6.6 Views of students about the HDE course

In the exit questionnaire, the overall ratings given by the students to the various course components were very favourable. Thus 79% of the students rated the education theory course as good or excellent. Similar ratings were given to the various method courses. Most of the students felt that the lecturers on the course knew their subject well or very well (89%), were able to link theory to practice (92%), and taught content which would help them teach in schools (83%). Just over half of students, however, appeared to have difficulty understanding the theory lectures (51%), which could be related to the language difficulties already mentioned in this paper.

The data from the exit questionnaire indicate that some of the fears regarding the personal qualities of the lecturers that the students had at the beginning of the course appear to have been substantiated during the year. Students, however, had much more negative ratings of the personal qualities of theory lecturers than method lecturers. This could be due to the fact that because of the smaller groups in the various method subjects they were able to get to know their lecturers better and more personally. In the large theory classes, where a large number of different lecturers teach, this is virtually impossible, Thus 32% of the students felt that the theory lecturers on the course were often unapproachable, and 42.% that they were often uncaring. However, 85% of the students felt that the theory lecturers had been fair in their assessment of the students’ work during the year.

From the responses to a question regarding the resources that were available to the students during the course, it appears as if the majority felt that the university library had enough books on education (77%). Almost half (46%), however, felt that the library did not have enough books relating to their subject methods. Three-quarters of the students felt that the course readers provided by the faculty were sufficient for the course.

Table 25: Students’ views on resources made available to them during the HDE course

In response to a question on what would improve the HDE course in the exit questionnaire (see Table 26), the overwhelming majority of the students felt that more time should be spent on all the major components of the course (i.e. Teaching Practice, subject methods and education theory). They also felt that having smaller teaching groups, more time for and help with exam preparation, more time to study on their own, and more group work activity would improve the course. The majority were also in favour of more time being spent in the schools.

Table 26: Responses to question on what would improve the HDE course (exit questionnaire) (N = 48)