On-site visit interviews in external quality assurance procedures – a linguistic, empirical approach
Abstract
On-site visit interviews play a crucial role in external quality assurance procedures. Nevertheless, so far there seems to be little empirical research, both in linguistics, and in the field of quality assurance research and studies in higher education.
The contexts of these interviews are diverse, complex and demanding; pitfalls and challenges are manifold. In linguistics, and particularly in the field of discourse analysis, a broad range of approaches can be successfully applied to analyse and understand the challenges of these interview situations. In the long term, an in-depth programme of research could potentially provide agencies as well as peers with valuable advice on how to steer the interviews effectively towards constructive conversations and avoid awkward communicative situations.
In this paper we present preliminary results of a pilot study that was conducted by the ZHAW Department of Applied Linguistics in cooperation with the Swiss Agency of Accre-ditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ).
This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.
