Abstract:

The underlying objective of universities, which are a part of the European Higher Education Area and European Research Area, is to help develop character, knowledge and creativity of students. A law concerning universities in the Slovak Republic requires all accredited universities to conduct a survey on the opinion of students on the quality of education and evaluation of teachers in the offered study programmes. The goal of this survey is to provide a platform for students to share their opinions, to give feedback on how the institution has helped them achieve personal growth. Students of universities are of age, and therefore are considered to be mature, intelligent people who attend the institution of their own free will. Students are usually required to pass entrance exams that are set by the institution itself, and so admitted students are expected to be able to critically think and evaluate objectively based on their personal experiences. The results of this survey, if conducted properly, can point out specific areas where the education system can be improved. In the empirical part of this article we study the results of this survey in one concrete field, Security and Safety Sciences at the Academy of the Police Force in Bratislava. We take a look at the survey of students' opinions in this particular field in the school year 2019/2020, and analyze it based on quantitative indicators of difficulty, quality of classes, as well as usefulness of each particular class. To uncover hidden dependencies, we performed a multidimensional analysis, which allowed us to compare survey results from multiple angles at once. In conclusion, we can unsurprisingly see common occurrences of the path of least resistance, as well as gradually declining enthusiasm and criticality, especially for students in their last years of the programme. Less expected is occurence of tolerating higher difficulty of classes that are considered useful.

Keywords:

Quality of education, knowledge, student, multidimensional analysis.