HOW DO UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS CHOOSE THEIR FIELD COURSE AND HOW SATISFIED ARE THEY WITH THEIR FIELDWORK EXPERIENCE?

Abstract

The same way that motivation is responsible for guiding and stimulating people in general and students, in particular, to accomplish their goals and projects, satisfaction ensures the pleasure derived from these activities whether they are needs, wishes or expectations determined by themselves or by living in today’s society. The purpose of this paper was two-fold: firstly, to determine why students from Faculty of Geography prefer stationary fieldwork over itinerant field trip when it comes to choosing one that fulfills their commitments towards the Bachelor’s degree program as part of their professional development that they are aiming at through higher education; and, secondly, to study students’ satisfaction level towards the main components of a fieldwork in terms of both learning and social environment. In order to achieve an accurate understanding of the real motivation for this type of field trips and satisfaction with the pedagogical design, not only that students were asked to fill in a questionnaire focused on rating correspondent aspects of their overall experience on a scale of 1-5, but they were also invited to participate at a focus group discussion (FGD) within which additional information emerged. Thus, data collection and analysis methods and procedures involved quantitative methods that were reinforced by qualitative ones supporting all the answers to the questions from the questionnaire with specific examples that were obtained during the FGD, enabling a set of results and conclusions according to which the idea of spending some quality time in valuable interactions with others – either with friends and peers, both in professional and social contexts, or with unknown people (locals, tourists, specialists) willing to interact as well – turned out to be the main force and factor to ensuring successful experiences in the opinion of most participants to the fieldwork.

Keywords

• motivation
• satisfaction
• stationary fieldwork
• geography
• university students