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What Do University Students Expect from their Teachers?

Higher education aims to develop knowledge and skills, but also personal growth.

What Do University Students Expect from their Teachers?
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July 12, 2021 By Gerson Daniel Andueza López
Reading time 6 minutes

University students seek that teachers show leadership, human sense, collaboration, and social responsibility.

Much has been written about what higher education students require to perform and be competent in the workplace. There are countless publications by experts in educational innovation and various teaching strategies to develop competencies in students to obtain a job and perform successfully in the work environment. However, have we ever wondered what professional students expect from their university professors regarding their training?

To address this issue, we conducted pilot research with undergraduate Psychology students at the Cumbres campus of the University of the Valley, Mexico, to know their expectations and satisfaction with the didactics used by their professors. Most of the students agreed that applying theoretical knowledge, the teacher’s professional experience and excellent class organization are essential. However, a more relevant finding of our study is that they also want teachers to show leadership, human feeling, collaboration with other actors, social values, and demonstrate interventions to solve community problems. 

“Students do not look to focus only on acquiring knowledge; they also expect their teachers to guide them in the search for individual and social well-being.”

The above aligns with multiple investigations like that of Nieva and Martínez (2016) concerning the training of educators, where the teacher is depicted as the determining agent of cultural transmission and societal transformation. Another similarity can be found in the work of Calderón y Loja (2018) on the need for social responsibility and applicability of knowledge to real-life environments. Also, in the analyses of expectations for future schools (Deval, 2013), John Dewey gives education the preponderant role to effect social change (Niebles, 2005). UNESCO reports the priorities for higher education and the skills needed for the XXI century (2017). The latter specifies that higher education and research must be a fundamental part of the cultural, socio-economic, and eco’ cultural, socio-economic, and ecologically sustainable development (2000). The teacher plays a preponderant role throughout the teaching-learning process.

Contemporary didactic themes are critical to train students of the XXI century

Quality of teaching in universities and vocational institutions has been a recurring axis of global agendas for decades due to the socio-cultural, political, educational and economic changes that our society has undergone. Some of the priority issues raised by international organizations (UNESCO, 2017) and various researches (López, Martínez and Ponce, 2020) that have a global community perspective of current and future problems are:

  • The topics that should continue to be taught, their modifications, and those that should be incorporated. (Examples include harassment, digital literacy, global citizenship, sustainable development, and human rights.)

  • Training in research, ethics and their impact on social development.

  • The applicability of knowledge to solve professional and community issues.

  • The need for personal development, comprehensive health and well-being, and many others.

How all of the above is taught is a nodal point of the teaching-learning process. Let us remember that university education aims to develop knowledge and skills and also personal growth. To achieve this goal, educational institutions must emphasize teacher training. It should be borne in mind that most university professors are genuinely competent professionals, but this does not mean that they necessarily possess the pedagogical skills essential to develop the competencies expected in twenty-first-century students. New educational programs with specialized and intentional training in the classrooms are required to train future professionals who can benefit society.

“The new generations call upon us teachers to foster reflective social responsibility that looks out for the common good.”

To know generally what students currently expect from their teachers, we prepared an evaluation instrument and a report to investigate the characteristics of students’ perception of the teaching practices in their university programs. Experts helped to develop a scale to measure satisfaction with teaching activities. It is a validation method that involves concatenating informed opinions of individuals with proven track records in specific subjects who comply with required credentials and contribute relevant annotations and objectivity to research. This instrument was applied to more than 25 students in the last courses of their degree programs.  The preliminary results (Andueza, Rodríguez and Tobón, 2020)  of the students’ surveys showed that the topics they consider most relevant  are the following:

  1. Relevance of themes or topics: The teachers demonstrate why specific topics are reviewed in the subjects. (There is a logical connection between the topics addressed, the subject, and the student’s academic program.)

  2. Contextual adaptation in the classes: The teachers adapt to the classes’ needs as much as possible (by work volume, diversity, special needs, etc.) to create a personalized teaching-learning process.

  3. Breadth in the didactic processes: Teachers show creativity, innovation, and variety, applying various teaching techniques during their classes (including projects, essays, debates, cases, practices, and roles).

  4. Professional leadership. Teachers act as leaders inside and outside the classroom, promoting social and academic values and ethics.

  5. Social commitment. Teachers manage to arouse interest in the subject, the professional discipline, and their relevance and application to social well-being.

  6. Applicability to real problems and needs. Teachers connect the knowledge acquired and skills used during the classes with the social context and solve the community’s needs.

As we can see, during their university education, students do not want to focus only on acquiring knowledge; they also expect their teachers to guide them in the search for individual and social well-being. Thus, we conclude that there is a specific need for teacher training in teaching-learning processes that promotes competency development to solve problems in the social context, support human development, and ethically apply what has been learned in professional practice.

Reflection

The new generations and the current socio-cultural context call upon us teachers to foster reflective social responsibility with a view to the common good, moving away from the model of individualistic success of previous years. As people-trainers, we must constantly reflect on our practices and our enormous social responsibility. Are we teachers prepare
d for this responsibility, and how can we support each other and the students to achieve these goals? These and other issues are critical approaches to be addressed in our daily pedagogical practices for current and future generations of students.

A university program must prepare students to fulfill the disciplinary requirements of their professions. It must aim to train the individual so that he or she can intervene responsibly to solve social problems. This implies that as teachers, we have an ethical call for continuous improvement. The creation of our didactic satisfaction scale was the first step to know the student perception of our work in the classroom. The next step would be to extend this project to more students (larger samples) in different study modalities. We invite all our colleagues to review and adapt our instrument for their different areas and seek new and improved ways to approach teaching-learning processes to benefit students and society.

About the author

Gerson Daniel Andueza López (psicoeducacion.mty@gmail.com) is a psychologist and anthropologist. He has 12 years of experience as a university professor.  He has participated in the design and creation of educational programs. He has been a speaker at multiple conferences. He holds three master’s degrees in psychology and social sciences, specializing in Competency-Based Education, and a master’s degree in Teaching and Competency Development. The author is about to complete his Ph.D. in Human Development and Training.

References

Andueza, G., Rodríguez, M. y Tobón, S. (2020). Docencia universitaria en psicología: Validación por juicio de expertos de una escala de satisfacción estudiantil desde la didáctica socioformativa. Cieg, Revista Arbitrada del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Gerenciales, 41, 216-238. Accessed at: http://www.grupocieg.org/archivos_revista/Ed.41(216-238)-Andueza-Rodriguez-Tobon_articulo_id583.pdf

Calderón Solís, P. y Loja Tacuri, H. (2018). Un cambio imprescindible: el rol del docente en el siglo XXI. ILLARI, (6) 35-40. Accessed at: https://www.aacademica.org/margarita.calderon/2

Delval, J. (2013). La escuela para el siglo XXI. Sinéctica, (40), 01-18. Accessed at: http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1665-109X2013000100004&lng=es&tlng=es

González, V. (2002). ¿Qué significa ser un profesional competente? Reflexiones desde   una perspectiva psicológica. In Revista Cubana de Educación Superior, 22(1), pp. 45-53. Accessed at: https://rieoei.org/historico/deloslectores/Maura.PDF

UNESCO-OREALC. (2017). Report: Educación y habilidades para el siglo XXI. Reunión López Ramírez, E., Martínez Iñiguez, J., y Ponce Ceballos, S. (2020). Tendencias globales de la educación superior en el contexto mexicano. Revista Cubana de Educación Superior, 39 (1), e10. Accessed at: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0257-43142020000100010&lng=es&tlng=es

Niebles, E. (2005). La educación como agente del cambio social en John Dewey. Historia Caribe, 10, pp. 25-33, Universidad del Atlántico. Accessed at: https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/937/93701003.pdf

Nieva Chaves, J. y Martínez Chacón, O. (2016). Una nueva mirada sobre la formación docente. Revista Universidad y Sociedad, 8(4), pp. 14-21. Accessed at: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2218-36202016000400002&lng=es&tlng=es

Regional de Ministros de Educación de América Latina y el Caribe, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 24 and 25 of January, 2017. Published by the Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago).

UNESCO. (2000). Declaración mundial sobre la educación superior en el siglo XXI: visión y acción. Educación Médica Superior, 14(3), 253-269. Accessed at: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0864-21412000000300006&lng=es&tlng=es

UNESCO-OREALC. (2017). Report: Educación y habilidades para el siglo XXI. Reunión Regional de Ministros de Educación de América Latina y el Caribe, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 24 and 25 of January, 2017. Published by the Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago). Accessed at: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Santiago/pdf/Informe-Reunion-Buenos-Aires-2017-E2030-ALC-ESP.pdf

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Gerson Daniel Andueza López

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0