According to the last Almalaurea report (2009), only 30,9% of the interviewed graduated students believe that the workload of the exams taken throughout their academic years is overall acceptable. The workload consists of the number of hours the average student must dedicate, within a certain time span, to the learning activities in order to accomplish the desired goals. A credit is generally used to quantify the workload. The European system for the earning and transfer of credits (Ects) is determined by the student and the workload required for him to accomplish his academic achievements, in terms of learning abilities and acquired competences. With the Bologna Declaration (1999), priority was given to the adoption of a common credit system for all the adhering Nations. This contributed to the introduction in Italy, within the same year, of the DM 509/1999, which rearranged the academic education system. With the adoption of the credit system we aimed at: 1) shifting focus from teaching to learning; 2) reorganizing the courses by placing more attention on the accomplishment of predetermined formative goals; 3) promoting the rationalization of teaching; 4) putting an emphasis on faculty decisions regarding teaching methodologies; 5) demanding more coherence between a student personal cultural baggage and accomplishment of the expected goals; 6) facilitating a student’s mobility and the use of the his acquired skills within the different educational channels (Farabollini e Finzi 2000). As we know, the so called “3+2” reform is based on the idea that 60 credits measure up for the workload of an average full-time student during an academic year, including time spent on lessons, seminaries, projects and labs, homework and examinations, etc. Credits are distributed among all of the didactic and practical components of a course of study and are an expression of the amount of work that each educational activity requires in relation to the total workload that is necessary to complete an entire year of study. An appropriate attribution of credits to the various academic educational activities implies a preliminary definition of objectives and contents; moreover, it must account for: a) the relative influence of the educational activity within the course of study general economy; b) the workload required for the student in order for him to reach the prefixed goals; c) the employment of different educational methodologies. In Italy, there are no empiric studies on reception and implementation of the credit system or the solutions to the problem of the correspondence between didactic load and number of credits assigned to a course of study. The only available data on the perception of adequacy of the number of credits assigned to a course of study, have been collected by the university evaluation Units, by gathering direct opinions from the enrolled students. In the perspective of an evaluation of the credit system implementation, as a consequence to the introduction in Italy of the DM 509/1999 (with its subsequent modifications), it seemed useful to start an investigation project, aimed at understanding how the enrolled students perceive the workload of the teaching methodologies offered by the University of Rome La Sapienza: during the month of July 2008, the Mesiv (Methods and electronic tools of evaluation) was requested to submit their data on the opinions gathered among students enrolled from the academic year 2001-2002 (when the New Order was introduced) to the academic year 2006/2007 (which effectively ended in April 2008). The procedure adopted for the gathering (ex lege 370/1999) consists of a multiple-choice questionnaire created to evaluate every teaching method used within the triennial courses of studies (undergraduate), specialistica (post-graduate) and specialistica a ciclo unico (single cycle post-graduate, magistrali and magistrali a ciclo unico, according to the DM 270/2004). This self administered questionnaire was filled in class by the students, approximately 21/30 days before the of the lessons. Among all of the investigated subjects and in consideration of this project, a special focus will be put on the adequacy of the number of assigned credits, as perceived by the enrolled students. The empiric material gathered by the Mesiv consists of files in text format containing the alphanumeric record of all the answers related to any single teaching given by each interviewed enrolled student. This material has undergone a long and complex transformation and reorganization, whose aim was to make it usable and available within the social research. There was more than 30.000 files, organized in folders and sub-folders. The main six folders referred to the investigated academic years ( from 2001/02 to 2006/07). Inside each one of these, three new folders referred to the teaching methodology (during the first trimester, second trimester and throughout the year). Each one of these included more folders referring to the departments and courses of study. Finally, within the last ones there were files referring to the single teachings. Each of these files in text format referred to the single teachings was transcribed on an excel work sheet, in order to create a matrix that allowed all the information to coexist for any contacted individual. However, we preferred to transcribe the matrix in Spss format to allow for a better analysis of data. Since three different versions of the questionnaire were used throughout the six analyzed academic years, three different matrix were conceived and created (the first one referred to the years 2001/02 and 2002/03; the second one referred to the years 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2005/06; the third one referred to the year 2006/07). As reported by the Miur Office of statistics, 822.483 students enrolled at Sapienza during the six years of reference. The data gathered by the Mesiv are based on 788.2004 questionnaires (114.116 for the year 2001/02, 136.006 for the year 2002/03, 117.458 for the year 2003/04, 124.215 for the year 2004/05, 144.160 for the year2005/06 e 152.249 for the year 2006/07), that is 0.96 questionnaires per enrolled student. However, the questionnaires can be certainly attributed to a definitely lower number of students, in consideration of the fact that some of them have probably enrolled in more than one course during the first and second semester of an academic year, while some haven’t enrolled at all. We wish to explore the relationships between the social-background related variables, the teaching variables and the circumstances in which the latter was delivered, and the perception of adequacy of the number of credits assigned to the teaching in relation with the didactic load within the educational area of the department in which the students have been contacted. The goal of our analysis will be to identify the potential mechanisms that generate differences of evaluation of adequacy of the didactic load. The research was funded by Sapienza University of Rome.

Decataldo, A. (2012). La corrispondenza fra carichi di lavoro legali e reali: prove tecniche sulle opinioni degli studenti frequentanti della Sapienza. In G. Boccia Artieri, C. Cipolla, L. Fassari (a cura di), Innovazione tecnologica e disuguaglianze territoriali (pp. 39-51). Milano : Franco Angeli.

La corrispondenza fra carichi di lavoro legali e reali: prove tecniche sulle opinioni degli studenti frequentanti della Sapienza

DECATALDO, ALESSANDRA
2012

Abstract

According to the last Almalaurea report (2009), only 30,9% of the interviewed graduated students believe that the workload of the exams taken throughout their academic years is overall acceptable. The workload consists of the number of hours the average student must dedicate, within a certain time span, to the learning activities in order to accomplish the desired goals. A credit is generally used to quantify the workload. The European system for the earning and transfer of credits (Ects) is determined by the student and the workload required for him to accomplish his academic achievements, in terms of learning abilities and acquired competences. With the Bologna Declaration (1999), priority was given to the adoption of a common credit system for all the adhering Nations. This contributed to the introduction in Italy, within the same year, of the DM 509/1999, which rearranged the academic education system. With the adoption of the credit system we aimed at: 1) shifting focus from teaching to learning; 2) reorganizing the courses by placing more attention on the accomplishment of predetermined formative goals; 3) promoting the rationalization of teaching; 4) putting an emphasis on faculty decisions regarding teaching methodologies; 5) demanding more coherence between a student personal cultural baggage and accomplishment of the expected goals; 6) facilitating a student’s mobility and the use of the his acquired skills within the different educational channels (Farabollini e Finzi 2000). As we know, the so called “3+2” reform is based on the idea that 60 credits measure up for the workload of an average full-time student during an academic year, including time spent on lessons, seminaries, projects and labs, homework and examinations, etc. Credits are distributed among all of the didactic and practical components of a course of study and are an expression of the amount of work that each educational activity requires in relation to the total workload that is necessary to complete an entire year of study. An appropriate attribution of credits to the various academic educational activities implies a preliminary definition of objectives and contents; moreover, it must account for: a) the relative influence of the educational activity within the course of study general economy; b) the workload required for the student in order for him to reach the prefixed goals; c) the employment of different educational methodologies. In Italy, there are no empiric studies on reception and implementation of the credit system or the solutions to the problem of the correspondence between didactic load and number of credits assigned to a course of study. The only available data on the perception of adequacy of the number of credits assigned to a course of study, have been collected by the university evaluation Units, by gathering direct opinions from the enrolled students. In the perspective of an evaluation of the credit system implementation, as a consequence to the introduction in Italy of the DM 509/1999 (with its subsequent modifications), it seemed useful to start an investigation project, aimed at understanding how the enrolled students perceive the workload of the teaching methodologies offered by the University of Rome La Sapienza: during the month of July 2008, the Mesiv (Methods and electronic tools of evaluation) was requested to submit their data on the opinions gathered among students enrolled from the academic year 2001-2002 (when the New Order was introduced) to the academic year 2006/2007 (which effectively ended in April 2008). The procedure adopted for the gathering (ex lege 370/1999) consists of a multiple-choice questionnaire created to evaluate every teaching method used within the triennial courses of studies (undergraduate), specialistica (post-graduate) and specialistica a ciclo unico (single cycle post-graduate, magistrali and magistrali a ciclo unico, according to the DM 270/2004). This self administered questionnaire was filled in class by the students, approximately 21/30 days before the of the lessons. Among all of the investigated subjects and in consideration of this project, a special focus will be put on the adequacy of the number of assigned credits, as perceived by the enrolled students. The empiric material gathered by the Mesiv consists of files in text format containing the alphanumeric record of all the answers related to any single teaching given by each interviewed enrolled student. This material has undergone a long and complex transformation and reorganization, whose aim was to make it usable and available within the social research. There was more than 30.000 files, organized in folders and sub-folders. The main six folders referred to the investigated academic years ( from 2001/02 to 2006/07). Inside each one of these, three new folders referred to the teaching methodology (during the first trimester, second trimester and throughout the year). Each one of these included more folders referring to the departments and courses of study. Finally, within the last ones there were files referring to the single teachings. Each of these files in text format referred to the single teachings was transcribed on an excel work sheet, in order to create a matrix that allowed all the information to coexist for any contacted individual. However, we preferred to transcribe the matrix in Spss format to allow for a better analysis of data. Since three different versions of the questionnaire were used throughout the six analyzed academic years, three different matrix were conceived and created (the first one referred to the years 2001/02 and 2002/03; the second one referred to the years 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2005/06; the third one referred to the year 2006/07). As reported by the Miur Office of statistics, 822.483 students enrolled at Sapienza during the six years of reference. The data gathered by the Mesiv are based on 788.2004 questionnaires (114.116 for the year 2001/02, 136.006 for the year 2002/03, 117.458 for the year 2003/04, 124.215 for the year 2004/05, 144.160 for the year2005/06 e 152.249 for the year 2006/07), that is 0.96 questionnaires per enrolled student. However, the questionnaires can be certainly attributed to a definitely lower number of students, in consideration of the fact that some of them have probably enrolled in more than one course during the first and second semester of an academic year, while some haven’t enrolled at all. We wish to explore the relationships between the social-background related variables, the teaching variables and the circumstances in which the latter was delivered, and the perception of adequacy of the number of credits assigned to the teaching in relation with the didactic load within the educational area of the department in which the students have been contacted. The goal of our analysis will be to identify the potential mechanisms that generate differences of evaluation of adequacy of the didactic load. The research was funded by Sapienza University of Rome.
Capitolo o saggio
Workload of the exams, credit, evaluation
Italian
Innovazione tecnologica e disuguaglianze territoriali
Boccia Artieri, G; Cipolla, C; Fassari, L
2012
9788820401511
Franco Angeli
39
51
Decataldo, A. (2012). La corrispondenza fra carichi di lavoro legali e reali: prove tecniche sulle opinioni degli studenti frequentanti della Sapienza. In G. Boccia Artieri, C. Cipolla, L. Fassari (a cura di), Innovazione tecnologica e disuguaglianze territoriali (pp. 39-51). Milano : Franco Angeli.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/32626
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