Abstract:

The process toward the European Higher Education Area, EHEA (“The Bologna process”) had in Spain an end-line that expired on 2010. At present, it is necessary to think about the scope and reality of the changes introduced in the new teaching methodologies that were launched as a consequence of this process. Student evaluation of teaching (SET) provides an essential feedback to determine the degree of competence acquisition of students and to detect problems in the teaching-learning process. Generally, this type of evaluation focuses on quantitative assessments, whereas the analysis of open answers, where the student reflects the specific difficulties he encounters, is rarely made. In this paper we present a study carried out in 3th year undergraduate students of the degree in Physics at the University of Valencia about the workload that is requested throughout the course. The questionnaire that students had to answer contained both quantitative questions and open-ended comments about the required workload. When analyzing the answers, faults in the course planning have been detected, as well as a wide range of possibilities for improvement in the distribution of tasks related to certain subjects. The obtained feedback has allowed, therefore, to have a more realistic and profound vision of the learning process of the students, as well as ways of solution that will allow to optimize the teaching workload in successive courses.

Keywords:

Student evaluation of teaching, SET, students’ comments, teaching organization, student voice.