First Step of an Italian National Research on Teaching and Learning Methods in Higher Education

Described is the first phase (8 months) of an Italian research unit that took part in a more extensive three year project that endeavored to design innovative programs for higher education, to promote personalized learning, to build on job competencies, to value talents, to create new work-opportunities, and to provide positive strategies in higher education to support young adults during their employment emergency as a response to socio-economic crisis and as a citizenship action. A consortium of universities and researchers, called Emp & Co was created that involves six Italian Universities (Padova, Firenze, Siena, Napoli, Molise, Roma Sapienza) with Dr. Monica Fedeli (University of Padova) as the Principal Investigator. Fedeli’s research group is focusing on the innovation of teaching and learning methods and promotion of personalized programs in order to modernize university didactics, to encourage the university-business dialogue, and to promote employability. In the first phase of the project, a literature review was conducted and an analysis of student evaluation questionnaires from 8 Italian, 2 American, 5 European, 1 Canadian, and 1 African University was completed to compare and learn from the different ways in which courses are evaluated by students in the different academic contexts. The goal at the end of the first year is the creation of a questionnaire template focused on teaching and learning methods, so that we may gain a better understanding of student perspectives in our country. Additionally, we hope to implement strategies that will improve university didactics as requested by all European Union declarations.