Miscelánea Comillas (Feb 2013)
Adapting marketing courses to European High Education area: A comparative study of students' perception and satisfaction
Abstract
The implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is causing some conflicts, especially due to the students' discontent; they fear that their situation will be worse in this new environment. In this context, it is interesting to identify new methodologies but also to study their efficacy and scan the students' opinion on these changes. Little is known about the students' evaluation of these methodologies. This paper attempts to make a valuable contribution, since it is oriented towards these two objectives. On the one hand, it describes the process of adapting a marketing unit to Bolonia dictates. On the other hand, this paper goes a step further since it tests students' perception and satisfactionwith these learning-based methodologies, using a comparative and longitudinal study of two groups of students enrolled in BSc Business (with and with out EHEA teaching methods).Students in the EHEA group devote the same amount of time to the unit, aremore oriented toward learning-by-doing methodologies and evidence a similar satisfaction with the course, even when they believe it is more difficult. Students adapt easily, linking their dedication to the tools they perceive as more effective.This paper makes two contributions. First, the adaptation used for this marketing course could be mirrored by other disciplines in process of adaptation to EHEA dictates. Second, the results do not support the most common criticismsto the EHEA: it will lead to worse academic results; it will demand excessivetime-dedication on the students' side; students will resist autonomous learning systems.
