Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science

1-6

Authors: ČAPKOVÁ, Halka, KROUPOVÁ, Jarmila

One of the main concerns of educational specialists is the relevance of their programmes to the graduates’ success on today’s highly competitive labour market. As a result of these concerns academics at the English Department of the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic decided to conduct a survey of undergraduates, graduates and their major employers as well as the academic staff at the university in order to determine the suitability of English language courses offered to students. The result of this research has been implemented in the adaptation of new teaching materials which aim to satisfy real world requirements. A needs analysis used in this study proved to be very valuable as it emphasises the practices of using multiple sources and multiple methods in the data gathering stage. Triangulation was employed to validate the findings. This type of analysis encouraged the creation of more suitable and appropriate teaching material. Such an analysis also facilitates the collection of information regarding the needs of students and the requirements of other stakeholders.

16-23

Authors: VONDRA, Zdeněk

Quality control mechanism that allows long term improvements of a study field or a study program is necessary for good functioning of educational institution or department in actual nature of competitive universities’ environment. This paper focuses on quality control mechanisms in general and more closely on professional study fields. The professional study fields have been settled in Czech higher education by approving the amendment to the Higher Education Act. This brings new need for control and improvement mechanisms based more on connection to industry practice than on academic publications. The aim of this paper is to explain the importance of gathering information from contact with study field’s stakeholders. These information lead to form appropriate improvements implemented on time. In the case study, there are presented examples of gathered findings and how they are being handled. They include the student‘s expectations that underrate theory although it is needed for basic insight to the industry. The students are also motivated to start their own business. What this paper brings is the proposed continuous development mechanism that helped to improve the bachelors study field Multimedia in Economic Practice and also the general recommendations that should help to any other study field.