Students' Perceptions of Quality Teaching in the UK: The MA in Education Case

Overview & Synopsis

This article explores from a sociological perspective how MA students of Education perceive the quality of their teachers' teaching in higher education. Power relations in the teaching and learning process in the classroom, and the criteria students use to qualify their perception of teaching in higher education, are examined. In this qualitative research design the empirical data was gathered from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 43 postgraduate (MA) students of Education in higher education in the UK. The qualitative data analysis is based on pedagogical, sociological and psychoanalytic theories. The article concludes that quality teaching in higher education means different things to individual students: what is good quality teaching for some is not for others. It is argued that some students are not able to evaluate the quality of teaching at the point of delivery, and that quality as a concept cannot be applied to teaching and learning in higher education. (Contains 3 tables.)