The Students’ Perception of the Quality of Their Tourism Training. A VET Case Study.

Author(s):

Silvia Blanca Irimiea(presenting / submitting)Adriana Serban(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 09 B, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-25

13:30-15:00

Room:

OB-E0.32

Chair:

Heidi Flavian

Contribution

The present study is aimed at investigating the students’ satisfaction with the tourism training offered by the Centre for Tourism Training (Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania). The present investigation is part of a permanent concern for enhancing a quality assurance framework for VET in tourism, which has become the focus of a Lifelong Learning project under the auspices of the LLP/PAR/2012/103 Leonardo da Vinci partnership project.

A brief history of quality assurance and evaluation in education reveals that the notion of quality has proven to be an extremely complex one, which can be approached from several perspectives (Harvey and Green, 1993). Thus, the documents of the European Council and the European Commission define the process of quality assurance as a generic term which stands for a continuous process and comprises: evaluating, monitoring, assuring, maintaining and improving the level of quality of a system, program, or institution (Standards and Guidelinesfor Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area, 2005).

The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) asserts that providing a definition for quality assurance is a cumbersome task, on the one hand because the term covers a number of complex elements and, on the other hand, because each national education system has adopted its own views and definitions of these elements (ibid.). Harmonising the systems for quality evaluation, both with the existent reality and among themselves, is a fastidious challenge and a great opportunity for the global education system (Kohler, 2009), including VET.

Targeted at young people and adults, the importance of vocational education and training (VET) has been on the rise in the present dynamic social-economic society, especially starting with 2002. A proper quality assurance system for vocational education proved to be a challenging task (Șerban, 2013) and has become a priority of VET. The European Parliament and The European Council have created a number tools for VET (Irimiea, 2011) and established, in June 2009, a Eurpean Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training (EQARF), which proposes a reference set of selected quality indicators for assessing quality in VET.

The scientist Karl Popper (1998) defines human rationality by the adequacy of one’s action to a specific situation as he perceives it. From another point of view, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, (2007, 1984), representative of critical structuralism, admits that the actions that people undertake - position taken - are based on their dispositions, which result from the accumulation of their previous life experiences, their social and professional status. Based on these two perspectives, we can claim that the people’s perception on quality and their declared level of satisfaction is influenced by their accumulated experience of life.

Against this twofold conceptual background (quality in VET for tourism and human perception), the present study seeks to present the results of a questionnaire-based inquiry targeting the students who attended the travel agent and tourism manager courses at the Centre for Tourism Training of the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The investigation undertook to evaluate the degree of students’ satisfaction with the quality of their learning experience, pursuing the second quality indicator recommended by the EQARF: Investment in training of teachers and trainers, in turn consisting of (a) share of teachers and trainers participating in further training and (b) amount of funds invested.

Thus, the research is based on two questions: is the students’ degree of satisfaction influenced by their accumulated learning experiences, and, if yes, which are the main influential issues.

Method

The target population was composed of the 57 participants in the tourism courses provided by the Centre for Tourism Training. Of the total number of respondents, 32 attended the tourism agent-guide courses and 25 took the tourism manager courses. It should be noted that all participants have attended or are pursuing higher education study programmes. The reduced number of involved subjects determined us to use an exhaustive sampling technique. The questionnaires were applied in June 2013, immediately after the courses and the final exams. The number of the completed questionnaires was 39 (27 by participants taking tourism agent courses and 12 by participants taking tourism manager courses). They were aged between 20 and 48 years, the age average being 28 years. For the tourism agent students, the average age was 25 years and 10 month, with a distribution between 20 years (two persons) and 47 years (one person). For the tourism manager students, the age average was 32 years and 3 month, with a distribution between 23 years (one person) and 48 years (one person). The questionnaire contained 8 issues concerning the satisfaction of the subjects with their experience of the learning process. The considered variables were: course contents, their usefulness; the trainers performance, the assessment of students’ performances, the support material used by the trainers, the teacher-student relationship, the general satisfaction with the entire learning experience. The data were gathered with a Lickert scale in five steps: 5 - absolutely satisfied; 4 - very satisfied; 3 - moderately satisfied; 2 - slightly satisfied; 1 - not at all satisfied. The data were processed for the entire sample and for each subgroup too (“agents” and “managers”). The average values were determined and compared. Also, the values for the Pearson Coefficient (r) were calculated, revealing correlations between variable Age and the related items of the above mentioned dimensions. The results led us to the decision to organize a focus group, targeted at the relationship between the students’ age and their declared satisfaction with the quality of the attended training module. The sample of the eight participants was designed to investigate two variables: the attended module and the age of the participants. Thus, the sample was composed of four students of the tourism agent profile aged 22, 23, 34, and 36, and four the students of the tourism manager profile aged 24, 26, 44 and 47 years.

Expected Outcomes

The investigation sought to evaluate the level of students’ satisfaction with the quality of the learning experience, according to the provision of the second quality indicator recommended by EQARF: Investment in training of teachers and trainers. The investigation evaluated the tourism agent training profile (11 courses) and the tourism agent profile (14 courses). Any expected results were formulated, the investigation joining the Grounded Theory area (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). At a first look, the questionnaire data show that the 12 “managers” (age average: 32 years and 3 month) were constantly more content with their entire learning experience than the 27 “agents” (age average: 25 years and 10 month). But the values of the Pearson coefficient reveal a low to medium association between variable Courses and variable Quality and medium to strong association between variables Age and Quality, both sample-wide and within each of the two subgroups - “agents” and “managers”. The superposition of the two variables - the learning module and the subjects’ age – has created an uncertain appearance, which resulted in the organisation of a focus group. The results of the entire inquiry show a conjugation of two overlapping aspects. The “managers” were slightly more satisfied with the content of the courses than the “agents”, especially with the presentation of new knowledge, methods, views, approaches. At the same time, the older participants (both sample-wide and within each subgroup) were more content with the teaching-learning methods, the evaluation manner, the effectiveness in transmitting knowledge, the teaching supplies and the trainer – student relationship. At the end of the questionnaire, three open questions were introduced, referring to the weaknesses and strengths of the training modules and asking for any comments. Many students pointed out the need for further opportunities of practice in travel agencies or other tourism-related institutions.

References

1. Bourdieu, P. (1984) Espace social et genèses des „classes”. In Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales. Vol. 52 - 53, June 1984, pp. 3-14 2. Bourdieu, P. (2007) Regulile artei. Geneza şi structura câmpului literar / Rules of art. The Genesis and the structure of the literary field.. IInd edition. The Art Edictoial Group 3. Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (2005), European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, Helsinki, http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/050221_ENQA_report.pdf , accessed on 29.07.2013 4. Harvey, L., Green, D. (1993) Defining quality. In Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Vol. 18 (1), pp. 9 – 34 5. Iluţ, P. (1997) Abordarea calitativă a socioumanului / Qualitative approaches in sociohuman sciences. Polirom, Iaşi 6. Irimiea, S. (2011), A CEDEFOP outlook on European VET Strategies and Achievements. (For the Emerging Skill Demand and Supply). In Irimiea, S., Albulescu, M., eds., (2011), Repere conceptuale și bune practicipentru învățământul vocațional în turism /Useful Concepts and Good Practices for Vocational Training in Tourism. pp. 55 – 62 7. Kohler, J. (2009) Quality in Higher Education. In Sadlak, J. et al (eds.), UNESCO Forum on Higher Education in the Europe Region: Access, Values, Quality and Competitiveness. Topical Contributions and Outcomes, CEPES, Bucharest, 2009, pp. 175 - 218 8. Popper, K. R. (1998) Mitul contextului / The Myth of the Context. Editura Trei, Bucureşti 9. Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 on the establishment of a European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2009:155:0001:0010:EN:PDF, accessed in 10.09.2011 10. Rotariu, T., Iluţ, P. (2006) Ancheta sociologică şi sondajul de opinie. Teorie şi practică / Sociological Investigation and Survey. Theory and Practice Polirom, Iaşi 11. Strauss, A., Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research. Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Sage Publication, New York 12. Șerban, A. (2013), Bariere de legitimate în evaluarea calității instituțiilor de învățământ superior musical din România / Barriers of Legitimacy in The Quality Assessment of Musical Higher Education Institutions in Romania. Argonaut, Cluj-Napoca

Author Information

Silvia Blanca Irimiea (presenting / submitting)

Babes-Bolyai University

Centre for Tourism Training

Cluj-Napoca

Adriana Serban (presenting)

Babes-Bolyai University, Romania

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