The role and responsibility of teachers and students in university studies: A comparative analysis of the views expressed by pedagogy students

Abstract

This paper presents and analyses the results of the empirical research basically intended to determine how students understand the main role of teachers and their own role and to find out what they consider as their significant learning experience during the studies. We were interested in whether their conceptions of teachers’ and students’ roles had changed during the studies and whether they had approached modern scientific concepts on active and constructive learning. The research was carried out during the winter semester of the 2012/13 academic year on the sample of first- and third-year students, enrolled at the first level of the pedagogy study programme at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade and pedagogy and andragogy at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. The results from comparing the first and the third year have shown that third-year students demonstrate a shift to higher conceptions of students’ and teachers’ roles, which is more likely to lead to a deeper approach to learning. Modifications towards higher conceptions of students’ and teachers’ roles can thus indicate the quality of studies, since they clearly demonstrate that students are prepared to adopt a more responsible and autonomous role in their studies. In the efforts to achieve the high quality of university studies, the above-mentioned perspectives serve as pieces of information important for the reform of study programmes and introduction of changes in the study process.

Keywords

• the quality of university studies
• comparative study
• effective teaching
• conceptions of student role
• conceptions of teacher role
• learning experiences