The New Bureaucracy: Quality Assurance and its Critics

In some senses, this book is an attempt to understand the humble feedback form.You may have encountered one while taking courses at university or, perhaps, after being discharged from hospital or receiving help from the police. In universities, students are asked to spend a few minutes ticking boxes or assigning a numerical grade to such statements as 'The course met the objectives set' and offering comments or suggestions. The figures are converted into tables of percentage scores by a central department and used in the university to assess performance.They may even be posted on a website, and be referred to in aggregate terms in government reports comparing the performance ofdifferent universities.