Abstract

REIS, Luís Paulo et al. Directors’ Perspective on Course and Institution Selection of Portuguese Engineering Students. RISTI [online]. 2014, n.spe2, pp.99-114. ISSN 1646-9895.  https://doi.org/10.17013/risti.e2.99-114.

Portuguese higher education national access system, allows every year, thousands of students to enter higher education degrees. These students are allocated according to their classifications and their application including preferences to the institution-course pairs. Despite official statistics provided by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES) it is not always possible for course directors to get sufficient relevant indicators for good decision making in relation to the offering of their courses and respective dissemination strategy. This study evaluated the factors that directors consider that will influence students in their choice of a pair establishment-course as well as understand the different variables that are related to the same influence attribution. It was based on a survey on course directors and its content analysis. The results enable us to conclude that the directors are particularly interested by A3ES accreditations and internal competition, from courses in the department itself, college or institution of higher education. However, many of the directors don’t show great concern to identify and defend themselves from external competitors, although that, however, is essential to ensure having a course that attracts high quality students.

Keywords : interview survey; content analysis; qualitative analysis; access to higher education; university; course.

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