engleski

The Quality of teaching in higher education: the Croatian case

Caused by growing demands on higher education institutions to be accountable and to adapt to the rapid change of technologies, higher education democratization, cuts of funds, etc. the question of quality of university teaching is being stressed. In this context, we see higher education teaching as active construction and reconstruction of knowledge, ideas and issues, and not as traditional process of transferring knowledge. Although many factors influence higher education teaching (equipment, resources, students) the key role of higher education teachers in the improvement of higher education teaching is widely recognized. Regarding the fact that quality of higher education teaching, and especially teacher’s education has been seriously neglected in Croatia, in this research we intend to explore internationally accepted criteria of quality concerning higher education (especially those closely connected with teaching competencies of higher education teachers), and to find out the scope in which these criteria are respected in Croatian higher education. According to these results, our aim is to develop a model of university staff development, which aims to build the ‘culture of quality’. The hypothesis are: (1) the quality criteria, as well as higher education teaching practice in Croatia, significantly differ from the criteria accepted in international literature and practice, (2) the quality of teaching (seen primarily through student’s evaluations), is not satisfactory enough. Data have been collected by questionnaires. Sample of teachers and students have been chosen at the University of Rijeka.

higher education; quality of teaching; Croatia

nije evidentirano