Using Total Quality Principles in Business Courses: the Effect on Student Evaluations

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an approach that encourages employees at all levels of an organization to make suggestions about how work should be done and to take an active role in improving processes. Although business organizations have applied TQM principles with considerable success, its use in higher education has been largely limited to administrative processes. Many teaching faculty in schools of business are uncomfortable with applying TQM principles to the class room, often because the idea of empowering students requires thinking differently about their potential for participation in planning processes for the learning envi ronment. Yet a survey of students and faculty suggests that a TQM approach can increase students' learning in a class, help students support one another in a coop erative learning environment, and foster positive feelings toward the instructor, even one who maintains the necessary high standards.