QUEST for Quality for Students: Survey on Students' Perspectives. Volume 2, Part 1
Author: Jungblut, Jens
Date: 2013-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Educational Quality,Higher Education,College Students,Foreign Countries,Quality Assurance,Surveys,Student Organizations,Focus Groups,Case Studies,Access to Information,Student Attitudes,Questionnaires,Student Characteristics,Student Motivation,Expectation,Academic Freedom,Correlation,College Choice,Role of Education,Student Needs

The European Students' Union (ESU), in partnership with the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS), the National Unions of Students Scotland--student participation in quality Scotland (NUS, Sparqs) and freier zussamenschluss von studentInnenschaften (fzs), and with support of the European Commission (DG EAC), launched the &quot;Quest for Quality for Students&quot; (QUEST) project. The aim of the QUEST project is to map students' views on quality at different levels and in different disciplinary contexts. The survey that is the focus of this report, an integral part of the project, addressed the following research questions: (1) What is the students' view on quality of higher education? (2) Do quality assurance mechanisms at the European, national and institutional level actually enhance quality in the understanding of students? (3) What sort of information do students need to be provided to them in relation to what they perceive as quality education? This publication is the first part of Volume 2 of the research, and follows-up on the work that has already been done and published in Volume 1 (&quot;Quest for Quality for Students: Going Back to Basics&quot;). Apart from the survey on student perspectives on quality, which is the focus of this report, the project also included a desk research focusing on existing trends in student engagement in quality assurance and study visits to a number of countries and higher education institutions (Finland, Spain--both national and institutional--, the Netherlands, Romania, Germany, Slovakia and Latvia), complemented with two case studies (Germany and Scotland). The forthcoming second part of Volume 2 (&quot;QUEST for Quality for Students: Institutional Analysis&quot;) will include the outcomes of several site visits to higher education institutions where focus groups with students and interviews with the institutional leadership and managers of the internal quality assurance systems took place. All these publications will together be the foundation of Volume 3 (&quot;QUEST for Quality for Students: A Student Quality Concept&quot;), which will present how quality through students' eyes can be defined, reached and assured; as well as what information students think is important for higher education institutions to provide to them. One of the goals throughout this project has been to raise awareness about the understanding of quality from the students' point of view. Thus, it can be considered and influence discussions on higher education, having a positive effect on it and improving its quality. The findings of the study paint a multi-faceted picture of students' view on quality in higher education and also uncover students' use of information about higher education and their assessment of the quality of that information. Even though this project has characteristics of a pilot study, it does point towards interesting relations. The results offer several points of departure for future research projects to get an even clearer picture on the preferences, knowledge and need of students in Europe when it comes to quality in higher education. The country comparisons used in this study also suggest that the comparative approach is a road worth taking, and that national situations might have an impact on the students' perception of quality in higher education. Appended is the six part Questionnaire: (Part 1: Motivations and expectations from higher education; Part 2: Perspectives on quality; Part 3: Awareness of quality mechanisms at different levels; Part 4: Student information needs; Part 5: Academic Freedom; and PART 6: Demographic and HE related information. [For Volume 1 of the series, &quot;Quest for Quality for Students: Going Back to Basics,&quot; see ED539505.]