Students have their say: factors involved in students' perception on their engineering degree

Abstract

[EN] Higher Education institutions strive to continuously improve to meet students' expectations. Thus, it is vital to understand the factors involved in students' perceptions on their degree and on the quality of the teaching received. Engineering degrees require specific conditions due to their complex practical lessons and the need for high applicability, and our aim is to identify what affects the quality of the teaching delivered to our engineering students. Previous research on Higher Education focused on students' perception has been based on closed response questionnaires, which do not provide enough information. Hence, we asked students to freely make remarks, positive and/or negative on an open response questionnaire, and the qualitative analysis of their answers led to the description of a four-category figure (Teacher, Subject, Student, and Degree) revealing students' perceptions. Open response questionnaires offer administrators valuable information, as a complement to the quantitative analysis based on closed response questionnaires.