TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION – TEACHER-CENTERED OR STUDENT-CENTERED

Abstract

We are witnesses to the massiveness of the current higher education system, in the quantity of students, which incredibly divides the student population in their quality. On the other hand the question is how to implement learning environment that puts students in focus. Under time pressure teachers often make quick and hasty choices for their teaching. The purpose of this paper is to examine how students perceive faculty teaching (lectures and exercises) in terms of whether they are focused at the students or to the teachers. In this research 203 students were included from 3 different faculties of the University "Ss. Cyril and Methodius "Skopje, such as: Faculty of Philosophy (N = 97), Faculty of Philology (N = 56) and Faculty of Architecture (N = 50). The perception of student`s teaching were measured with one questionnaire prepared for purposes of this research, and Cronbach`s alpha is .83. Students estimated teaching on 19 assertions (separately for lectures and exercises and teaching directed to the teacher and to the student) on the Likert`s scale from 1-4, where minimum score is 19, and maximum 76 of each subscale. Following results are obtained: there is no difference in the assessment of teaching focused to the teacher and to the student, among the students of Faculty of Philosophy (t = -.558; p> 0,05), while students from the Faculty of Architecture (-5.743; p <0, 01) and Faculty of Philology (-5,870; p <0,01) teaching was assessed as directed to the student more than to the teacher.