Evidence-Based Quality Assurance in Initial Teacher Education and Educational Sustainability

Quality assurance in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) has evolved from compliance-oriented approaches toward more comprehensive frameworks emphasizing continuous improvement, evidence-informed decision-making, and educational sustainability. Nevertheless, across Latin America, persistent fragmentation between accreditation processes, institutional data systems, and teacher education practices continues to limit universities’ capacity to address complex organizational and territorial challenges. This study aimed to develop an empirically informed conceptual framework for evidence-based quality assurance in ITE. A convergent mixed-methods design was employed, integrating a quantitative longitudinal component based on publicly available official secondary data covering 1743 students enrolled in teacher education programs at a regional Chilean university between 2020 and 2025 with a qualitative longitudinal documentary analysis of accreditation, institutional, regulatory, and territorial evidence covering the 2012–2025 period. Both components were analyzed independently and subsequently integrated through convergent triangulation during the interpretative phase. The quantitative findings revealed a heterogeneous student population characterized by predominantly female enrollment, differentiated academic trajectories, territorial concentration with additional geographic diversity, and descriptive variation in retention across teacher education programs. Documentary evidence identified recurrent strengths in institutional purpose, curricular development, and territorial engagement, alongside persistent challenges related to information integration, organizational workload, evidence-informed curricular improvement, and academic capacity. The convergence and complementarity of these findings informed the development of the Evidence-Based Excellence Management Model (EBEMM), which integrates student entry characteristics, institutional processes, observed academic outcomes, quality-assurance evidence, and territorial context within a continuous-improvement framework. The EBEMM is presented as an empirically informed conceptual framework rather than a formally validated causal, predictive, or operational model. Future multi-institutional research should examine its structural relationships, evaluate its potential predictive applications where appropriate, and assess its external applicability.