The aim of this study is to present the effectiveness research conducted at MOME between 2015 and 2017, which analysed the present teaching and learning practices of the university based on direct reflections on the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning, including the opinion of both teachers and students. The primary objective of this research was to formulate recommendations that provide new directions for quality development.

The first step of the research was to collect and analyse already existing results in the field of effectiveness. As the concept of “teaching effectiveness” has several interpretations and is used with versatile foci, the definition of this concept had to be narrowed and applied specifically for higher education in order to help our selection and development of research methods. Thus, the most important task in this preliminary phase was to identify indicators which can be used to directly signal the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning. Another aim was to create an appropriate research design for the analysis of these indicators. However, it is a crucial question how an art and design university defines the most important teaching and learning objectives for itself. Although art education is seemingly different from traditional academic education in that it relies on active creative activities, the novel mentality of higher education connects different university types. Art universities have also voted for outcomes-based teaching and learning (OBTL), i.e. instead of direct professional knowledge building, the main focus of teachers is to develop students’ personal competences through the facilitation of versatile cooperation-based, innovative and effective learning strategies and the application of innovative teaching methods. Hungarian and international literature underpins our hypothesis that in higher education, including art education, the quality of the direct process of teaching and learning can be regarded as a key factor of effectiveness. This may include the organizational and pedagogical culture of the institution (e.g. learning environment, teachers’ professional standpoint and their cooperation, the students’ role and cooperation) and the climate of the institution (e.g. physical environment, inter-institutional connections, standards of behaviour, students’ expectations on the outcomes). In the course of the empirical research, these factors were examined in more steps with varied methods. The academic staff’s views were explored in structured interviews and focus group discussions, while students were also invited to focus group discussions after filling in a questionnaire. We applied different research techniques in order to provide the foundation for the following step in research and to deepen our knowledge on certain fields. On the one hand, the results obtained from structured interviews conducted with the staff helped us prepare the questionnaire for students and select the topics for the focus group discussion. On the other hand, the results of the student questionnaire influenced the topic selection for focus group discussions both with staff and students. The topics and the actual questions of different research methods became increasingly specific concerning the pedagogical culture and atmosphere of the university, including the relationship to the strategies applied in the learning process, the facilitatory role of cooperation in the course of learning, the chances to support student carriers, a learner-centered approach of teaching and learning, the extent of validity of the outcome requirements of MOME at the labour market, and the pedagogical role of evaluation in the course of teaching. It became evident during our complex research that the two parties in the same teaching and learning situation may see the given problem rather differently. Consequently, we could formulate statements that helped us understand the characteristics of teaching and learning at our institution.

Biggs J. - Tang C. (2007): Teaching for Quality Learning at University (3rd edn) Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press Boyer, Ernest L. (1990): Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.Princeton University Press. Lawrenceville Creemers, B. P. M. & Kyriakides, L. (2008): The dynamics of educational effectiveness: a contribution to policy, practice and theory in contemporary schools. Routledge, London. ENQA (2005). Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education European Commission (2010): New Skills for New Jobs: Action Now. A report by the Expert Group on New Skills for New Jobs prepared for the European Commission (online: http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=4543&langId=en) Gibbs, G. (2003). Improving university teaching and learning through institution-wide strategies. Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: New Trends and Innovations. Keynote and Conference Proceedings, (pp.149–166). University of Aveiro, 13–17 April, Aveiro, Portugal. Retrieved July 29, 2008 (online: http://event.ua.pt/iched/main/invcom/p151.pdf) Massy, William f. & French, Nigel (2001): Teaching and Learning Quality Process Review: what the programme has achieved in Hong Kong. Quality in Higher Education. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2001. pp. 33-45. Hénard, F. (2010): Learning Our Lesson: Review of Quality Teaching in Higher Education. OECD Publishing, doi: 10.1787/9789264079281-en Scheerens, J. (2005): Review of school and instructional effectiveness research. Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO.