The Effect of Conflict Cognitive Strategy in Inquiry-based Learning on Preservice Teachers' Critical Thinking Ability (L'effetto della strategia cognitiva del conflitto sull'apprendimento centrato sull'abilità di pensiero critico degli insegnanti in formazione

The article investigates the issue of teaching evaluation in higher education, providing a picture of the phenomenon into the Italian specific context within a European dimension. Starting from the premise that in Italian universities, teaching evaluation is based on general indicators which reflect a simplification of a complex phenomenon, scientific research related to teaching evaluation in higher education is presented and discussed. In this perspective, it will be argued that nature of teaching evaluation is characterized by multidimensionality and complexity. Only in this way it can represent a useful instrument for the improvement of teaching process and for the comprehension of the importance of being effective teachers. Moreover, on the basis of a participative model, it seems important to involve teachers and students in the formulation of relevant questions related to teaching. The aim of the research is represented by highlighting the specific aspects of teaching process dependent from the context through a comparison among faculties. Seventy interviews have been carried out with teachers and students of the same four faculties (Humanities, Psychology, Educational Sciences, Mathematics and Natural Sciences). Qualitative analysis of the data collected are conducted using the scientific software Atlas.ti. The outcomes confirm our initial assumptions showing differences among the four faculties considering the multiple dimensions of the university teaching.

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Purpose Students’ evaluation of teaching quality plays a major role in higher education. Satisfaction is not directly observable, nevertheless it can be measured through multi-item measurement scales. These instruments are extremely useful and their importance requires accurate development and validation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to show how latent class (LC) analysis can improve the procedures for developing and validating a multi-item measurement scale for measuring students’ evaluation of teaching and, at the same time, provide a deeper insight in the phenomenon under investigation. Design/methodology/approach The traditional literature highlights specific protocols along with the statistical instruments to be used for achieving this goal. However, these tools are suited for metric variables but they are adopted even when the nature of the observed variables is different, as it often occurs, since in many cases the items are ordinal. LC analysis takes explicitly into account the ordinal nature of the variables and also the fact that the object of interest is unobservable. Findings The data refer to the questionnaire to evaluate didactics to the students of the University of Padua. Within LC analysis allows an insight of scale properties, such as dimensionality, validity and reliability. Moreover, the results provide a deeper view in the way students use the scale to report satisfaction suggesting to revise the instrument according to the suggestion by the National Agency for University Evaluation. Originality/value The paper gives an original contribution on two sides. On the side of methods, it introduces a more accurate methodology for evaluating scales to measure the students’ satisfaction. On the side of applications, it provides important suggestions to the university management to improve the process of quality of the didactics evaluation.

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