Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Future of Teaching and Education, 2024
Year: 2024
DOI:
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The Voice Of Students: Needs And Expectations About School In Four European Countries
Sónia Vladimira Correia, Paula Paulino, Pedro Gamito
ABSTRACT:
Educational systems should support students’ successful learning processes, which must be aligned with their needs. Literature emphasizes that secondary or high school education must be perceived as a community of caring and support for young people. Thus, the schools and the teachers must consider the educational, social, and individual development of students. The aim of this study is to reveal main needs and expectations of the students regarding school. It describes the results obtained with self-reported measures of 567 students from four different European countries, Turkey; Italy; Romania; and Spain. Overall results suggest that students pointed out needs related not only the learning issues but also needs related with the schools’ curricula. The increase of professional and technological courses; the need to have more extra activities at school and an environment for students to discover their personal abilities were the most reported needs. Moreover, according to students, teachers must consider that students need to be more aware of what they must do to succeed academically at the end of the school year. Other needs include expanding professional and technological courses, increasing extracurricular activities at school, creating a variety of opportunities for students to discover their unique talents, establishing a daily study routine (more than a week before exams), and adapting academic content to the real world. Additionally, teachers´ strategies to improve learning processes as well as reflections about more attractive educational offers for students are discussed.
keywords: students’ needs, expectations about school, middle school, dropping out, multinational studies