Abstract:

After the adaptation of the Spanish university system to the European Higher Education Area, university studies are organized in three cycles: degree (first cycle), master (second cycle) and doctorate (third cycle). In addition, many Spanish universities, as the University of Vigo, provide university programs for seniors (fourth cycle). The main aim of this study is to compare the degree of satisfaction, adaptation and the level of satisfaction in the competences acquired by the students in three qualifications that belong to three different academic cycles of the University of Vigo. These three qualifications are the Environmental Science Degree, the Máster in Oceanography and the University Program for Seniors. These three qualifications belong to the Earth Science theme, in particular, all these subjects deals with the topic of climate change.

The Environmental Sciences Degree of the University of Vigo began in the Science Faculty of Ourense during the 2010/11 academic year. This Degree is a certification with a strong multidisciplinary content, giving to graduates the training adequate to cover environmental issues from various fields of knowledge. The Master in Oceanography started in the 2015/2016 academic year as a collaboration of three universities (Vigo, Cadiz and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria). It provides a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to seas and oceans based on physical, biological, chemical and geological factors, as well as the interactions among them. The University of Vigo teaches the “Ocean and Climate” specialization. The University Program for Seniors has been taught for more than 10 years in the University of Vigo. It is an educational project, aimed to adults older than 55 years with different cultural background, that tries to incorporate them to the university life and to enrich their human and cultural knowledge encouraging their personal and social development.

A comparative analysis was performed to examine the range of expectations and the learning experience of students from the three qualifications described above. In this sense, all students answered a questionnaire about their degree of satisfaction, adaptation and their level of satisfaction respect to the competences acquired. From their results, it was found that most of the students are satisfied in the three qualifications. Thus, they believe that the level of knowledge is according to their previous studies and that its adaptation to the teaching methodology is simple and progressive independently of the qualification. In addition, most of them feel that the learning experience met their expectations. The highest degree of satisfaction was found in the Program for seniors and the lowest in the Degree of Environmental Science.

Keywords:

Degree, Master, Program for Seniors, University of Vigo.