Unpacking External Quality Audit’s Influence on Quality Management Practice of Ghana’s Health Training Institutions

A Critical Realist Exploration

Abstract

This study employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to explore quality audit reports on Ghanaian Health Training Institutions (HTIs), aiming to understand how external quality audit as a quality assurance mechanism is influential on quality management practices of the HTIs because quality assurance mechanisms are to be a stimulus for innovation and enhancing quality. Utilizing the CDA design, a purposive sampling strategy is employed to select the first cycle external quality audit reports and through data abduction, key themes and linguistic markers are extracted, while data retroduction interprets the findings using Social Reality Theory (SRT) and Neo-Institutional Theory (NIT) lenses. Drawing on SRT, the research unveils power dynamics and discursive patterns that influence the audit process. Additionally, adopting Neo-Institutional Theory, the study reveals the influence of institutional norms and external pressures on quality management practices of the HTIs. The study's implications lie in enhancing the quality audit methodology and quality management practices of the HTIs whilst fostering contextually relevant and effective quality assurance mechanisms of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC).

Key words: external quality audit, Ghana tertiary education commission, health training institutions, quality assurance, quality management.