Abstract:

Managing the profound change from elite to mass education at the university level has posed significant challenges to teachers and educational institutions because of the diverse needs, aspirations, expectations, and preferences of students in the teaching and learning process (Smith & Wertlieb, 2005; Alauddin, Ashman, Nghiem, & Lovell, 2017). Even more students expectation and perceptions of service quality in higher education change over time and depend on culture (languge backround), gender, age, university type, mode of study (Boulding et al.,1993; Sander et al., 2000; Alauddin et al., 2017). For students the first transition year is a crucial, because freshmen are often ill-prepared for the change from one educational level to other (Brinkworth, McCann, Matthews, & Nordström, 2009).

The aim of this paper is to gain deeper understanding of first year students` expectations for university teachers and to identify differences between part-time vs full-time (school leavers vs matured age) first year students. A convenience sample consisted of first year students of educational sciences (n=170) in the beginning of their studies. To identify the meaningful units emerging from the data the thematic analysis was used.

On the basis of completed studies and theoretical viewpoints used in those, three categories of expectations are designed, which are used for analyzing the empirical data of this study. Academic expectations (Smith ja Wertlieb, 2005; Lobo & Gurney, 2014; Alauddin et al., 2017) are characterized by the specialized knowledge of the lecturers, expertise in the field taught, teaching style used, general level of education, delivery of the specific specialty and the assignments given by the lecturer; social expectations (Smith & Wertlieb, 2005; Lobo & Gurney, 2014) are characterized by any kind of feedback to the studies and social network, active participation in university life and general involvement; personal expectations (Martin et al., 2013; Alauddin et al., 2017) are characterized by the perception of different attitude coming from academic staff, specific character traits of both lecturers as well as students, different study needs (differently perceived study needs, special education needs), academic performance, strivings of the student.

The findings show that in terms of academic expectation first year students expect from university teachers profound professional knowledge from the expert areas with interesting inspirational lectures and collaborative learning methods, mostly active participation and engagement. The part-time and full-time students share similar academic expectations: subject-based theoretical and practical knowledge, lecturer should be inspired by subject field and transmit the passion for it. Students are waiting interesting and inspirative lectures. Full-time students mention the importance of interesting and inclusive tasks. Social expectations are more interpersonal, students expect reasonable and rational understandings and humanness. There is distinction between social expectations of full-time and part-time students: first expect collaboration with understandable attitudes and humanness, others expect more collaboration on an equal basis. Personal expectations focus mostly on personal needs, guidance and support.

Keywords:

Academic, social and personal expectations, first year students, univeristy studies.