Gatekeepers on Campus: Peer Review in Quality Assurance of Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

This chapter revisits the policy issue of the balance between peer review and performance indicators as a means to assess the quality of higher education, with a focus on unintended effects that emerge when peer review is employed in quality assurance procedures of higher education institutions as a whole. The attempted solutions of using self-assessments with their base of performance indicators, combined with review teams that stretch the meaning of peer review, increase goal displacement behaviour in higher education institutions. The chapter concludes with two ensuing dilemmas that require careful balancing between quality enhancement and superficial compliance, whatever the role of peer review in institutional quality assurance.