Teachers’ opinions about the evaluation and the accreditation processes of Education degrees

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Spanish universities must undergo evaluation in order to be allowed to continue offering undergraduate and master’s degrees. At this point, there is yet little knowledge about the opinion of academic and administrative staff regarding the evaluation processes. This study aimed at finding out about the opinion of lecturers from the Faculty of Education in a state university about the evaluation process implemented in their faculty and completed in 2018. The center obtained the accreditation of the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) of the last two masters’ degrees in its offer of studies, so at that time all its degrees had passed the first evaluation and had gained ccreditation from this organism. METHOD. A mixed method approach was used so opinions would be collected from a large number of teachers via a Likert scale, as well as from a small sample of teachers in face-to-face
interviews. RESULTS. They showed that both evaluation and accreditation are perceived as necessary, yet also as bureaucratized processes. Teaching staff does not feel properly trained and informed about such procedures and often complain about the heavy workload they are involved in which is not officially recognized or accounted for. DISCUSSION. There is a need for simpler evaluation processes, additional resources, and greater involvement and active participation of all stakeholders in order to improve the quality of university degrees and the teaching-learning process.