Reception of the quality assurance commitments of the Bologna process in Finnish higher education institutions

This article analyses Finnish higher education institutions' reception of the implementation of the new quality assurance systems that governments participating in the Bologna Process have committed to establishing in the Berlin Communique' of 2003. The data were collected using a web survey and the respondents were classified with a cluster analysis. The reception was more positive in the polytechnics than in the research universities and women were more positive than men. People working in managerial positions were most positive about, and committed to, quality assurance. Most critical were young researchers in research universities working in temporary jobs. Some opinions were so strongly shared that respondents with short work experience expressed their opinions, even though they could not have personal experience of the topic in question. For some topics, respondents without personal experience, but having a critical attitude, tended to give their opinion whereas those with neutral attitude abstained from commenting.