The National Student Survey: The Long and Winding Road of the Italian University System

• In Event: Student Resilience and Engagement in Higher Education

Abstract

Despite the strong criticisms, mass student surveys play an important role in the quality assurance process of national higher education systems.
While some national higher education systems have a long history of using student surveys to inform teaching and course quality improvement, in Italy a national student survey has never been implemented. As a consequence, higher education institutions have used, and still use, only student evaluations of teaching.
The present article reports a study aimed to design and probe a questionnaire to be used at the national level. Data were examined using a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Results of the study may set the groundwork for a critical debate on changes and improvements in the quality assurance process.

Author

• Serafina Pastore, University of Bari