Abstract:

The Bologna process has forced the universities to adapt to the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). All universities are working to achieve the objectives posed in the Agreement, implementing new or improved learning tools and methods. Thus, for example, universities are implementing, according to the EHEA, the students’ continuous assessment as the best methodology to ensure the student’s continuous learning.

In this sense, assuring the quality of these tools as well as the whole teaching and learning process is crucial. According to the basic principles of quality, the main objective for organizations willing to ensure the quality of their products and services is to satisfy the customers and other stakeholders. In the university context, the main customers are the students, and gathering and analyzing data regarding their satisfaction is important. Evidence of that is the global implementation of surveys to analyze the students’ satisfaction with their lecturers, hence a greater amount of universities is using this tool at the institutional level.

The aim of this paper is to propose and analyze a survey to measure the students’ satisfaction regarding the continuous assessment methodology. The survey will be applied in the subject of Quality Management in two different universities (University of Alicante –non compulsory subject of the fourth year of business and management degree- and University of Barcelona –non compulsory subject of the fourth year of business and management degree) in order to compare and find the best methodology to be used. The questionnaire used included questions related to the content of the subject, the teaching methodologies, students’ satisfaction and more in-depth information about other specific aspects.

The results are expected to show, as the survey will be performed during the first semester of 2012-2013 course in December, a greater preference for:
- following the continuous assessment rather than the final one,
- doing the continuous assessment assignments in class, and
- using methodologies prioritizing practice rather than theoretical concepts.

In order to reinforce the continuous assessment and gather data about students’ preferences, they will be asked to design a code of conduct for the quality management subject. Based on their proposals, the lecturers will design the code of conduct of the subject. The final output is expected to be a guideline useful for future courses of quality management and also other subjects willing to apply it.

Finally, the comparison between the two universities regarding the students’ opinions and the code of conduct of the subject will allow designing a teaching methodology able for both specific quality management subject and proposing guidelines for future courses of business management. This study is planned to be applied in the future courses in order to analyze the impact of the code of conduct on these subjects.