An ecological approach to SWOT analysis: examining the key factors influencing the quality of an intensive English program

Abstract

Quality assurance in education essentially focuses on all relevant aspects of school life since various procedures of objectively monitoring, evaluating, and reporting are conducted by all stakeholders in an educational institution. These procedures are highly dynamic and often adopted to provide the much-needed guidance for continuous improvement of educational quality. Accepting this notion of quality assurance, this study investigated the influential factors in the quality of an Intensive English Program (IEP) according to perceptions of all stakeholders by analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats through international accreditation criteria applied to SWOT framework. This study was conducted using concurrent mixed research design in which the quantitative data was collected from 1143 students through a questionnaire devised by the researchers in line with accreditation criteria. The qualitative data was collected simultaneously from 14 instructors, program administrators, coordinators and department heads through a semi-structured interview protocol. The findings revealed multiple perspectives about factors affecting different constituents of IEP quality as perceived by different stakeholders within ecological framing of SWOT theory of change (SWOT ToC) adopted in this study. The strengths mostly involve clearly defined academic calendar, high level English proficiency of L2 instructors, accessible facilities, equipment and supplies on campus, student placement into correct levels, while some of the weaknesses include solutions for students’ administrative problems, accessibility of social and recreational activities, condition and quantity of the facilities. The opportunities entail international partnership projects, job market connections through alumni while the threats contain accommodation and transportation issues in addition to natural disasters and financial issues in the national socioeconomic status quo. The study is unique in applying accreditation criteria to SWOT analysis and using this ecological SWOT ToC framework in an IEP to collect data from all stakeholders through a mixed-methods research design.