Evaluating quality of Education: a participatory approach to confront challenges faced by nongovernmental higher education system in the third millennium

As a reliable approach in nongovernmental higher education system, the aim of the present study is to internally evaluate the quality of education in mathematics department at Islamic Azad University, Ardabil Branch to reveal different aspects of the system in the department under study and try to improve education and research quality. The research method is an applied one and is of descriptive kind. The statistical society includes five sub-groups: the head of the department, members of the faculty, alumni, and library clerks. Research instruments include questionnaire, interview, and checklist. To evaluate the quality of the department, the questions were developed based on the goal and objectives of the department, and appropriate factors, standards and indices. The validity of the instruments applied was determined by Cronbach’s Alpha. In general, based on the findings the quality the department was relatively satisfactory and calculated to be 2/14 on likert scale.