According to the EU Strategy 2020, the European growth must be (European Commission, COM 2010): smart; sustainable; and inclusive.

But societies with smart citizens need education of true quality. Although education is a shared responsibility among different sectors, professionals and people, modern societies entrust the professional fulfilment of this responsibility to educational institutions,

An educational institution of quality is the one where the necessary available resources, the suitable processes and the attained results accommodate to the theoretical model of perfect functioning in education. Wrigley (2006: 34) defends each educational institution’s quality profile with these words, “Before you set about improving schools, you need to work out what would count as a good school. That depends on your view of society, your aspirations for young people and your hope for the future”.

The quality of an educational institution is the result of the excellence of all the components that make up such institution. And if such institution’s autonomy is accepted, it must be transfer to their stakeholders and, mainly, ‘to their teachers and students the responsibility of setting up their own standards’ (Sergiovanni, 2004: 92). As a number of authors (Hodson and Thomas, 2003; Lomas, 2007; Smith and McGregor, 2009), we are defenders of this responsibility of the educational institution’s stakeholders to define its own quality profile. Notwithstanding, we suggest our own referential proposal (GENTO, 2001; 2002) that members of every particular institution could adapt to their own reality.

The suggested model that is submitted to consideration and assessment considers that that quality of each institution is the result of the convergence of different components we define as ‘identifiers’ and ‘predictors’. The first ones will show the evidence of quality evidence; the second ones will permit predicting the appearance of such quality. One predictor of quality is, precisely, the educational methodology.

The educational methodology is a main component of the quality of one educational institution, mainly if we take into account that the most relevant context where teachers and students act is the classroom or the space where they exercise their own specific activity (Scheerens and Creemers, 1989). Educational methodology refers to the peculiar way of implementing functions and activities oriented to the attainment of educational objectives. Due to its etymological origin and its conceptual content, this methodology has a mediation character as it presents students the appropriate objectives to reach a good level of education with the use of the effective tools and means.

The methodological proposal we offer to the consideration and assessment of the educational institutions stakeholders (particularly teachers, students, parents and responsible members) offers a description of features systematized around the following principles:

• Planned dedication. It implies the individual and collaborative dedication, the effective planning and programming.
• Adaptation. Education must be adapted to the involved people (students, teachers, parents, etc.), and context.
• Empowerment. Education must promote and develop the abilities and competencies of education actors.
• Positive inter-relational atmosphere. It will require the creation of an environment of security, order, silence and calm; the open and multi-directional communication; and the positive interaction.
• Interrelationship with other entities. Education must promote interrelationship with families, the social community, the productive, professional and labour sectors, the public administration, and other entities or institutions.

Our research questions asked for the importance of educational methodology, its basic principles and descriptors for the quality of educational. Our objective is to determine the pondered importance of educational methodology and the relative importance of the proposed principles and descriptors. Results could be used to put forward alternatives for improving the quality of education offered by educational institutions.

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