Evaluation of Quality of Students’ Characteristics and Motivations in UT-FNS, Albania

Abstract

Academic quality improvement in higher education has recently been considered in many universities over the world. The aim of the study was to investigate the quality of students’ characteristics and motivations in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Tirana University. From the long experience, we know that universities can provide the best services to the community if they worry continuously to improve the quality of their services. Therefore, evaluation is one of the powerful tools for strategic development in higher education institutions. Higher education reform started about 6 years ago. It brought about many changes in the way students are admitted to higher education. Now is the time to investigate these changes and judge their goodness. In literature was identified a lot of factors in study success at the individual level. The most important of them are student’s characteristics (socioeconomic status, gender, background, etc.), and student’s motivations. In order to gain insights into both topics, an exploratory study was conducted within a sample of 800 students in the Faculty of Natural Sciences (University of Tirana, Albania). Participants were selected on the basis of their voluntary participation after lessons. The research method we used in this study is descriptive-analytic; perceptions were gathered and measured with open-ended and multiple-choice items. The results of this study indicate that the students come mainly from general secondary schools and very few (about 1%) from vocational ones. They come from middle and lower-income families (about 60 %). The main factors motivating students continue to be parents/family and professional career. The motives for choosing the program are found “The best for the study program I wanted” and “Convenience in finding jobs” (respectively 53 % and 41 %).

Keywords

• Faculty of natural sciences
• Student's Quality
• Student's Characteristics

References

1. Brockerhoff, L., J. Huisman, & Laufer. M. (2015). Quality in higher education: A literature review. Ghent: Centre for Higher Education Governance.
2. Elton, L. (1998). Dimensions of excellence in university teaching. International Journal for Academic Development 3(1), 3–11.
3. Krause, K.-L. (2012). Addressing the wicked problem of quality in higher education: Theoretical approaches and implications. Higher Education Research and Development 31(3), 285–297.
4. Materu P. (2007). Higher education quality assurance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Status, challenges, opportunities, and promising practices. World Bank Working Paper, No. 124.
5. Newton, J. (2006). What is quality? Munich: 1st European Forum for Quality Assurance.
6. Rai, A.K. (2012). Customer relationship management: concepts and cases (2nd ed). New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt.
7. Schindler, L., S. Puls-Elvidge, H. W., & Crawford. L. (2015). Definitions of quality in higher education: A synthesis of the literature. Higher Learning Research Communications, 5(3), 3–13. doi:10.18870/hlrc.v5i3.244.
8. Van Damme, D. (2011). Internal quality assurance in universities: Academic self-regulation in a context of increasing accountability in higher education. Presentation at the JAQAHE Conference, Tokyo, 27 October 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.slideshare.net/dvndamme/internal-quality-assuranceinuniversities

9. Vranešević, T., Mandić, M., & Horvat, S. (2007). The study of factors that affect student satisfaction. Poslovna izvrsnost, 3(1), 11-19.