Is Liberal Education Valuable? Undergraduate Students Raise their Opinions

• Main Author: Hilda Patino Dominguez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2015-08-01
• Series: Athens Journal of Education
• Subjects: college education; humanism; humanistic courses; liberal education; students
• Online Access: http://www.athensjournals.gr/education/2015-2-3-3-Dominguez.pdf

This exploratory qualitative study focused on the free responses that undergraduate students gave to the question: "Should have learned something valuable in this course, what was it?”. This question is part of a survey that intended to obtain the views of the students on courses of humanistic character as part of their college education. Knowing what students think has been a constant concern to the Iberoamerican University, which academic plans include four humanistic courses for all careers. The courses’ purpose is to contribute to the integral/liberal education of students. There were collected 4625 valid student responses during the spring and autumn periods 2010 and spring 2011, covering the entire population given at that time. For the data analysis a mixed approach (qualitative and quantitative analysis) was used. The research offers a way of understanding liberal/ humanistic education courses from the perspective of the students and challenge college professors to look for different alternatives to promote meaningful learning.