ANALYZING THE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS, EXPECTATIONS AND SATISFACTIONS IN THE GENERAL CONTEXT OF RECORDING OF A HIGH DROPOUT RATE

Abstract

It is generally admitted that one of the actual realities of the Romanian academic education is represented by the major decreasing of the number of students who are finalizing their studies. Analyzing that situation, there can be stipulated multiple causes like: difficult adaptation of students to the requirements of the academic environment, wrong orientation of students to specializations that do not match the student’s personal interests and vocational profile, assumption of professions which need proper and sustainable development, social and financial issues, lack of motivation for learning, various aspects related to the specificity of the educational process in the academic environment etc. Anyway, the dynamics and incidence of such factors is little known. Studies on this phenomenon indicate that the percentage of those who do not complete university studies remains very high, the dropping out being more frequently among the first-year students. Since the starting moments of their studies, each student has particular personal views and expectations of what this new stage means - the degree of consistency between their expectations and the existing reality contributes to create a strong motivation for personal and professional learning and development. But a consistent knowledge concerning the students’ first-year profile and what are their specific educational needs represent a requirement of a clear quality approach. The paper targets to express what are the students’ expectations engaged in the first year of their studies towards the essential aspects of academic education, in order to identify, at an early stage, the factors that have an important influence on deciding to break their studies and to actively optimize the connection with the university environment. The survey sample consisted of 245 students enrolled in their first year of studies, coming from various specializations of Valahia University of Targoviste. It is obvious that higher education institutions should be interested on developing tools for enabling the assessment and management of the students’ needs, in order to attract and motivate them in their study-time and to meet their expectations at a proper level.