TOCICO

In the early decades of the new millennium, there has been a growing global application of theory of constraints- thinking processes (TOC–TP) tools across many industry sectors including the service, healthcare and education sectors. Within the education sector, the TOC–TP tools have been applied with success in many countries, most notably in primary and secondary education. However, there are a growing number of applications in higher education (HE). We report here on recent research exploring the quality of experiences of learning and teaching in higher education. Using the theory of constraints, we have investigated the causes of less-than-ideal learning and teaching (L&T) experiences from the perspectives of students, teachers and senior academic management. The research was conducted in two business schools, one in Kenya and another in New Zealand (NZ). The theory of constraints (TOC) methodology guided the construction of the interview guide and the analysis of data. To collect data from students, focus group discussions were used, while personal interviews were used to collect data from lecturers and senior academic managers. TOC tools including the Goal Tree, CRT, EC and FRT's formed the backbone of the TOC analysis. The results of this study have demonstrated the value of the TOC methodology in producing useful insights about the root causes of undesirable quality of L&T in the HE sector. Although this paper reports on a study undertaken in one business school in each of the two countries, the results are in line with global trends in higher education, indicating that the issues may be fairly generic and are likely to be of wide interest.