Evaluación de la calidad de varias asignaturas de grado y posgrado implementadas en la plataforma virtual Studium

Resum

Introduction: In the context of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the relevance of the off-campus module of the the teaching-learning model raises the need to adapt and implement undergraduate and posgraduate courses in virtual learning environments, so that students are able to access educational materials at any time and from anywhere. Moreover, it is necessary to evaluate the characteristics of these online courses in order to improve both their psychodidactic and technical/esthetical dimensions. The main aim of this project of teaching innovation was thus to assess students’ evaluation of the quality of three courses that were adapted and implemented in the virtual learning environment Studium used by the University of Salamanca Method: The sample comprised 223 students of different three courses included in the new undergraduate (212 students of Psychology and Education) and postgraduate degrees (11 students). A 20-item scale was designed to assess students’ evaluation of both the psychodidactic (description of the course, objectives, contents, activities, evaluation systems) and technical/esthetical characteristics (navigation, audiovisual environment, hypertexts, communication tools, content management tools, evaluation tools) of the courses implemented in Studium. Results: According to students, the quality of the didactic dimension of the online courses was significantly better than the quality of the technical/esthetical dimension. Within the former dimension, courses’ contents and activities were more positively evaluated whereas courses’ evaluation systems were more negatively assessed. Within the latter dimension, Management Tools were the most positively assesed and the evaluation Tools, the most negatively. Conclusions: The strengths of the online courses were the contents and activities, and their organization in the virtual environment. The evaluation system was the weakness, since students missed self-evaluation questionnaires and feedback on their progress.