Key factors for determining student satisfaction in engineeringa regression study

Resumen

The aim of this study is to present empirical evidence of the influence of the use of active didactic methodology on satisfaction withregard to teaching received by engineering students in Spain. Student satisfaction is one of the result indicators established, basedon student opinion, to measure the quality of the Spanish university system. It is an important index and is directly related tofacilitating the learning process, because a satisfied student is likely to be more receptive in the teaching/learning process andtherefore, less likely to abandon university studies. This problem is particularly relevant in certain areas of knowledge, like, forexample, Engineering and Architecture. We present here the results obtained in an experimental type study carried out in theEscuela Polite ́cnica Superior de Zamora, University of Salamanca, Spain. Our aim is to discover the influence of satisfaction levelin relation to the application of active methodologies. In order to do so, we carried out a comparative study and repeatedexperiment (with student samples from two academic years) of the results of satisfaction levels obtained for students following acourse based on traditional methodology consisting of lectures and evaluation by means of a final examination (control group),and for students who followed a course based on a student-focussed teaching/learning methodology consisting of constructivelearning, collaborative work, bLearning resources and learning process integrated evaluation (experimental group). 218 studentsfrom four engineering degree courses took part in the experiment. Based on the variables selected, a satisfaction survey wasdesigned and carried out and, using a multiple regression multivariate statistical technique, the joint relationship of a series ofpredictor variables was analysed in relation to the criterion or dependent variable. The results obtained reveal the existence ofdifferent relationships between predictor variables and criterion, depending on the didactic methodology used. This paper focusesmainly on the stages of the statistical process used to obtain results.