Abstract:

The degree of Technical Engineering in Computer Systems at the University Jaume I in Castellón (Spain) has been submitted to a project of adjustment to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) during the academic year 2007/08. This has been done following the Bologna process which pretends to create more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe. A new model has been implemented in all the courses of the first year in this degree, and also during 2008/09, in all the courses of the second year. We are participating with our course Numerical and Symbolic Calculus, and this is the object of our study in this paper.

From 2001 up to now, this course has been common in three degrees of Computer Engineering at this university, with the same aims, programs, systems of evaluation, exam models, methodologies, faculty, etc. Therefore, a singular situation is presented which we have submitted to analysis, since almost all the variables that take part in the process of education-learning of a same subject have remained unvariant in two different groups of students, that is, immersed pupils in the adapted program above mentioned and non-immersed students. The differential variable is consequently the didactic methodology used in the program adapted to the EHEA against a more traditional methodology applied in the former program. We present a description of this new methodology and make a statistical analysis of the results from public-opinion polls and from objective numerical data, comparing several aspects, valuations, situations and results relating the distinct methodologies as well as the evaluation of them.

We obtain several conlusions such as the following: the course submitted to this experience involves a major initial follow-up by the students and a notable increase in the percentage of those who take exams in our course Numerical and Symbolic Calculus. This assertion is made regarding the other degrees of Computer Science at the University Jaume I: Technical Engineering in Computer Science for Management and Computer Engineering. This increase can reach up to more of 50 % of participation in the adapted model. Another conclusion is that students in the adapted model attend a major number of tutoring hours, not only in global time, but also in the number of students attending. In addition, they use the tutoring hours on a more continuous way along the whole academic year. Also, they more frequently use other resources as the virtual classroom, the electronic consults, etc. In general, the students who are taking the new program are satisfied with it.

Keywords:

european higher education area, methodology, computer engineering.