atyrkul). Three people mentioned that the accreditation agency conducted seminars on criteria of the accreditation. The support from their direct supervisors, such as program chairs and deans, as well as the registrar’s office, Department of Accreditation and

Quality Assurance, and the prorectors helped professors understand the accreditation requirements better.

However, three people mentioned that they did not get support from the university administration and the government. One of them mentioned that there was not any special support, because she had attended trainings and she was an expert in one of the accreditation agencies. Later, she conducted seminars on the accreditation system for the professors at her institution (Indira). Another professor pointed out that the government

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does not support the faculty in regard to their research while the institution rewards faculty members who earned their Kandidat Nauk or Doctor Nauk degrees: “University

[RU2] supports well those who defend advanced scientific degrees. Professors receive

100 thousand soms for defending doctorate dissertations, and 60 thousand soms for

Kandidat Nauk dissertations; this is a onetime reward” (Turar), which is not the case in other institutions. The reason behind this is that the regional institution wanted to increase the number of faculty members with advanced scientific degrees, because it is a significant indicator for the quality of education in getting through the accreditation and meeting EdNet accreditation Criterion 5--Faculty.

Faculty Challenges in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Situation”

Findings showed that not all professors were involved in the previous state attestation even though they have been working in higher education institutions more than ten years. For example, Omor had not participated in the state attestation process. As a result he not only gained self-confidence that he could do it, but also he learned about the levels of confidence of other professors. Sezim added that “there were professors who worked and who did not work among us. Regular professors learned how department chairs worked. We learned the levels [qualifications] of other professors” (Sezim).

At one of the regional institutions, the accreditation agency conducted a survey among students and faculty. Some of the challenges were related to faculty fear of losing their jobs or not getting points in the professors’ performance evaluation, and they doubted if it was wise to tell the truth during the interviews or answering survey questions, because they were afraid of the administration, in case the administrators

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learned what the faculty had said (Mahabat). At the same time Mahabat seemed to think that “professors have changed because accreditation asks students how we teach, that is why we should not be ashamed, we need to change ourselves”. As Atyrkul described her observation of her colleagues’ work, “we observed different attitudes to the work of our professors, some were indifferent, some worried if we did not get accreditation it would be possible we might lose our jobs”.

Another reason why faculty experienced challenges was the fact that faculty did not get accustomed to the new system. It was especially hard for senior professors, as some participants pointed out, “Old generation professors delay this process. Schools still work in the old system” (Burul). Moreover, some professors were reluctant to change;

“There were many negatives among older people, it was difficult for them. Why do we need this, we have been working all our life, the only difference was that this was called differently” (Saikal).Some other senior professors at the RU2 asked for specific professional development courses to update their knowledge and skills. As Indira stated,

“Many professors were immature, they were not ready for the new system”. Faculty members experienced some challenges since this was a new process with new requirements. It was complicated “to change psychology of thinking [mindset] on teaching and management” (Sajida). “Professors are not ready [for the new accreditation or for changes]” (Kamila).

It was not easy to build good relationships with other colleagues for Cholpon, as a chair of the self-study committee. While discussing her relationship with other faculty members, Cholpon noted that it was difficult for professors like her, in science education,

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to gather required documents from faculty of ‘service’ programs that were not being accredited:

To educate a biology teacher, you have to carry out the curriculum, which

consists of the series of courses in humanities and economics, natural and

mathematical disciplines that are core courses for all majors. It was very difficult

to collect the Teaching and Methodological Complexes from other departments

that offer courses on first two sections of the curriculum.

Cholpon compared the struggle of getting professors in the service programs to prepare the Teaching and Methodological Complexes to “dragging a hippopotamus from a swamp”.

In general, “the relationship among colleagues [at the RU1] became close because everybody tried very much to get positive responses on accreditation. We shared with colleagues, discussed everything, stayed late after classes, and the joint work was a strong impetus to progress” (Zuura).

Findings in Relation to Schlossberg’s “Strategy”

The study showed that the interviewed university faculty members had difficulties related to implementation of the new accreditation system as they were not prepared for that. Eleven professors did not have any strategies to cope with challenges; two professors mentioned about time management approaches as they tried to plan ahead their time for class preparation, accreditation, family and research; three professors mentioned that it was teamwork that helped them go through the challenges related to the preparing the self-study reports. They discussed every criterion at the departmental level, and then

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distributed those criteria among faculty members so that each faculty was responsible for one criterion. According to Saikal, “there were not any strategies, but there were tasks and certain criteria”. They perceived new accreditation as another requirement from the

Ministry of Education and Sciences that they had to carry out.

Faculty Performance Evaluation (Faculty Attestation)

The dean’s office at the RU2 conducts a survey on faculty performance:

“Professor with the Eyes of Students” to monitor the quality of teaching and learn students’ opinion about the quality of the courses (RU2, 2018, p. 24). They also practice a peer observation and open classes with follow up discussions and recommendations for improvement of teaching (p. 32). The self-study report of this program emphasizes the important role of university professors “who possess full knowledge and experiences to transfer knowledge to students within the framework of educational program,” (RU2,

2018, p. 32) and considers them to be the main resources of the educational process. The report briefly mentioned the faculty attestation [faculty performance evaluation] (p. 31) that participants mentioned as a noteworthy activity that impacts their salary increase.

However, the report did not mention the mechanisms, tools and criteria of this form of evaluation. However, “Professor with the Eyes of Students” is not a new system; this was a widely used faculty and course evaluation system during the Soviet time and was not related to the state attestation. It was related to a 5-year attestation of university professors, which affected the faculty promotion. The current faculty performance evaluation is tied to accreditation and focused on evaluation of faculty competencies,

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including the use of interactive methods, new technology and a student-centered approach.

The findings showed that the points faculty earned during the faculty performance evaluation directly impacted their salary at the RU1. As Mahabat described, “if you have

60 points you will have salary increase by 60%, if 50 point increase is 50%; the maximum increase is 60 %”.

Faculty Attitudes towards Students

Faculty accept that students are different; university professors at two regional universities characterized students who join pedagogical programs as being only students who want to be teachers and who are good at mathematics, physics , chemistry, etc.

Otherwise, the pedagogical programs are not popular programs because of the low salary of school teachers, poor teaching and learning conditions in schools especially in rural places. And those who are in the programs to prepare science teachers, they study well and participate in subject contests and take first places (Omor, Cholpon).

For example, Omor said that

All students study well, we have 450 full time students at the biology and

chemistry program [at the RU1]. I cannot say that all of them take jobs at schools

[after graduating]. 100% budget students [on the government scholarship] go to

school because they have a 2-year commitment to work at school, 50% of those

who studied in contract groups [pay tuition] go to school.

Sezim also confirmed that

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In the pedagogy program [at RU2], our math students are strong; they are stronger

than those in the Elementary School Teachers program. We have good feedback

from those who work at secondary schools. Only students, who are good at math

and those who want to be mathematics teachers, come to our program, and 60-

70% is those who know mathematics well, i.e. the quality is good in my opinion.

However, the findings indicated that student preparedness for university level education is not the same, not all students have the same qualification. For example, at one of the regional universities, students who join pedagogical programs to become science teachers are not well prepared to take university level English language courses, because

Some programs have students, who hardly achieved a minimum score of 110 at

the National Test for high school graduates. We have more students from rural

places and it is hard to teach them. Accreditation agencies may require a million

times to teach in English, but our students will not understand us [professors]

(Mahabat).

The professors of two other universities confirmed students’ poor preparedness for university level education. As Atyrkul stated, “Students are not ready to dig something to get knowledge”, and Sajida described students at the BU as “here [at the university], we deal with the fate, we have infantile students”.

According to Turar, professors at regional universities did not take into account students’ opinions, and professors did not have any concern about their poor teaching methodology or teaching conditions. Now, accreditation allows students to tell the real situations in the classrooms, and to discuss faculty attitudes and learning conditions

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during the interviews. “This process awakened our students; it made them think of why they study, why they need education. Students learn to express their thoughts” (Turar).

Atyrkul also supported the idea that students at the RU2 changed; “Students reached the level when they are able to support their opinions”. At the same time, “Accreditation frightened faculty. We were not afraid [of students’ opinion or poor quality teaching] before” (Turar). Now after the accreditation, faculty attitudes changed to students and their learning. However, Kamila did not observe that the accreditation agency paid attention to the students’ attitude to their education at the RU1. As Kamila described the current status of students, “students have more rights than professors now because they say that a student is our customer, he buys his knowledge, and a customer is always right.

A student pays tuition and he comes to class if he wants to come”. She thinks that considering students as customers does not refer to higher education institutions. If a student wants to get good education, he cannot be right in all situations. On the contrary,

Turar believes that

Since they [students] pay tuition, we have to teach as they want, we make them

realize this, and students do not know this now. Students have to require better

quality education [from the university], but our students do not have such a

mentality to demand [anything from the professors].

Turar seems to worry about the financial side of the issue that might affect faculty status:

If students do not know the materials covered in the course (or cannot study) we

have a hard time to dismiss them. We have eight to ten students in a group, and if

one student leaves, a group will be closed and the course will be canceled. There

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is no group, there is no teaching load and there is no professor. You [faculty] have

to grade somehow students’ performance; this will not lead to quality. Students

fall asleep in our classes; many of them sleep for 45 minutes. We [professors]

give grade 5 [excellent grade] if a student retells what we said. It is different from

independent study.

As for Maripa,

Professors need to change because current students have different demands, e.g.

using new technology. Traditional lectures are not accepted; students have an

opinion that they can read everything on the Internet. I think professors should

change based on the demands of young people, the demands of the time.

Some findings from the participant observation show that students still buy grades. Here are some scenes of bribery in higher education institutions observed during the research time. First, the dean of the program at the RU1 invited researchers to dinner; during the dinner the researchers involuntarily witnessed the dean’s phone conversation about a faculty member, who intended to take bribes from students for the second time. The dean told us that the university has video cameras in the building and she sees what is going on in the corridors from her office. The professors do not miss classes because they are aware of the video cameras; however, it was clear from the phone conversation of the dean that students still bought their grades and video cameras could not stop corruption.

Second, it was a period of the summer exam session at universities. We saw students in front of the campus building waiting for their professors and one of the students had other students’ grade books, the so called zachetnye knijki. This scene shows that a student

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collects the grade books of other students, fills out the name of the course and the name of the professor and submits the grade books to professors for the grade and his signature.

This is a Soviet system of grading; every student had a grade book instead of transcripts and professors put down all students’ grades after each exam on their grade books. Third,

I involuntarily witnessed the scene at the RU2, when during the interview a student came into the interview room with some paper and some money in her hand. She wanted to leave the paper and money on the desk for the faculty who was being interviewed at that moment. The interviewee rushed to ask the student to leave the room, and the student left the room.

Faculty Attitudes towards the State Educational Standards for the Pedagogical

Programs

EdNet Criteria 3 and 6 represent new commitments of external stakeholders in shaping the State Educational Standards and university curriculum, which was not the case with the old state attestation system. EdNet Criterion 6 examines satisfaction of the stakeholders with education of the graduates of the program. This criterion requires universities have to provide evidence to show accreditors how university professors collaborate with all stakeholders including parents, and how they understand the employers’ needs in educating school teachers. Criterion 3 examines content of the academic program, whether or not the curriculum meets State Educational Standards, as determined at the Ministry of Education and Sciences. Faculty analyzed the State

Educational Standards for pedagogical programs and examined to what extent the State

Educational Standards meet the requirements of the labor market. Faculty also evaluated

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the level of satisfaction of stakeholders and the employers’ needs i.e. needs of schools for certain types of teachers with certain knowledge in subject areas, with certain abilities to teach in various school conditions and limited resources, and with certain skills to manage classroom activities and develop students learning. Thus the new accreditation process allows faculty to review the State Educational Standards and curriculum.

The findings showed that university professors continuously work with schools, graduates who work at schools, and school directors and deputy directors through pre- school teaching practice, which is required in the curriculum. The universities mainly receive positive feedback about students’ performances as teachers at schools, which creates positive impressions about the quality of education at their universities. As Omor described,

Graduates, whom I know, are all satisfied with education in the program. Among

them, there are teachers with the award for excellence in education, their students

take first places in the contests, and many of them work in school-gymnasiums

and lyceums11 compared to other regions and other universities.

Faculty learned from the accreditation process that the program needs to pay more attention to the opinions of stakeholders. The participants at the RU1 changed their opinions towards standards after the accreditation because they heard the opinion of stakeholders on the State Educational Standards, “Now I have new ideas to say when we

11 School-gymnasium is a specialized secondary school for students with an aptitude for humanities; and school-lyceum is for students with an aptitude for natural sciences, physics and mathematics (The Government of the KR, 2003).

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design a new curriculum, in terms of changes and in terms of choosing courses for students” (Omor). Thus at one of the programs at the RU1, a new elective course

Methodology of Teaching English Language was added into the curriculum as a result of faculty communication with the parents of students from the Linguistics Program during the accreditation process. This course would give graduates more opportunity to work as school teachers (Zuura).

Turar emphasized that State Educational Standard is written very well but it is difficult to implement it without resources: “Even though you have a good standard, it will not work without conditions to implement the standard”. Since the pedagogical program at the RU2 educates teachers of mathematics and physics for secondary schools, the RU2 professors showed good knowledge of State Educational Standards for secondary schools and how they are implemented: “The new State Educational Standard is ideal. Three general competences are defined for secondary schools: informative, social-communicative, and independent work of students in the standards. But teachers cannot connect these competences to their subjects (physics or chemistry classes)”

(Turar).

As for the university level State Educational Standards, a program chair at the BU criticized a standard on natural sciences because according to her,

In fact, teachers of natural sciences are not in demand at schools. We educate

teachers without knowing whom we educate teachers for and without taking into

account the demands of the labor market. Currently, there is a need for teachers of

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a specific subject, such as biology, chemistry, geography and physics, but not a

teacher for general natural sciences course (Cholpon).

A professor of History at the RU2 shared her thoughts about the State Educational

Standard in the History of Kyrgyzstan: “We use the standard of 2013 in our subject. In the new standard, the history course is divided into two parts before and after the independence, but we did not have textbooks” to follow the new standard (Maripa). A

Foreign Language Department chair at one of the regional universities expressed her dissatisfaction with State Educational Standards in terms language courses,

The MoES standards distributed hours for languages. There were 340 hours for

English language before, now it is reduced by 100 hours. Now, we have 240

hours for Kyrgyz, Russian and English languages i.e. only 120 hours for English.

Students cannot learn English language with 120 hours; we have students from

regions (Mahabat).

There are issues with State Educational Standards in terms of defining competences for different majors. As Kamila told, “There were more competences in the State Educational

Standards of 2012 for the philological major. There are very few competences for future teachers in the State Educational Standards of 2015”. For her, the reason for not having appropriate competences for future teachers in the State Educational Standards is “that the MoES did not ask professors when they developed State Educational Standards; faculty did not participate in any survey”.

My review of the State Educational Standards for two majors: Pedagogy (MoES,

2015) and Philology (MoES, 2015a) that both are for teacher education programs showed

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that there is no common definition for competency. The State Educational Standard for a

Pedagogy (MoES, 2015) major defined competency as “a presupposed social requirement

(norm) for training students, which is necessary for their effective productive activities in a certain sphere’ (p. 4); the State Educational Standard for a Philology (MoES, 2015a) major defined competency as “a dynamic combination of personal qualities, knowledge, abilities and skills that are necessary for professional activities in a certain field” (p. 2).

Moreover, the State Educational Standard for a Pedagogy major has the definition of competence as “an integrated ability of a person to independently apply various elements of knowledge and skills in a certain situation (educational, personal and professional)”

(MoES, 2015, p. 4), while State Educational Standard does not use the word competence for a Philology major.

Faculty Attitudes towards Curriculum for the Pedagogical Programs

The self-study report at one of the regional universities (RU2, 2018) includes a review of the curriculum. There is an accreditation Form 2 (pp. 46-63), which reflects correlations of learning outcomes, courses and competences of the educational program.

The program identified ten learning outcomes, and included elements of the curriculum

(i.e. courses, research, projects related to the corresponding learning outcomes) in accordance with the State Educational Standards for pedagogical programs, and described competences to be developed by students.

The Form 3 (RU2, 2018, pp. 63-68) is about faculty, this form was designed by the accreditation agency based on the curriculum and showed which faculty carried out which part of the curriculum: humanities, social and economic cycle; mathematics and

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sciences cycle; and professional cycle (courses in major). This description showed the structure of the State Educational Standards for pedagogical programs and the distribution of credits among the courses divided into three sections; each section had a basic part (or required courses) and variations (elective courses). The form also showed the teaching load of each faculty member by credit hours and the contact hours, and the distribution of professors’ teaching, research and other activities by percentage (p. 64).

The methods of calculation of the percentage of faculty activities within one course were not clear. There were professors, who taught several courses and had different distributions for their activities. For instance, a professor X taught two courses:

Mathematics and Introduction to Computer Sciences: Mathematics included 86% of teaching, 4% of research, and 10% of other activities. And Introduction to Computer

Sciences included 74.5% of teaching, 14% of research, and 11.5% of other activities.

In designing a new curriculum, the Ministry of Education and Sciences gave a special attention to independent work of students while shifting from an academic hour

(one academic hour is 50 minutes) system to a credit hour system.

Moreover, I found out that at this university one credit hour was equal to 15 contact hours, which did not correspond to the MoES requirements, where one credit hour is equal to 30 academic hours, including contact hours and hours for independent work of students. According to MoES standards, classes should last 50 minutes (MoES,

2015, p. 5). This finding shows that there is no unified system on credit hours in higher education institutions in Kyrgyzstan. Whereas at the RU2, as mentioned, a credit hour equates to 15 contact hours, at the RU1, according to its Bulletin # 18 (RU1, 2012), one

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credit hour is equal to 30 academic or contact hours. At RU1, contact hour or class time lasts 45 minutes; Bachelor Program is 240 credits, and Master’s program is 60-120 credits (p. 6).

From page 69 to 171 of the self-study report (RU2, 2018) is the EdNet accreditation Form 4, which was the questionnaire on the individual courses that looked like a course catalog with the code and name of the course, number of credits, semester and year the course offered, course objectives, prerequisites and post requisites, learning outcomes, grading methods, textbooks, technology used in teaching, research and lab works, and the name of the professor. Some course descriptions still have academic hours as well as credit hours. For instance, the course Pedagogical Psychology is 120 academic hours, among them 32 hours are lectures, 28 hours are seminars or practical classes and

60 hours are independent work of students, and it is a 4-credit course. The findings show that universities in general still use the old system even though the credit hours were implemented in 2012.

To sum up, I would say that the accreditation process impacted faculty lives differently depending on the preparedness of faculty for the changes and their professional qualification and experiences in the administrative positions at their universities. Faculty with administrative positions and extended teaching experiences were better prepared for the changes, and better understood the purposes of the accreditation.

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Sub-Question 3: What Do University Professors Change in their Teaching

Approaches to Achieve Student Centeredness and Improve Quality of Student

Learning?

In the process of the new independent accreditation, some university professors experienced changes in their teaching approaches, while others believed that the methodology they had been using throughout their career met the expectations of accreditation. Some think that they had to change their teaching methods due to accreditation requirements and criteria: “It (methodology of teaching) changes even if you do not want it to change” (Saikal). Saikal benefited from the experiences of the new system, “we joined the system. We know how to assess, what tactics to use, what form of classes, what competences”. As a result of their participation in the self-study of the academic programs, many faculty members changed their approaches to teaching and assessment of student learning. As revealed in the findings, some faculty found changing teaching approaches as a must:

When we were told this was a new system that would give results, we needed it,

of course, we carried out the task, we adjusted our courses to the new

requirements, designed our syllabi with creative approach. It [accreditation]

increases your responsibility for education (Maripa).

Faculty members at two regional universities had a chance to discuss their teaching approaches with other colleagues in the working groups and identified strengths and weaknesses of their approaches to teaching. Those changes were focused on

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interactive methods of teaching, a student- centered approach to teaching, and independent work of students.

In contrast, there were other professors who could not say that they changed something in the methodology of teaching because of accreditation, because they constantly work on improvement of their teaching, and continuously attend workshops in the methodology of teaching foreign languages. As Zuura mentioned, “We had these long before”. Some were well prepared due to their individual research and extended experiences in administration of higher education institutions. For instance, Turar used to be a university prorector [vice-president] for academic affairs for many years and he explained what should be taken into account in using interactive methods of teaching in his context of teaching at regional university. “Some students are fast to perceive something [new information or knowledge]; some are slow to understand new materials.

It is because they do not have basic knowledge” (Turar). That is why “Interactive methods should be used based on the group potentials: students’ research level, their current status and preparedness for university level education” (Turar).

Moreover, some professors found it wrong to change the methodology of teaching because of accreditation: “I had to change my methodology of teaching, this is wrong. I have everything on the paper [for the accreditation commission], but I teach the way that works best for my students” (Kamila).

Interactive Methods

The interactive methods changed the atmosphere in the classroom, and the relationship between students and professors from the faculty perspective. The level of

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understanding of interactive methods differs among faculty members not only because of the location of the universities and access to information, but also because of the extent of faculty involvement in research and their academic degrees. Indira works at the university in the capital city and holds a Doctor Nauk degree in Pedagogy, and her research interests include educational technology and she teaches a course Educational

Technology. Indira said, “The methodology of teaching is varied today; we cannot call it just methodology; we call it educational technology and technology of teaching, which includes a set of methods”. She also accentuates the role of technology in teaching as

“We cannot talk about modern methodology of teaching without using interactive boards

(smart), virtual labs, electronic textbooks, etc. Everything should be written down in the documents on each topic: what educational technology must be used, what means should be used”. For Mahabat, who holds the degree of Kandidat of Philological Sciences, and whose research interests include communicative methods of teaching foreign languages:

“In the interactive method, everybody should teach each other in the classroom. Each student in the group should participate and learn from others. A professor should arrange the class activities correctly, and choose the right methods and technology”.

A few faculty members mentioned that before seeking the accreditation, the university improved its facilities, bought new equipment and laboratories before the accreditation site visit, which was crucial for using various interactive methods. For example, “Because of accreditation we [at RU1] had new technology, computer programs, we bought new things that we needed for classes, so the quality of classes is improved” (Mahabat). “Our material and technical resources [at BU] were improved”

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(Cholpon) and “teaching can be different, combining traditional lectures with discussion lectures and video lectures [at RU2]” (Maripa). However, according to Indira, professors at her university (BU) are not ready to use new technology because “smart boards require additional time to design classes, they require different approaches, and step by step description of the process of conducting classes”. As Indira from the BU said,

We are not ready to conduct classes in this format. Students are afraid to express

their opinions, when you include active format of conversations, problematic

situations and start looking for solutions. This is a serious problem. We did not

change the format of the lectures.

Very few faculty members use smart boards in their teaching because “we have a system, as a rule, many [faculty] have a traditional mindset and renewing sometimes is very hard; the mindset of professors is a challenge; you [faculty] need to renew paper work [Syllabus, assignments] constantly” (Indira).

According to the interviews and self-study reports of three institutions, university professors changed not only the methodology of teaching, but also the forms and contents of their classes. After preparing for accreditation, they conducted courses in the form of what they called video lectures, presentations, conference lectures, discussion lectures and believed that those changes would result in better student learning. In the process of accreditation of the Biology and Chemistry Teacher Education program at the RU1, “All professors prepared an electronic format of their lectures; they designed laboratory classes because of this accreditation” (Omor). However, almost all participants mentioned that faculty and students are not ready to study in the new format.

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Student Centeredness

In their teaching methodology almost all faculty members interviewed seemed to pay attention to the student -centered approach. Some put more meaning on this approach. For example,

When I come to work, I must see students first, not the subject itself.

Student-oriented means to hear students, not just listen to them, but hear what

they live with, what they are interested in, then direct any topic of your lecture.

Their [students] interest, passion (hobby), psychology. Now young people are

difficult, you have to speak their language (Saikal).

Some other faculty members approached student centeredness superficially by distributing the class time between students and a professor. Here is how Omor understands student centeredness: “We have a new system [of classroom management] when a professor speaks 20%, and students speak 80% of class time”. Mahabat, who is a chair of Foreign Language Department, has the same idea of giving more time to students to speak out during the class, “A professor should speak 30% and students should speak

70% of class time”. She also believes that

This [approach] increases students’ responsibility for their learning through

participating more actively in classroom activities. That also allows students to

learn from each other. Thus, professors approach the student-centered paradigm

through locating more time to students during the class to participate, to speak

out, to be involved in various class activities such as group work, work in pairs,

individual presentations, etc.

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For English language teachers, “A student has more opportunity for communicative skills and better develops his skills and acquisition of a foreign language in using the student-centered approach. The quality of acquisition has improved with the student-centered approach” (Zuura). Zuura knew about the student-centered approach of teaching long before the accreditation: “My major is teacher of English language and I studied the student-centered approach when I was a student”. For Atyrkul, “it is a long process; it would be good to implement this successfully”. Cholpon stated that “an individual trajectory of each student is one of the requirements of the Bologna Process.

Student centeredness should be oriented toward students, and then, we can talk about quality of education and competences. It is also the creative approach of professors”

(Cholpon). Here is how Sezim described her approaches towards the student-centered paradigm:

Personality-oriented teaching is one of interactive methods, more focused on

students. The main center is students. I give more theoretical and practical

assignments beforehand and assign points for assignments. Students keep track of

their points, and when they came to modules they know how many points they

earned. This also indicates a personality-oriented approach.

Independent Work of Students

The independent work of students has two forms: independent work under the supervision of an instructor and independent work outside of class time (RU1, 2012, p.

18). Each department must have a plan of independent work of students and a schedule of faculty consultations (RU1). A professor must control the independent work of students;

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describe the volume of students’ work, the content of lectures and independent work of students in detail. A professor also must develop the policy on assessment of students’ knowledge on each topic separately (p. 19).

The organization and methodology of conducting independent work of students are described in the syllabus of each course. Saikal described how she changed her approaches to assignments because of the accreditation requirements for assessment of meeting MoES requirements:

We have hours for independent work of students. Due to the accreditation criteria,

they [the university Department of Accreditation and Quality Assurance] made us

write in details, more specifications of the assignments and independent work of

students. For example, before I could give students an assignment to write a

course paper on literary work of Dostoevsky without explaining any details.

Now, I assign to analyze the literary work of Dostoevsky comparing it with the

works of Kafka. I see now that the way students think is different.

While supporting independent work of students, “which will allow students to search for knowledge independently,” four faculty members from the two regional universities expressed their concerns about students’ preparedness to study independently. As Atyrkul (the RU2) described, “few students try to study independently.

Students still wait for professors to give knowledge. The students read very little and they are limited to the texts assigned by their instructors”. According to Kamila’s point of view (RU1), “Most students are from the periphery; they are not ready. Professors are not ready either. Students download some materials from the Internet and make presentations

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for their independent work”. In Zuura’s opinion (RU1), students are slow to change to adapt to independent work; they are not fully ready to learn on their own: “our students in our culture probably got used to the old methodology. Students do things only when we

[instructors] require doing: do this, do that, do it tomorrow and bring it to class”. Turar

(RU2) supported Zuura’s perspective with more emphasis on faculty preparedness to direct the independent work of students: “we cannot teach two hours and give assignments, our students cannot do assignments every day and they do not study at home after classes”. These are professors of regional universities, where students do not have enough resources to do assignments independently and not all students have computers at home or Internet access. University libraries are not open after classes; there are no study rooms with computers and learning materials in the buildings.

Make-Up Classes

A make- up class or “otrabotka” is a make-up assignment for the missed class, when the students who missed classes must study the topic and do the assignments on their own, and present their work to their professors in assigned formats (oral presentation, referat [type of research paper], lectures) out of class time. According to interviewees, each department has a journal to record student ‘otrabotkas’. The students at the RU2 pay for each missed class, which is not the case in all universities. As some professors think, this is part of the independent work of students, and it is an innovative approach to teaching methodology. For instance, Maripa said that during her office hours, she invites students to make up missed classes. “I also accept students’ ‘otrabotkas’ in the form of referats or presentations in my free time. There is a special journal for

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‘otrabotkas’in the department, required by academic affairs office, we record them there”.

Sub-Question 4: How Do Professors Determine Whether or Not Students in

Pedagogical Programs Are Meeting Learning Outcomes?

When it comes to learning outcomes, which are new in the external evaluation of the academic programs, EdNet (2018) has two criteria, which are new in the external evaluation of the academic programs. Criterion 2 examines objectives and learning outcomes of the academic programs, and Criterion 4 examines teaching process and assessment of learning outcomes. There is no single definition for learning outcomes in the higher education system of Kyrgyzstan. The State Educational Standards defined learning outcomes as “competencies, gained as a result of education in the main educational program/module” (MoES, 2015, p. 4), while the Minimum Requirements for

Accreditation of educational programs defined them as “precise statement on what knowledge, abilities and skills a student will possess upon completion of the educational process” (The Government of the KR, 2016, p. 4).

In order to determine whether or not students in pedagogical programs are meeting learning outcomes identified in the course syllabus, all universities in

Kyrgyzstan use various new assessment approaches such as using the “AVN” system, which is an electronic journal of students’ academic performances, fund of assessment means, a technological map, a point accumulation map and a new grading system based on points. They also use a Module Rating System instead of traditional exams, and portfolios, independent work of students, presentations, and referats as assessment tools

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to assess student learning outcomes. According to the new State Educational Standards

(MoES, 2015), “A module is a part of the educational program or academic discipline, which has logical completeness in relation to established goals and learning outcomes, upbringing” (p. 4).

Learning Outcomes and Competences

According to the self-study report of the RU2, each course has learning outcomes: what students know, can do and what skills they have upon completion of the course.

However, it is not clear from this report how professors assess the student learning outcomes and how they find out whether or not students achieved the intended learning outcomes. The self-study says that all professors use a module-rating system for all courses. Some faculty members shared their practice of assessing student learning outcomes:

At the end of each class, I ask reinforcement questions to examine how much of

the material the students understood. For example, we have a Multilanguage

Program. If I conduct a class in the Kyrgyz language, I give working sheets in the

second language [Russian]. At the end of the class, I collect the papers and grade

the students’ language proficiency also (Omor).

Faculty members admit that they “conduct classes without knowing which competences students should develop during their study” (Mahabat), because they did not have competences and learning outcomes before (Sezim). Now, according to the new requirements, “Methodology of teaching should be not only oriented towards individuals,

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but also it should be oriented towards competences” (Cholpon). Zuura seemed to try to distinguish learning outcomes on the different levels:

If we look at a specific course, we look at the goals of the course. If we look at the

whole semester, we look at learning outcomes and to what extent we achieved

learning outcomes. If we look at the accreditation, I think through the interviews

the accreditation commission can define to what extent students developed their

competences.

At the same time, findings showed that there are issues with the faculty understanding of competences and learning outcomes. As Kamila described, “We

[professors] have problems to connect learning outcomes and competences. We had to adjust our lessons and topics to these competences” in the process of preparing for accreditation. “We must connect our tests, lesson plans and all activities to certain competences” (Kamila) because she perceives that there is no a single competence in the

State Educational Standards that is related to skills of a teacher of English language. She gave an example of learning outcomes for the program: “There is learning outcome 3, which says a graduate must know the state, the official and one of the foreign languages on the level of social communication, but not for teaching”. There is another learning outcome, which says that “a student can conduct research and use this knowledge in practice”. She understands that the program can educate a person, who can do research, but this will not be a regular teacher who will work at school. She has two different sets of learning outcomes; one is for her actual courses and another for the program. As she said, “I write learning outcomes for my course myself, learning outcomes that I need, but

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I close my eyes to learning outcomes of the program, I wrote them just for the program”.

Learning outcomes are made up by deans and program chairs. According to Kamila, “the deans and program chairs did not include learning outcomes for teachers not because they did not want, but because they did not understand what learning outcomes were. Most professors still do not understand what learning outcomes are”. Kamila’s interview showed that she understood better learning outcomes and competences because she was her department’s methodologist, and it was her responsibility to work with the State

Educational Standards. She knew that “a program for students majoring in Philology has eight learning outcomes and several competences to each learning outcome that were taken from the State Educational Standards, such as educational, instrumental, and professional”.

My review of the State Educational Standards for Pedagogy and Philology majors showed that the State Educational Standards identified three universal competencies

(general- scientific, instrumental, and social-personal and of culture in general) and one professional competency (MoES, 2015, p. 5).

The State Educational Standards offer the structure of the main educational program (Bachelor’s in Pedagogy) with educational cycles (the humanities, social and economic sciences, mathematics and natural sciences, professional) and projected learning outcomes, list of courses to develop programs, textbooks, teaching material, and competences to be developed by students. For example, according to the State

Educational Standard in Pedagogy (2015), the humanities, social and economic sciences cycle of the main educational program in Pedagogy has six courses to be offered and

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twenty three projected learning outcomes that correspond to nine general scientific, five instrumental and five social-personal and culture in general competencies. Higher education institutions develop the main educational programs individually according to the State Educational Standards in the major field and taking into account the demands of the labor market. The institutions must renew the main educational program every year taking into account the development of science, culture, economics, technology, and social sphere following the Ministry recommendations on quality assurance (MoES,

2015, pp. 13-16).

In the process of preparation for accreditation, faculty at the RU1 consulted with employers to identify student competences to be developed while they study at the program. For instance, Zuura, used her personal connections for this purpose:

I communicated with my classmates, who work in HR offices of international

organizations, to check what competences of graduates the stakeholders take into

account in hiring them. They gave me advice and shared their visions about our

graduates; what we have to pay attention to, where they succeed, where they are

weak; they gave analysis of our graduates from our program.

One of the regional universities adopted a series of documents the so-called

Bulletins with a set of academic policies and regulations of the university. The Bulletin

#18 (RU1, 2012) describes what a syllabus should include (topics, contact hours, home assignments, test, projects, and other types of tests (modules) with schedules, and the grading system), but it does not say that a course syllabus should have learning outcomes because this document was adopted in 2012 and learning outcomes and competences are

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discussed in Bulletin #33 adopted in 2017. According to Bulletin #33 (RU1, 2017a),

Planned competences (general professional, instrumental, professional, social-

personal, etc.) are assigned for each educational program in the State Educational

Standards. The whole educational process should be directed towards the

development of these competences (p. 6).

According to this document, on the one hand, a competency-based approach develops students’ qualifications that connect their future job activities with the university courses.

On the other hand, it relates interdisciplinary requirements to learning outcomes. The learning outcomes of the program are formulated based on competences in accordance with the program goals. Program learning outcomes are set of competences assigned by the MoES in the State Educational Standards, additional competences can be established by organizations, stakeholders (in case, additional competences are suggested):

For one educational program number of learning outcomes is formulated (LO-1,

LO-2…LO-15), where each learning outcome is a set of various competences:

LO-1= GC-1+ GC-5+PC-7+ SPC-1+ AC-1

LO-2 = GC-3+GC-7+PC-6+PC-11+IC-10+SPC-10, etc. (RU1, 2017a, p. 7).

[General competence (GC), professional competence (PC), Social-Personal

competence (SPC), additional competence (AC), instrumental competence (IC)]

The data shows that the university professors do not understand how to design learning outcomes and how to connect them with the competences. Consequently, the professors do not know how to determine whether or not students achieved learning outcomes defined in the course syllabus.

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Sezim from the RU2 is aware that

Independent accreditation pays more attention to learning outcomes, which are

new for us [professors] and we cannot get used to them. Here are competences

also, saying the truth, we have not achieved this. I did not think how to check if

students achieved learning outcomes. In principle, I can tell that my students can

solve certain type of math problems; they have logical thinking skills.

Kamila from the RU1 described the situation with learning outcomes as follows:

We defined learning outcomes and wrote those learning outcomes made up by

deans and program chairs. Most professors still do not understand what learning

outcomes and competences are. Only the methodologists of the departments and

programs can say what learning outcomes and competences are. We have

problems to connect learning outcomes and competences. Competences are in the

State Educational Standards.

She is a methodologist of the department, who is in charge of the curriculum and course development according to the State Educational Standards. At the program level, the deans and program chairs write learning outcomes, and the professors then use those as overarching ideas and write course objectives based on the program outcomes.

Learning outcomes of each course and learning outcomes of each topic are defined in the Teaching and Methodological Complex of a course (RU1, 2017, p. 7). The

RU1 defined the Teaching and Methodological Complex of a course as a structured systematic complex of teaching and methodological materials that provides students

(undergraduate, graduate) quality learning of the content of the course. The Teaching and

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Methodological Complex enables professors to effectively develop professionally significant competences and achieve intended learning outcomes of the educational program to train students in one of the majors at the RU1(p. 4). Professors write the

Teaching and Methodological Complexes.

The New Assessment Approaches

The requirements for the Teaching and Methodological Complex are described in

Bulletin #19 (RU1, 2017) with the definitions of all the new terms related to the new assessment and grading system:

Fund of assessment means (FAM) should be developed based on intended

competences and learning outcomes of the discipline expressed in the form of

knowledge, abilities and skills. FAM includes means and procedures of

assessment of course learning outcomes, and also individual assessment means

for students that enables them to ensure that they achieve intended outcomes.

One of the participants thinks that professors at the university used FAM before: “we just did not have a name for it. Now we know questions, we know Blooms’ theory. Now we have a system. We were like ‘unshaped butterflies’, now we are in shape” (Saikal).

Fund of assessment means (grading means) on a discipline includes:

• assessment means for ongoing control[exam] and their criteria;

• assessment means for midterm control [exam]and their criteria;

• assessment means for final control [exam]and their criteria; and

• assessment means for control [exam] of independent work of students and

their criteria (RU1, 2017, p. 7).

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A technological map of the course indicates the distribution of hours and points by modules and by types of classes, and it also shows points for midterm and final controls [exams]. Some faculty members at the RU1 found these different ways of control wrong:

We are put into the framework and we cannot come out of this framework, which

is why the quality does not work. These frameworks, technological maps make

students unsympathetic. It is incorrect because human factors are not taken into

account. We do not train robots; we educate teachers, who have feelings. They

will go to school, and they will work with children. We are forced to specify

gradually, to write out for each module with questions of outcomes to know, to be

able to, and to have skills (Kamila).

A point accumulation map shows the distribution of points and topics by all types of controls [exams] and classes (RU1, 2017, p. 11). According to the point accumulation map, a student can accumulate points for all types of classes (p. 27) and some faculty appear to like this system: “In their notebooks they put down the points they earned during the seminars, modules. It is a stimulus for being active” (Maripa).

A competence map of the course includes a map of corresponding topics of the discipline and competences to be developed (RU1, 2017).

Assessments means include tests, reports, portfolios, presentations, essays, projects, referats, etc. (p. 16). Another document required to prepare for the accreditation as a part TMC was a Working Program, which is defined as “a program of learning of educational materials that corresponds to the requirements of the State Educational

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Standards of higher professional education, and takes into account the specifics of educating students in major fields” (RU1, 2017, p. 5). This document existed in the

Soviet system also; each course had a working program for departmental use with the teaching materials, goals and learning objectives of the courses, as Turar mentioned in comparing accreditation requirements with the state attestation: “we had zun [znanie, umenie, navyky] i.e. knowledge, abilities and skills in the Soviet system but we did not measure quality of them.” Findings showed that this document (RU1, 2017) requires a course description not only for departmental use, but also for external evaluation of the program in terms of learning outcomes and competences:

Working programs of educational disciplines comprise the content basis of the

main educational program and provide its orientation to learning outcomes and

building competences, which are the most important objectives of realization of

main educational program of higher professional education (p. 5).

The New Grading System

One of the biggest changes in teaching at the university was the change of grading system. The Soviet education system used a 5 scale numeric grading system with 5 being excellent, 4 being good, 3 being satisfactory and 2 being unsatisfactory or failing.

Currently, universities use a point system. However, the findings showed that universities use both systems in their documents and in practice. Here is one example:

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Table 2

Grading system at the RU1 in points

Points Letter grades Equivalents in Traditional grade numbers system 87 – 100 А 4.0 Excellent 80 – 86 В 3.33 74 – 79 С 3.0 Good 68 -73 D 2.33 61 – 67 Е 2.0 Satisfactory 31-60 FX 0 Unsatisfactory A student, who received a grade FX can improve his grade [retake the exam] within a month of the next semester (or in the summer semester). If a student cannot change a grade FX within the given time, he automatically gets F and has to retake the course, if it is a required course. A student, who gets F twice in a required course, cannot continue his study in this program (RU1, 2012, pp. 12-13).

According to Kamila, “a point system is confusing, nobody understands what 24 points mean, and what grade it should be”. Omor changed his grading and methodology of teaching because of the new requirements: “The main thing in grading is that I pay more attention to independent work of students”.

Students can look at their grades online by using the system “AVN”, an electronic journal of students’ academic performances. With this system students can see not only their own grades, but also other students’ grades. Faculty members think that this is a great achievement towards transparency, because faculty cannot give a passing grade to a student, who did not attend the classes. The “AVN” can help to avoid bribery and a conflict between students and a faculty on fairness of their grades (RU2, 2018).

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Module Rating System

The RU2 uses a module-rating system to assess students’ academic performance; the system consists of three exams throughout the semester: ongoing, midterm and final, and the appeal procedures. The review of the State Educational Standards (MoES, 2015;

MoES, 2015a) confirms the research findings from the three universities that

The quality assessment of learning of the main educational programs must include

current, midterm and final state attestation (exams) of students. Specific forms

and procedures of current and midterm exams in each discipline are developed by

the higher education institution individually and delivered to students during the

first month of their study (MoES, 2015, p. 26).

Thus the RU2 organizes a summer semester for students to allow students to retake the failed exams every year (RU2, 2018, p. 22).

“Now we do not have exams, we have modules. Based on results of modules, students can figure out the grades themselves” (Sezim). However, findings demonstrated that not all faculty members at the RU2 liked the module system: “The form of the test is worsened; the tests are with “yes” and “no” answers. Students who did not attend classes can get 60 points [passing points]. We need to shift to written exams for quality improvement” (Turar).

Professors of a History of Kyrgyzstan course (RU2) seemed to agree to accept the multiple choice test believing that it was commonly used type of test:

At the beginning we were against tests in History of Kyrgyzstan because it is

humanities, it requires speaking, a student cannot express his opinion [in the test].

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But it turned out that in order to meet the requirement of the time, all institutions

have tests. It is not an essay exam; it is a multiple choice test (Maripa).

Professors use various tools to assess student learning. Maripa uses portfolios: “All students prepare portfolios. If students do not create portfolios, they cannot do as in the old system--come at the end of the semester and ask for a passing grade because they did not have time for doing portfolios”. Turar uses presentations and tries to actively involve students in the discussions and evaluate student performances by using ‘chips’:

I use presentations, involve all students, explain, and ask questions. Even if they

[students] say something wrong, I say: it was wrong but good ideas, give each

student a ‘chip’ for their answers and collect those ‘chips’ at the end of the class

and give points.

As a conclusion, I would like to say that learning outcomes and competences are defined in the State Education Standards for pedagogical programs. The deans and department chairs develop learning outcomes for the program based on those in the State Education

Standards, and faculty members design learning outcomes for the individual course based on what they have as program outcomes. However, there are no mechanisms or tool to assess student learning outcomes at three universities. All universities use various assessment approaches, new format of exams and new term to grade academic performance of students.

Summary

The research findings showed different levels of understanding the purposes, criteria and procedures of a new independent accreditation system, and its differences

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from the old state attestation system. All participants perceived the accreditation as a mandatory process with the understanding that higher education institutions will be eligible to award academic degrees to their graduates only in case they are accredited.

However, the findings showed ambiguous responses on the independence of accreditation agencies from the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic. Thirteen participants believed that accreditation should be independent, but they did not give strong arguments for or against the independence of accreditation agencies in making final decisions on accreditation. Three participants were not sure whether or not the accreditation agencies should be independent of the Ministry of Education and Sciences, and answered either they did not know or they did not understand the relationships between accreditation agencies and the Ministry of Education and Sciences. Two out of these three participants do not have advanced academic degrees and all three are from the regional universities.

Independent accreditation involved the whole academic community and external stakeholders in the process. The accreditors interviewed employers, parents, students, graduates, professors and administration, which was not the case during the old state attestation system.

Faculty members were motivated to participate in the accreditation process because they felt the responsibility for quality of education and because they were part of the academic community. They realized that their role in the education processes was important and there was a sense that they were afraid to lose their jobs.

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The study showed more positive than negative attitudes of faculty towards the new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs at three public universities in

Kyrgyzstan. However, there were more factors that impacted the negative attitudes of faculty than those that impacted positive attitudes of faculty towards the new accreditation of pedagogical programs. The main factors for positive attitudes of faculty included:

 improved atmosphere at the university during the process of preparation for

accreditation and positive impression during the site visit;

 opportunity for faculty to develop, to learn and to change; and

 faculty belief that accreditation can promote quality of education.

The main factors for negative attitudes of faculty included:

 too much paper work;

 insufficient training and information;

 poor management of the accreditation process;

 stressful atmosphere before the accreditation; and

 faculty belief that accreditation cannot promote quality of education.

The new accreditation of higher education academic programs impacted faculty lives in various areas. As a result of their participation in the process, faculty changed their attitudes towards the university administration. They were able to examine their own professional qualification in comparison with other colleagues and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Due to the new accreditation requirements, faculty had a chance to revisit the State Educational Standards and curriculum for pedagogical

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programs. Faculty also evaluated the students’ attitudes toward their education and analyzed the reason for their good or poor academic performances, and their preparedness to university level of education.

The process of preparation for the new accreditation of pedagogical programs impacted the teaching methodology and grading system of the university professors.

Based on the research findings, faculty seemed to develop learning outcomes of the program and individual courses for the first time. They found it difficult to connect learning outcomes to competences. One of the regional universities shared academic policies, including all definitions of the new terms and requirements for new teaching and assessment approaches.

In conclusion, research findings showed that nine out of sixteen participants believed that the new accreditation system could promote quality of education in higher education institutions.

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CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Overview of the Study

In this Chapter, I will discuss my findings and interpret them in relation to the theory and existing literature. I will also discuss suggestions for future research and limitations of this research.

The purpose of this interpretative qualitative study was to explore faculty perspectives on new independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs at three public universities in Kyrgyzstan. All three institutions were accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance in Education ‘EdNet’ (2018). As it was described in Chapter IV,

EdNet used eight criteria to evaluate pedagogical programs of these three institutions.

The criteria and procedures of EdNet are based on the European Standards and

Guidelines (ESG, 2015) and Minimum Requirements for Educational Organizations of

Elementary, Secondary and Higher Education Levels of the Kyrgyz Republic to be accredited (The Government of the KR, 2016). University faculty experiences have not been researched yet especially in relation to the accreditation system reforms taking place in higher education of the Kyrgyz Republic. My argument is that the implementation of independent accreditation of academic programs will not be successful without active involvement of faculty members in the accreditation process. Data analyses are guided by

Schlossberg’s Transition Theory (Schlossberg et al., 1995) and the following research question(s):

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What are the perspectives of faculty at three public universities on the new independent accreditation of pedagogical programs?

Sub- questions:

 What are the main factors that influence faculty attitudes towards the new

independent accreditation?

 To what extent do the accreditation processes impact faculty life in the context of

multiple transitions?

 What do university professors change in their teaching approaches to achieve

student centeredness and improve quality of student learning?

 How do professors determine whether or not students in pedagogical programs

are meeting learning outcomes?

Sixteen university professors from three public universities participated in this study.

They were interviewed using semi-structured interviews in Kyrgyz and Russian languages. The researcher used the Government regulations on new accreditation system, documents describing Bologna Process reforms, self-study reports, accreditation standards, policies and procedures of the independent accreditation agency EdNet and academic policies of three universities. The researcher also conducted some observation of faculty meetings of the departments and educational environments. All data used in this dissertation were translated by the researcher (as mentioned in Methodology Chapter

III).

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An Overview of the Significant Findings of the Study

Accreditation of higher education institutions is the requirement of the Ministry of

Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic for granting university degrees (The

Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments, Chapter V, Article 40). Even though, the new amendments to the Law on Education allow individual higher education institutions to award their own degrees (The Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments, Chapter V, Article 40; The Government of the KR, 2013), the Ministry of

Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic is the only government institution, which awards academic degrees as a result of accreditation.

Accreditation agencies are independent of the Government of the Kyrgyz

Republic because by definition they are ‘nongovernmental’ and ‘noncommercial’ organizations (The Government of the KR, 2003, with amendments, Chapter 1, Article

1). The EdNet (2018) accreditation regulations say that the final decision on accreditation is made by the Accreditation Council of the EdNet agency. However, the fact that accreditation agencies report to the Minister of Education because she is the chair of the

National Accreditation Council (NAC) does not allow independent accreditation agencies to operate independently (EdNet, 2018). The university professors interviewed in this study perceived accreditation as a mandatory process because the results of accreditation are tied to university degrees that may be given only by the Ministry of Education and

Sciences.

Nine out of sixteen participants expressed their positive attitudes towards the new independent accreditation. The main factors for their positive attitudes were that

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according their point of view, accreditation can promote quality of education based on their experiences and opportunity to identify their strengths and weaknesses, to learn about new approaches to teaching and to improve their methodology and update their teaching materials. Seven professors expressed their negative attitudes towards the new accreditation system. The main factors for their negative attitudes were that according to the participants’ opinions, accreditation could not promote quality of education and the accreditation process employs “too much paper work”, lack of faculty training and poor university management. Some believed that accreditation is another external inspection for compliance of educational programs with the State Educational Standards. The findings indicated that participants believed that the documentation such as a Teaching and Methodological Complex would serve them for a long term, at least for five years, until the next accreditation.

The new accreditation process impacted faculty academic lives in all areas: their relationship with university administration, colleagues and students; the ways they teach and design their courses, classroom management and their understanding of State

Educational Standards. As a result of participation in the accreditation process, the professors from the regional universities improved their relationships with their university administration and their colleagues through frequent communication and team work. The accreditation process changed the university professors’ attitude towards themselves; they increased their self-esteem. They changed their methodology of teaching, focusing more on a student-centered approach, interactive methods of teaching and independent work of students.

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There is no definition of quality in any documents I reviewed including the

Government regulations on accreditation, EdNet policies, and university academic policies. There is no common definition for learning outcomes and competences. The

State Educational Standards offer a long list of learning outcomes and competences for each cycle of the curriculum (humanities, social and economic sciences, mathematics and natural sciences, professional courses). Higher education institutions develop program objectives and course learning outcomes based on the State Educational Standards.

However, there are no mechanisms and tools in the accreditation process to evaluate students’ achievement of learning outcomes and competences in the educational process.

Discussion of Findings and Their Relations to Existing Literature

Faculty Understanding of Accreditation

As in some European countries (Saarinen & Ala-Vahala, 2007; Damian, 2011) the

Government of the Kyrgyz Republic initiated structural changes of university academic programs, a new credit hour system and a new accreditation system in higher education institutions according to the Bologna Process. According to the interviewees, some educators believe that independent accreditation is the same as state attestation and that it controls the compliance of educational programs with certain State Educational

Standards. As one of the interviewees explained: “The academic community perceives accreditation the same as state attestation, [but] conducted by private agencies rather than the Ministry of Education and Sciences” (Turar). If in Bologna Process countries, accreditation was a “need for transferability of degrees and labor policy” (Saarinen &

Ala-Vahala, 2007, p.333), accreditation in Kyrgyzstan is a need for degree award. Based

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on my interviews, the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic is not ready to give up the control and power over university degrees. Because all universities award the state diploma and the eligibility for the state diploma is tied to the results of accreditation, the accreditation agencies cannot function independently because the

Ministry of Education and Sciences provides the diplomas. Like in Russia (Motova &

Pykko, 2012), where the state accreditation procedure is not voluntary according to the

Russian Federation Law on Education (1992), accreditation in Kyrgyzstan is not a voluntary action of institutions but a ministerial requirement. However, unlike Russia, which has two types of accreditation: state accreditation and professional accreditation

(Chuchalin, Boev & Kriushova, 2007), Kyrgyzstan does not have professional accreditation. Higher education institutions can choose the accreditation agency, but the choice is not big; only two accreditation agencies are actively accrediting academic programs in all fields and in all types of institutions including private and public universities, colleges and vocational schools.

While being obvious that accreditation allows universities to award state diplomas, there are some differences in the criteria of accreditation agencies, procedures and approaches. The academic community does not seem to fully understand what accreditation is, its purposes, and how it is different from the Soviet state attestation system. Differences between independent accreditation and state attestation are: (a) the accreditation commission interviews all stakeholders including students, professors, employers, parents and the administration during their site visit; (b) the new accreditation process involves all of the academic community, while in state attestation it was the

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responsibility of only the university administration; and (c) the new accreditation requires a lot of paper work.

Evidence of Quality

The study revealed that there is no common definition of quality of higher education, and different stakeholders can put different meanings to the quality of education. The accreditation agencies conduct accreditation of the programs with the main focus on student learning outcomes. However, just examining syllabi or academic programs cannot serve as evidence for the quality of the program. The existence of learning outcomes in the State Educational Standards does not mean quality. As the interviews showed, the agencies pay more attention to the paper work and interviews with stakeholders to find the evidence for quality education. However, it is not clear to what extent nicely written paper work can demonstrate the quality of education of the program.

Unlike Qefalia and Totoni’s (2012) study, where the majority of the faculty interviewed and surveyed in Albania found a strong positive correlation among the

Bologna Process, Accreditation and Continuous Improvement, the current study found that only nine participants think that accreditation can promote quality, while the rest either think it will not promote quality or faculty believe it will not bring any qualitative changes in the program.

The strongest factor in supporting the faculty beliefs that accreditation cannot promote quality of education is based on their involvement in the accreditation process and the observation of how the accreditors determined the quality of the program. The

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determination of quality was limited to examining the Teaching and Methodological

Complexes and interviews with the stakeholders. The results of this study are consistent with one Harvey and Green’s (1993) concepts of quality, namely, “fitness for purpose,” which relates “to the purpose of a product or service” (p. 9). For example, as Saikal explains quality: “quality is when their [graduates’] education matches the sphere [where] they work or will work”. In the same vein, Kubow and Fossum (2003) stated, “quality of education shapes students for specific roles” (p. 126). Since my participants work in teacher education programs, the percentage of graduates’ employability in schools is the main indicator of quality used by their universities. According to the professors of two regional universities, students come to regional universities with an intention to be teachers of rural schools because they like to be teachers and they are good at specific subjects (e.g. mathematics or physics). For example, “The ability of our students to find a job is evidence for quality” (Jyrgal). To certain extent, quality can be defined by the fact that the mission of pedagogical programs is to educate teachers with all the characteristics and abilities of teachers that make them “fit” for their roles in the schools in Kyrgyzstan’s context. The graduates should be ready to teach in rural schools, where they might not have electricity or heating in winter, classes are overcrowded with students speaking in different languages, and there are not enough textbooks for all students. In addition, the graduates must possess up-to-date knowledge of their subject matter, methodology of teaching and pedagogical techniques.

However, the employment rate may not be appropriate evidence of quality of education of the program because graduates might be employed in positions not related to

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their majors or in positions not at schools. They can get any available job not related to their university education in the countries like Kyrgyzstan. Unlike the study of Steiner-

Khamsi et al. (2011), which indicated that “only 15% of those who graduate from pre- service teacher education enter the teaching profession” in Kyrgyzstan (p. 204), the findings of this research show that, in the perception of the interviewees, almost 100% of graduates get teaching positions at schools right after graduation. Steiner-Khamsi et al.

(2011) counted all graduates from pre-service teacher education programs back in 2009, while participants of this study counted only graduates of budget groups who received the

Government scholarship, which obliges graduates to work at schools for two years after graduation. However, the 100% employment rate does not include the employment rates of the students in contract groups, who pay tuition and are not required to work in the schools for two years.

As in Drew and Klopper’s (2014) study, which found significant evidence for using the Peer Review and Observation of Teaching approach to improve the quality of teaching, the findings of this study show that university professors judge peer review and class observations as well as student evaluation of the teacher performance and course evaluation as meaningful approaches to improve the quality of education. Moreover, according to the participants of the RU1, the teacher performance evaluation by the university administration is a key factor for faculty promotion and salary increase.

Changes Happened as a Result of Accreditation

On the one hand, faculty relationships with university administrations improved during process of accreditation due to the active interactions; on the other hand, the

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faculty learned about the low qualifications of the administration and the unfair attitudes and corruption of the administration. These findings were expected because corruption in the higher education system is a frequently-discussed topic of the other studies

(DeYoung, 2011; Joldoshalieva, 2007; Merrill, 2012; Shamatov, 2010; Silova & Steiner-

Khamsi, 2008) and current study provides evidence for the fact that corruption, defined as “buying grades”, still exists at two regional universities. A chair of the department and a couple of other professors at the regional universities said that some professors still accept bribes from their students to give the passing grades. What surprised me is that they told me their stories about bribes at universities as if it were a norm.

According to the comments of four professors, the RU2 as well as other universities in the country take some action to eliminate corruption on the program level through using an electronic system of grading. Faculty members at the RU2 think that this is a great achievement towards transparency, because faculty cannot give a passing grade to a student who did not attend the classes. The electronic system of grading also helps to avoid bribery and a conflict between a student and a faculty member on the fairness of their grades from the participants’ point of view. However, this might not make any sense from western perspectives, but it makes sense in the realities of the

Kyrgyz education system, which does not have the notion of confidentiality of student records or privacy in the Law on Education in Kyrgyzstan, such as the Family

Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in the USA. Moreover, the electronic grading system might be the best solution for universities to stop faculty from giving

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passing grades to students who did not attend classes and to stop students from buying their grades.

The fact that the administration of the RUI pre-selected the students and professors who spoke Russian well and would speak to the accreditation site visit team makes me to conclude that the language proficiency of both university professors and accreditation experts visited the university is not sufficient enough to conduct quality work at the bilingual educational environment such as regional universities. Second, the university management is still based on “command and control method”, because the dean requested the department chairs to choose two faculty members from each department for the interviews with the accreditation team.

Changes Occurred in the Educational Process

Changing the approaches to teaching should be an ongoing process in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Three participants did not notice that the accreditation process or its requirements changed their view towards teaching because working on improvement of the quality of teaching is an ongoing process. That is why they reacted positively to the accreditation requirements because they are convinced to search for better ways to improve teaching was their duty without accreditation.

However, not all faculty members and administrators at these three universities understand deeply the impact of the Bologna Process reforms, including the new accreditation system. As the self-study reports indicated, university academic affairs offices simply did mathematical calculations of academic credit hours and adjusted their curricula to reduce the number of courses offered and the number of contact hours. They

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failed to take steps to define learning outcomes and provide mechanisms for quality assessment. Even though Kyrgyzstan adopted the European credit hour system, the use of transcripts and syllabi in 2012, the Ministry of Education and Sciences keeps using both credit hours and academic hours to approve new curricula of educational programs; universities still use the kafedralnyi jurnal (departmental journal) as the main document for faculty accountability; professors keep using rabochie programmy (work programs) instead of a syllabus; students still use zachetnye knijki (grade books) instead of transcripts. Some university administrators still believe that in a credit hour system, universities cannot dismiss students for their poor academic performances. That is why some universities designed a summer semester to allow students to retake the exams without retaking the courses they failed in previous semesters.

From my point of view, to allow students to retake the exams without retaking the courses is a wrong approach that will never allow students to be responsible for the quality of their education. Retaking an exam does not mean retaking the course students failed; this means that students come back in summer, pay for the credits and retake the exam. In addition, giving an additional chance to students to retake exams is one of the sources for bribery. The worst thing is that the professors do not understand how this approach harms the quality of learning and teaching. Moreover, participants from the

RU2 perceived a summer semester as part of the reforms to improve the quality of education because it was designed to reduce the number of students failed the exams. The findings did not show the reactions of the accreditation site visit team to the summer

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program. The limited resources of the higher education institutions do not allow universities to make meaningful and qualitative changes in the education process.

The Impact of Accreditation on Faculty Members

The accreditation process was an opportunity for faculty to evaluate themselves in the period of multiple changes. Each individual is different and each faculty member perceived the changes differently depending on their teaching experiences, gender, and administrative position, and family status, even academic degree. Those faculty members with administrative positions and those who actively participated in various conferences and workshops were better prepared for the challenges related to the new accreditation system. Those who had other family issues, such as children or aging parents had more stresses during the accreditation. It was more difficult for senior faculty to adjust to the new system which required changes in teaching approaches also. They were slow at designing syllabi and assignments for the independent work of students. Senior faculty members were reluctant to change, while the younger generation expressed their willingness to learn and they were satisfied with the results of their participation in the accreditation process and the opportunity to learn. There might be several reasons why senior faculty members are reluctant for the changes in their teaching approaches. First, they do not have computer skills to develop their own teaching materials. Second, senior faculty members are not as active as their younger colleagues to attend various conferences, and universities do not have funding to retrain senior faculty members.

Third, the university faculty salary is so low that many professors work at several institutions and do not have time for their own development. Finally, they received their

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degrees during the Soviet time; there was not a need for typing and writing a syllabus for each course every semester.

Accreditation was a new process for faculty members who participated in this study, but it was not unexpected because accreditation was part of the Bologna Process reforms. Most of my participants were involved in the old state attestation process and they knew that accreditation was a necessary process for awarding of academic degrees by the Ministry of Education and Sciences.

One of the motivations of faculty to participate in the accreditation process was not to fall behind the academic community. This finding suggests that the academic community still has the mindset of a collectivistic approach, [whatever you do, you should be with your collective].

Discussion of Findings and Their Connections to Theory

Schlossberg’s Transition Theory (Anderson et al., 2012; Goodman et al., 2006;

Schlossberg et al., 1995) helped the researcher understand and describe the transition process of faculty through the changes related to the independent accreditation in their pedagogical programs. There are three types of transitions: (a) an anticipated transition, which is predictable or expected; (b) an unanticipated transition, which is not predictable or unexpected; and (c) nonevent, which is expected to occur but does not. The new accreditation system is an anticipated event (Anderson et al., 2012) for higher education institutions initiated by the Government of Kyrgyz Republic and implemented by the

Ministry of Education and Sciences in 2016. Transitions occur in three stages: moving in, moving through or moving out (Goodman et al., 2006). The findings indicate that the

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faculty members are in the stage of “moving through” the transition process within three stages of transition process.

By analyzing the Schlossberg’s 4S’s: Situation, Self, Support, and Strategies

(Schlossberg et al., 1995), I tried to interpret and explain faculty experiences of the new accreditation process from their point of view.

1. The Situation. The situations at three universities were not the best for implementing new process for all constituents: students, faculty, staff and administration.

Students were not sufficiently prepared to study with approaches that required more independent work; they did not have resources (Internet access, textbooks) to do research or home assignments. Faculty members were not trained to develop their own teaching materials, to do self-study analyses, and to write reports for the purpose of accreditation.

The administration still used old methods of university management and academic staff needed retraining for the new accreditation system. All three universities had limited resources to make the situation easier for faculty, even though one of the regional universities had more resources and better conditions for faculty development. This institution developed methodological materials (Bulletins) specifically on the accreditation.

The faculty members perceived the new system of accreditation, on the one hand, as a positive thing that could promote the quality of education; on the other hand, as a negative and stressful situation that required “too much paper work”. As the findings showed, professors spent much time not only for preparation of the Teaching and

Methodological Complex (as it was described in Chapter IV), but also for redoing their

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self-study reports and accreditation forms due to lack of sufficient faculty training and poor university administrative management. According to the opinion of three professors, the main reason for not being happy with paper work was that the accreditation process distracted the professors from their main job--teaching. However, the new requirements

(interactive methods, learning outcomes, competences, student centeredness, new grading system and new terms) in all areas of the education process that came with the new accreditation system made the situation at the universities, departments, and among faculty members more complicated. For instance, the new grading scale is vague and not clear to professors and students. Students come from secondary schools with the old system of grading, study for four years with a new system and go back to teach in schools with the old system. This suggests that using the new system in one fragment of education creates confusion for all constituents of the educational process. At the same time, the new requirements were not purely accreditation requirements, as the majority of participants of this study perceived, but were the changes introduced much earlier as part of the Bologna Process reforms (e.g. grading by points). As of summer 2018, the higher education institutions I reviewed do not have the mechanisms, or criteria to evaluate student learning outcomes and competences; professors just grade students’ knowledge in the subject area. The long list of competences and learning outcomes on the program level listed by the Ministry of Education and Sciences cannot serve as evidence of quality of the program without the assessment tools in place. The process of implementation of accreditation is slow; only one regional institution has regulatory documents for accreditation and the Bologna Process reforms in general.

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2. The Self. The faculty members had different backgrounds, academic degrees, and teaching and administrative experiences. Among them, thirteen were from two regional universities and three were from the capital city, Bishkek; fourteen were female professors and two were male professors. The university professors teach various subjects at both levels: Bachelors and Masters. Their teaching experiences at the university level varied from eleven to forty-eight years, so eleven participants had experiences in the old state attestation system and all sixteen participants were actively involved in the process of the new independent accreditation of their programs. In addition, some of them had teaching experiences in secondary schools. Three professors had the highest academic degree – Doctor Nauk, eight had Kanididat Nauk degrees. The findings showed that the professors with highest degrees and with administrative experiences were better prepared for the changes, and they were less impacted by the new accreditation. Five faculty members did not participate in previous state attestation, for them the independent accreditation process was new and hard, as one of the interviewees from the regional university, Saikal said, “Accreditation shakes faculty members off very strongly”.

In general, the independent accreditation process impacted the individual faculty’s professional life and their role pretty much. It was an opportunity for faculty members to change their teaching methodology, paying more attention to the independent work of students, and to revise their teaching materials and tests. Most professors described their role in the accreditation process as important because they were responsible for students’ knowledge, for the students’ personal and intellectual development, and for the quality of education. Some professors expressed that they improved their interrelations with

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administrators, colleagues, students, and stakeholders through frequent communication with them in the process of preparing self-study reports. Three professors mentioned that the accreditation process did not change anything about their teaching; they continue teaching the way they taught before the accreditation.

The findings indicate that faculty members found some personal benefits from participation in the new accreditation process: the certain recognition of their qualification in the academic community, and additional points in faculty performance evaluations that helped them to get promotions and salary increases.

3. The Support. All faculty members got some type of support from the institution, the department, the Ministry of Education and Sciences, or accreditation agencies that organized seminars and training so that faculty could better understand the new independent accreditation criteria and procedures. Colleagues shared information and participated in group discussions and helped each other with the documentation.

Each faculty member developed Academic and Methodological Complexes for the courses they taught, which included a syllabus, assignments, description of classroom activities, learning outcomes and methodological approaches to teaching. Some had support from their families when they worked weekends and late evenings. While all faculty members had some type of support, the support was different in the three universities. The faculty members at the RU1 got more institutional support than those at the RU2 and BU. One possible explanation for that might be that the rector [president] at the RU1 was a good financial manager, while other two institutions did not have funding for faculty development. At the same time, professors at the RU2 received a one-time

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financial reward for defending Doctor Nauk or Kandidat Nauk degrees, which was not the case at the BU.

4. The Strategies. The study showed that university faculty had difficulties related to implementation of the new accreditation system as they were not prepared for that.

Eleven participants I interviewed did not have any strategy to cope with the challenges.

Only two professors mentioned time management approaches, as they tried to plan ahead their time for class preparation, accreditation, family and research. Only three professors mentioned that it was teamwork that helped them to go through the challenges related to the preparing the self-study reports. They discussed every criterion at the departmental level, and distributed those criteria among faculty members, so each faculty member was responsible for one criterion. It is worth mentioning that all participants perceived accreditation as a must; since it was a requirement of the Ministry of Education and

Sciences, they had to carry it out. Some participants found the question about strategy ‘a difficult question’, while others responded that they did not have strategies to cope with challenges during the accreditation process; as one of the participants said, “We do not have strategies, but we have tasks to carry out” (Saikal).

As the Bologna Process reforms were introduced (2012), including the new accreditation system, and university requirements changed, faculty members changed themselves in relation to the new requirements of accreditation. The accreditation criteria required from professors new approaches to their teaching, such as interactive methods, student centeredness, a new grading system, new forms of exams, and using new terms.

The faculty members struggled to cope with the challenges related to the changes,

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because those changes required more work, time, support from their families and institutions, and new strategies to stay active in their positions and not to lose their jobs.

All changes are accompanied by the fear of being fired in case their institution (especially the RU1, where the faculty salary is higher than at the two other institutions) fails accreditation. And this is crucial for faculty members in Kyrgyzstan’s economic situation, which is characterized by a high unemployment rate.

Recommendations for Policy and Practice

The results of this study can have influence on the further development of the accreditation system and improvement of accreditation standards. Unless universities depend on the Ministry of Education and Sciences, it is impossible to have successful accreditation of educational programs, since the Minimum Requirements for

Accreditation and State Educational Standards are set up by the Government of the

Kyrgyz Republic.

Kyrgyzstan does not have any professional accreditation agencies that can accredit professional programs. The five newly established accreditation agencies are pioneers in the accreditation of educational programs in Kyrgyzstan and there is no study on the effectiveness of accreditation standards, requirements and policies for higher education institutions yet. The shift from the Soviet state attestation system to the

European model of independent accreditation requires that the Ministry of Education and

Sciences and independent accreditation agencies revisit standards, procedures and policies on accreditation in higher education to assure the public of the quality of university education, and to define quality of higher education institutions.

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There is a reason for the faculty concern about the quality of accreditation and the qualifications of accreditation experts, because one accreditation agency cannot accredit all programs and assure the society about the quality of education. Unless Kyrgyzstan has a specialized accreditation agency for teacher education programs, it is impossible to assure quality of pedagogical programs. In my opinion, it is worthwhile and feasible to establish accreditation criteria for teacher education programs in Kyrgyzstan, and a professional accreditation agency that can conduct external evaluations of teacher education programs.

While understanding that this is a new quality assurance system and it needs more time for higher education professionals to see the changes, the findings of this study suggest the need for universities to take more decisive actions to change the university management system, retrain faculty, develop the infrastructure and improve academic resources for teaching and learning.

This study indicates that the implementation of independent accreditation in higher education in Kyrgyzstan needs more attention from all stakeholders to establish a good system for quality assurance because an independent accreditation is a new opportunity for higher education institutions to determine what they want to accomplish, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they are going to make changes for quality improvement. At this stage, it would be practical for universities to determine clear, achievable and measurable learning outcomes; for department chairs and faculty members to identify tools and mechanisms to assess student learning outcomes using their limited resources; and for students to learn to take responsibilities for their own

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quality education and develop their competences, which would help them to transfer their knowledge to their future students as teachers of secondary schools.

Recommendations for Future Research

All faculty members participated in this study represent the pedagogical programs that went through the new accreditation process only once, and the next accreditation will take place not earlier than 2020. The pilot accreditation of the BU took place in 2014; the pedagogical programs of other two regional universities were accredited in 2017 and

2018 for five years. It would be valuable to monitor and research further what happens within a 5-year period, how the accreditation requirements change, and whether the faculty continues working on the improvement of their teaching methodology and teaching materials.

As my participants mentioned during the interviews, an institutional accreditation had been conducted by a Kazakhstani accreditation agency at two regional universities almost at the same time as program accreditation. The future research can examine and compare the findings of Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani accreditation agencies, and their standards and requirements they used at these two regional universities. It should contribute to improvement of accreditation systems in both countries.

Limitations

The accreditation process covers many levels of education reforms in the higher education system: university management, the quality of teaching and learning, the preparedness of all constituents of the educational process for the new system and their reactions to the results of the process. The focus of current study was only faculty

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perspectives on this new process, and the study is limited to the pedagogical programs that were accredited only once and by only one accreditation agency. There might be different results with the bigger scope including other programs at other types of institutions and other accreditation agencies.

While the study is new of its type and can bring new insights of accreditation system in Kyrgyzstan from the faculty point of view, it would be valuable to hear the voices of the policy makers, leaderships of all five accreditation agencies, and representatives of the National Accreditation Council on the new accreditation system.

Conclusion

The study of faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of pedagogical programs is a significant contribution to the development of the new quality assessment system in Kyrgyzstan. The research gave me an opportunity to listen to the faculty voices, the main actors in the process of quality assessment of the programs. This study provides some valuable insights on the new accreditation system that will inform both the

Ministry of Education and Sciences and the independent accreditation agency EdNet about the advantages and disadvantages of the new independent accreditation system.

The findings of this study will help Ministry of Education and Sciences and the independent accreditation agency EdNet to review the accreditation regulations, standards and procedures for further quality improvement of higher education programs.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

LETTER OF CONSENT

Appendix A

Letter of Consent

Study Title: Independent Accreditation for Pedagogical Programs in Kyrgyzstan

Principal Investigator: Dr. Martha Merrill

Co-investigator: Chynarkul Ryskulova

I am researching Accreditation for Pedagogical Programs in Kyrgyzstan. I am interested in your professional view on the new independent accreditation system, quality of pedagogical programs, qualification requirements for future teachers, and changes in the academic life of university professors.

You are being invited to participate in a research study. If you decide to participate, you will be interviewed about your experiences in accreditation process, quality of pedagogical programs, and reforms in higher education. Your confidentiality will be maintained within the limits of the law. Please be advised because of the unique nature, your quotes may identify you. Additionally you will be given the opportunity to have your quotes accredited to you. Should you do this, your participation will not be confidential.

Your participation is voluntary and you may stop at any time. Please read this form carefully. It is important that you ask questions and fully understand the research in order to make an informed decision. You will receive a copy of this document to take with you.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore faculty perspectives on independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs in Kyrgyzstan and describe the advantages and disadvantages of the new independent accreditation system.

Procedures: The participants will take part in semi-structured interviews and answer questions on educational policies and quality of teacher training programs

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Confidentiality: The recruitment pool for this study is limited, so there is a possibility that you may be identifiable as a participant.

Benefits: Although the individual participants may not benefit directly from this research, the larger educational community in Kyrgyzstan will benefit from a greater understanding of educators’ perceptions of the quality of teacher training.

Suggested languages: Russian and Kyrgyz

Contact Information: If you have any questions or concerns about this research, you may contact Dr. Martha Merrill or Chynarkul Ryskulova. This project has been approved by the Kent State University Institutional Review Board (IRB). If you have any questions about your rights as a research participant or complaints about the research, you may call the IRB at 330.672.2704.

You will get a copy of this consent form.

Sincerely, Martha C. Merrill, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Higher Education Coordinator, International Education Certificate Consent Statement and Signature

I have read this consent form and have had the opportunity to have my questions answered to my satisfaction. I voluntarily agree to participate in this study. I understand that a copy of this consent will be provided to me for future reference.

______Participant Signature Date I permit my name to be used in publications. ______Participant Signature Date

APPENDIX B

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Appendix B

Interview Questions

1. Name of the higher education institution. Is it a public or a private institution?

2. How many years have you been teaching at the pedagogical institution/department

here or at another university?

3. What courses do you teach? Do you teach to undergraduate or graduate students?

4. Do you have teaching experiences in secondary schools? If yes, how many years and

what subject(s) did you teach?

5. Your scientific degree/ title/ position?

6. What do you know about the Bologna Process? And how did you learn about it?

7. What do you know about the new independent accreditation processes? And how did

you learn about them?

8. What is your involvement in state attestation/accreditation process of university

programs?

9. What is your opinion about the new independent accreditation comparing to old state

attestation?

10. How different the evaluation process of the quality of university pedagogical

programs conducted by Ministry of Education and Sciences from what EdNet did?

Why do you think so?

11. How are the independent accreditation standards different from the state attestation

standards?

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189

12. How do you feel and cope with transitions related with the shift from state attestation

to the independent accreditation?

13. In your opinion, can independent accreditation promote quality of pedagogical

programs? Why do you think so?

14. How can your institution assure students, parents and employers that it is providing

quality education? What is the evidence for quality?

15. In your opinion, how quality of education is defined, conceptualized and measured by

EdNet?

16. What do you know about the student-centered approach to teaching?

17. In your point of view, in what ways does the new accreditation system focus more or

less on student learning than the old state attestation system?

18. What did you change in your methodology of teaching to focus more on student

learning outcomes?

19. What criteria do accreditors use to determine whether or not students are meeting

learning outcomes?

20. How do you view the role of faculty members in the process of self-study of your

program?

21. How do you view the role of faculty members in the process of independent

accreditation of pedagogical programs?

22. Do you see the new independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs as

positive or negative?

190

23. Do you see the new independent accreditation of the pedagogical programs as a

challenge or an opportunity for faculty members?

24. What are the factors that influence your attitudes towards new independent

accreditation?

25. What are the main difficulties or challenges in new accreditation system (if any)?

26. What strategies are you using to help you cope with this transition?

27. What personal, institutional and social supports have you relied on to help you

through this transition?

28. Has the process of independent accreditation changed your way of evaluating

students’ academic performance? If yes, how?

29. Has the process of independent accreditation changed your relationship to university

administrators? If yes, how?

30. How does your involvement in the accreditation process change your assumptions

about yourself?

 About your colleagues?

 About your program?

 About the standards/curriculum for pedagogical programs?

 About the quality of education your institution is providing?

31. Should accreditation agencies be independent from the Ministry of Education? If yes,

what conditions are needed for creation and functioning of accreditation agencies for

pedagogical programs independently from the Ministry of Education and Sciences in

Kyrgyzstan?

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