Rocsana B. Manea Tonis
Spiru Haret University, Romania
E-mail: rocsense39@yahoo.com
Natalia Manea
Politehnica University, Bucharets, Romania
E-mail: natalia.manea@upb.ro
Submission: 02/08/2018
Revision: 13/08/2018
Accept: 21/08/2018
ABSTRACT
This More and more universities
are striving to provide competitive education programs to help graduates
integrate into market areas. In this fight, universities need to have strong
communication and support in the business world. The purpose of this article is
to identify the main factors that would improve the quality of the doctoral
program and facilitate the integration of students into the labor market in
Romania. A questionnaire was applied to PhD students from the universities in
Bucharest, and the data collected were interpreted.
The linear regression model
developed shows that the library facilities, school infrastructure, access to
Doctoral Theses, dialog between academia and students, doctoral coordinator and
committee proficiency, staff attitude and multiple way of communication are
some important factors that have positive influence over the quality of the
higher education in the PhD program and the students’ integration on labor
market in Romania.
The open questions of survey revealed
new interesting suggestion for improving PhD programs in Romania.
Keywords: quality in higher education, PhD
program, Romania, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality
1. INTRODUCTION
Education
is for all countries of the world one of the most important services in the
category of those financed from the budget. Therefore, universities should
anticipate changes in the labor market and adapt their study programs to these
changes (MANEA, 2015), because education leading to development means quality
education. With the transition to Bologna (2005), doctoral studies have become
more popular and more common at national level. Worldwide, the number of
doctoral students and the number of doctoral degree holders has in-creased significantly
(ANDRES et al., 2015).
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
In Romania the number of students enrolled in PhD
program is decreasing every year as National Institute of Statistics shows.
Data is available at: http://statistici.insse.ro/shop/?lang=ro&page=register.
Thus, the higher education institutions have to take the necessary measures to
reduce the dropout rate. They have to increase the quality of educational
program and the degree of satisfaction for PhD graduates, offering specific
skills and increasing the opportunity to get a higher decision position in the
field of work.
The specialty literature shows that a PhD program
should be organized with sufficient structure and resources for PhD students,
upon completion of their PhD programs, to have specific skills and knowledge in
the following areas: in-depth knowledge of work as a profession and discipline,
research and scholarship, and teaching (HARRINGTON et al, 2013). Quality PhD
programs should build expertise and skills in the following areas (HARRINGTON et
al, 2013).
1. Know
the state-of-the-art practices/interventions within the student’s field of
inquiry.
2. Critically
evaluate and review published work in the student’s area of expertise
3. Identify
the strengths and limitations of their own research.
4. Conduct
research that is guided by theory.
5. Understand
both the technical aspects and conceptual underpinnings of a broad range of
methodological and statistical techniques.
Several authors (ASSBRING; NUUR, 2017; GUSTAVSSON;
NUUR ET SÖDERLIND, 2016) have shown that doctoral training is a powerful tool
in addressing skills gaps in industry and identified successful industry and
doctoral factors. Also, (ARMNIO 2003) showed that participatory behavior,
practical guidance, conscientiousness and courtesy can help improve the quality
of higher education in the quality of the teaching-learning process. The
curriculum of higher education has to be improved and in compliance with new
technological facilities for teaching (JESA, 2017).
Nowadays the national policy has to create conditions
to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, and promote
transparency in the management of higher education (VARUGHESE, 2017).
In Romania, the quality in doctoral programs is
evaluated by Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education
(ARACIS). The periodic evaluation of university study programs, study fields,
doctoral schools or higher education institutions is carried out at intervals
of no more than five years and has as a general objective: certification that study
programs, study fields, schools doctoral or accredited higher education
institutions meet in further standards and performance indicators specific to
the values minimum accreditation (ARACIS1, 2018).
In
Romania the evaluation results are set on developing research skills, improving
the link between learning and research, new valuable contributions to the
research field, performing preparation for academic career and the final
evaluation of the PhD thesis.
The
doctoral theses have to addresses topics of interest, use appropriate and
recognized scientific methods and publish the research results.
In
Romania were opened many private institutions after the political revolution
from 1989. Some of them achieved very high quotations, regarding the quality of
educational process. Our study is realized on public institutions because there
are 53 public institutions that organize doctoral programs in 394 different
fields of study and only 4 private institutions that has this accreditation (ARACIS2,
2018).
Hierarchy
of IOSUD (Organizational Institution of University Studies)
according to the number of doctoral schools in the academic year 2017-2018,
shows that 11 institutions have more than 7 doctoral schools in different
fields. The other 42 institutions have 1 or 2 doctoral schools. In the top of
this hierarchy there are:
1. Univ
Babes-Bolyai, Cluj Napoca with 28 doctoral schools in 31 PhDs fields of studies
and 413 doctoral coordinators,
2. Univ.
București, with 21 doctoral schools in 19 PhDs fields of studies and 463
doctoral coordinators,
3. Univ.
Politehnica București, with 14 doctoral schools in 14 PhDs fields of
studies and 321 doctoral coordinators.
The most frequent PhD fields of studies in IOSUD in the
academic year 2017-2018 were engineering (mechanical, industrial and
electrical), philosophy, history, medicine, math, law, chemistry, economy.
As a synthesis, the organization of the doctoral
education in Romania favored it important diversification at doctoral level
that could bring important benefits for the future profession and for the
Romanian economy. The increasing number of doctoral programs and their
diversity make very difficult their quality evaluation by ARACIS. Having in mind the extension and importance
of PhD programs in Romania a further analysis regarding the quality of doctoral
program from the student point of view is done below. The PhD student offer a
complete panorama regarding the usefulness of PhD studies, they offer more than
statistics, they even suggest possible solutions for better interaction between
academia and business field.
3. METHOD
This research is a descriptive research on a sample of
251 respondents. The instrument used was the questionnaire, consisting of
dichotomic, trihothotic, multithoric and open questions. The study is based on
an online survey distributed in public universities in Bucharest. The students
derived from different fields of study.
Based on literature review we discovered the
high-quality education in the PhD program.
Our study, based on the students’ perceptions reveals some important
factors that have a positive influence over students’ successful integration on
labor market, attending a doctoral program, such as (MANEA, 2015):
1.
Library facilities services, program
2.
Infrastructure offered (research equipment, software)
3.
Access to Doctoral Theses and scientific databases
(such as web of science, Scopus, EBSCO, ProQuest, etc)
4.
During the lecture there is a dialogue with the
students about the taught
5.
Scientific proficiency of doctoral coordinator:
teachers can answer any questions about topics discussed at the course /
scientific seminar
6.
Scientific proficiency of the doctoral committee: good
suggestions and direction of research in order to improve the theses content
7.
Staff (secretariat) attitudes towards students
8.
Multiple ways to communicate with the students
(notice, phone, e-mail, dedicated forum, videoconferences, virtual reality,
etc).
In the first step of the research a cluster based on
nearest neighborhood, finding some commune characteristics, such as the
importance of communication between academia and PhD students and the academia
proficiency.
In the second step of the research a linear regression
has been done, starting from null hypothesis that the quality of the higher
education in the PhD program and the students’ integration on labor market is
not influenced by the library facilities, school infrastructure, access to
Doctoral Theses, dialog between academia and students, doctoral coordinator and
committee proficiency, staff attitude and multiple way of communication.
4. RESULTS
Most of the students (76.5%), who were investigated
have chosen a budget funding, considering very difficult to pay the taxes. They
would prefer to pass more difficult exams and face a bigger competition, but
not to pay the tax. For most of them (86%) the way of admission to the doctoral
program were admitted through contest (grid test, synthesis) and the others
through interview, essay, etc.
Most of the students have a Ph.D. fundamental in
Social sciences (legal sciences, sociology, political and administrative
sciences, military sciences, information and public order, economic sciences
and business management, psychology and behavioral sciences) -61% and
Mathematics and Natural Sciences (Mathematics, Informatics, Physics, Chemistry,
Earth Sciences) -19%. From Engineering sciences (civil engineering and
management, materials engineering, chemical engineering, medical engineering,
materials science and nanomaterials, electrical engineering, power engineering,
electronics) comes 14% and 6% from Humanities and arts (philology, philosophy,
history and cultural studies, theology, architecture and urbanism, visual arts,
performing arts) Figure1.
The Romanian society is characterized by a high degree
of polarization. Most of the PhD (84,3%) come from the urban environment, where
the school network and facilities are very extensive and the access to
information (libraries, book shops, access of internet) is well developed.
Figure 1: Main
PhD domain attended by the students in Romania.
Most of the students have a bachelor's degree and
master's degree in economics (more than 50%), technic (around 20%), humanities
(around 6%) and exact sciences (around 10%).
Most of them (37%) are working in education, research
(14%), marketing and IT (6%), consultancy (4%), tourism and other fields (31%).
The weight is in favor of education and scientific research where higher
studies are required, meaning that they choose these studies as to be able to
obtain a higher position in the field they work. (Figure 2). Most of them have
a medium salary of 3000-4500 lei (Figure 3).
Figure 2: The
fields in which PhD students work in present.
Figure 3: The
wages of PhD students.
Most of them (41%) are very young, with ages between
24-28 years old. The rest of the 60% is splited almost equality (20%) between
other 3 categories of ages (Figure 4).
Figure 4. PhD
students’ age.
The cluster analysis shows that integration into the labor
market of the students depends on 2 major factors PhD domain of study, very
performant academia (teachers) in their field and a good communication between
academia and PhD students. In the figure 5 it may be observed 2 clusters in
Economic sciences with very high level of communication and proficiency of the
academia (5 - very satisfied, 4 - satisfied). It may be observed other 4
cluster in the field of Sciences and Technical with the same characteristics.
Basically, most of the students are content with the doctoral program offer and
consider that it helps them to work in the field of study. There are also 2
cluster in the Economic field where the Ph. students weren’t satisfied of the
doctoral program. (Figure 5)
Figure 5:
Cluster of integration into the labor market of the PhD students.
In the second step of the research we find out some
factors that have an important influence over the quality of higher education
and the integration into the labor market (QHEILM).
The data analyzed was the base of a linear regression
model. The regression equation is:
QHEILM =0.08Library + 0.12Infrastruture - 0.24Theses +
0.21Dialog + 0.07Coordonator_proficiency + 0.07Committee_proficiency
+0.48Staff+0.39Multiple_communication -0.83
Figure 6: The %
of students that are contented by the doctoral program.
In the second step of the research we find out some
factors that have an important influence over the quality of higher education
and the integration into the labor market (QHEILM).
The data analyzed was the base of a linear regression
model. The regression equation is:
[1] QHEILM =0.08Library + 0.12Infrastruture
- 0.24Theses + 0.21Dialog +
0.07Coordonator_proficiency + 0.07Committee_proficiency
+0.48Staff+0.39Multiple_communication -0.83 (Table 3).
The R2 coefficient of this model is 0.91, indicates
that 91% of the variable QHEILM variance is determined by the variation of
causal variables and 9% of this influence cannot be explained by the model. As
R2 takes values closer to 1, the regression model better adjusts the data in
the sample. In this case, the value of 0.91 demonstrates that the model is
good, but there are other factors that has to be included in the model (Table
1).
Also, the adjusted value of R2 (0.87) is close to the
value of R2, which proves that the influence of the independent variables (from
table 3) are significant to explain variance of the dependent variable QHEILM.
Since the Adjusted R2 value is close to the value of
R2, this allows the extension of the proposed regression model to the entire
population surveyed. In this case, the variance of the dependent variable
decreases with the difference between the two coefficients (0.91 - 0.87 =
0.04). This difference can be seen to be below 1%.
Table
1: Linear regression model validity
Regression Statistics |
|
Multiple R |
0.935601 |
R Square |
0.875349 |
Adjusted R Square |
0.851605 |
Standard Error |
0.469137 |
Observations |
251 |
Source: Own research
Table
2: Anova model significance
ANOVA |
|||||
df |
SS |
MS |
F |
Significance F |
|
Regression |
8 |
64.9131 |
8.114138 |
36.86744 |
1.42E-16 |
Residual |
42 |
9.243759 |
0.22009 |
||
Total |
50 |
74.15686 |
|
|
|
Source: Own research
Table
3: Coefficients of the regression model
Model independent variables |
Coefficients |
Standard Error |
t Stat |
P-value |
Lower 95% |
Upper 95% |
Intercept |
-0.83 |
0.48 |
-1.73 |
0.09 |
-1.80 |
0.14 |
Library |
0.08 |
0.11 |
0.77 |
0.45 |
-0.13 |
0.29 |
Infrastructure |
0.12 |
0.08 |
1.49 |
0.14 |
-0.04 |
0.28 |
Access to Doctoral Theses |
-0.24 |
0.11 |
-2.22 |
0.03 |
-0.47 |
-0.02 |
Dialogue with the students on taught course |
0.21 |
0.11 |
1.83 |
0.07 |
-0.02 |
0.43 |
Scientific proficiency of doctoral coordinator |
0.07 |
0.12 |
0.58 |
0.57 |
-0.18 |
0.32 |
Scientific proficiency of the doctoral committee |
0.07 |
0.13 |
0.50 |
0.62 |
-0.20 |
0.34 |
Staff attitudes |
0.48 |
0.11 |
4.49 |
0.00 |
0.27 |
0.70 |
Multiple ways to communicate with the
students |
0.39 |
0.11 |
3.57 |
0.00 |
0.17 |
0.62 |
Source: Own research
The F test for each variable generated validates the
model and contributes to the predictive power of regression The Prob the
significance threshold of the variables should be less or around 0.05. In our case Significance F (1.42E-16) is lower
0.01.
In the table 3 are evaluated the factors that
influence the quality of higher education.
Attention must be paid to the estimated coefficients
of regression equation (Table. 3).
For most of the variables in table 3 the significance
threshold is probability (P-value) is lower or around 0.05, meaning that with a
high probability and a small standard error (under 0.5), the coefficients are
well estimated.
In conclusion, the alternative hypothesis is accepted.
It stands that the quality of quality of higher education and the integration
into the labor market is influenced by all 8 factors mentioned above.
In our analysis we found out that bachelor’s degree
and master degree from all fields are a good base that can support doctoral
studies. The doctoral program gained in different fields are important for labor
market: there are available jobs on the market for graduates from different
fields.
Most of the
students (63%) would recommend the doctoral program, but we think that further
improvement has to be done in order that students to be content of the doctoral
program, because 31% of them are not very pleased with their achievements
during the years of study.
Moreover, most of the PhD students are working during
the day and find it very difficult to reach all the classes. This survey and
other literature review shows that a balanced working-education life it is
essential for higher quality studies. “A model of combined distance lectures
and face-to-face meetings with the teacher” (VASILEVSKA, 2017) seems to be the
solution of future research and education.
The students mention as a method to improve the
quality of higher education the immersion of Virtual Reality (VR) and/or
Augmented Reality (AR) in the process of presenting the information and
knowledge acquisition. There are other studies that support this thesis. (BUCEA,
2018).
Talking about evaluation the students preferred a
practical approach in order to prove themselves that they gained specific
abilities and interiorized the knowledge. They also preferred a progressive,
cascade evaluation, because they fill more comfortable to take the test if they
gave a correct answer to the first item. This statement is confirmed by other
studies. (TAGHINEZHAD,2017)
The number of doctoral students is decreasing: less
students enroll in a doctoral program or some of them abandon it (Figure 7).
The reason that PhD students abandon their studies is that they have chosen the
specialization in the wrong way, or because the university has too high
standards, as they declared in the survey.
Figure 7: Forecast regarding the
number of PhD students for 2018-2020
Source:
ARACIS - own prelucration
In order to maintain and attract students to doctorate
programs, universities in Romania has to offer grant scholarships. Also,
doctoral students have to be involved in important scientific research projects
on the field of doctoral thesis.
They also suggested some improvements that can be
achieved in the PhD program, such as:
·
Intense collaboration with business field
·
Immersion of VR and AR technologies in education
·
Psychological training for teachers to increase the
emotional intelligence
·
International collaborations with other universities
5. DISCUSSION
The survey implemented shows that Doctoral programs in
Romania have a positive impact on students’ integration on labor market. In
general, the Romanian education programs have a high quality, but are characterized
by deficient practice activities. The Romanian universities should consider
integrating more foreign visiting professors and international collaboration
through European projects, and Business-University partnerships.
The article tests the influence of library facilities,
school infrastructure, access to Doctoral Theses, dialog between academia and
students, doctoral coordinator and committee proficiency, staff attitude and
multiple way of communication over the quality of education in PhD programs in
Romania. Overall the null hypothesis has to be rejected. All 8 factors chosen
have an important influence over the PhD quality education.
In a further research we still need to add other
variables in the model, such as:
·
Integration of social media channels in education, in
order to be where the students are and answer in real time to their
expectations.
·
Integrate Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality
(AR) in education field offering a better interactivity, 3D visualization,
having a positive influence on knowledge acquisition, while having fun at the
same time
·
Teacher emotional intelligence
·
Access to case studies and workshops that could
facilitate the knowledge exchange between universities and business field,
increasing the innovation and creativity.
·
Adapting the lecture at mobile technologies
·
Establishing a good balance between working and
learning activities
·
Interdisciplinarity the increasing scientific
research.
·
Difficulties regarding the qualification of a PhD in
one predefined area
6. AUTHORS’ AFFILIATION AND BIOGRAPHY
Authors’
names and details must not be included anywhere in the article. Instead, a
brief autobiographical note (about 100 words) must be supplied, including full
name, affiliation, email address and full international contact details, on a
separated sheet of paper.
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