Pedagogic Quality at University: what teachers and students think

Research into higher education is still scarce in Portugal. The implementation of external and internal evaluation systems in the last decade has motivated special attention to issues such as organisational models, academic achievement, adaptation processes and transition to the workplace, while neglecting matters directly related with pedagogical practices, an area still in need of development. This paper develops the results of the research project 'Conceptions of university pedagogy—a study at the University of Minho', carried out by a team of researchers from the Institute of Education and Psychology at this university in 2000/01, which seeks to investigate teachers' and students' conceptions of quality in pedagogical practices. A survey was conducted on campus through a questionnaire focusing on pedagogical and situational factors whose presence or absence may affect the quality of practices. Pedagogical factors were derived from a set of eight principles that are assumed to support a view of higher education as a process of transformation and empowerment: intention, transparency, coherence, relevance, reflectivity, democratisation, self-direction, and creativity/innovation. Situational factors relate to teacher, student and institutional variables that may facilitate the enactment of those principles. A sample of 165 teachers and 1356 students from a large range of graduate courses answered the questionnaire, by assessing the global presence/absence of the factors and the kind of influence (positive, negative or null) exerted by their presence/absence on the quality of pedagogy. The results provide a basis for (a) characterising teachers' and students' conceptions about the presence or absence of the given factors, (b) inferring the value attributed to those factors in terms of the quality of practices, and (c) identifying constraints to the quality of practices. Although the study is essentially descriptive, its framework clearly assumes that pedagogical practices should aim at transforming and empowering the individual as a condition for improving the rationality and justice of the contexts where the individual (inter)acts. Finding out whether teachers' and students' conceptions approximate to this view or deviate from it is one of the aims of the study. Significant results from both samples will be selected so as to present and compare the dominant idea(l)s of the inquired groups. Conclusions will be drawn about the perceived/desired quality of pedagogical practices and possible directions to improve it.