CONSTRUCTION AND VALIDATION OF A STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOOL (SPT) FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF PERCEPTIONS AMONG STUDENTS ABOUT THE QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract:
This paper is an attempt to develop a valid and reliable tool to assess the students’ perceptions about the quality of education in their institutes of higher learning. Firstly, there is a need to identify factors considered to be responsible for affecting the quality of prevailing educational practices in these institutions. This will help in gathering information about responsible factors of the subject through the validated tool. For the purpose, six educational dimensions were identified. These are curriculum design and planning, teaching-learning and evaluation, research development and extension, infrastructure and learning resources, organization and management, and student support services. Based upon these factors, 32 opinion statements based upon the Likert Scale were framed upon experts’ advice. The tool was pre-piloted upon 100 students of two higher education institutions of Kasargod district in Kerala. After ‘t’-test, 26 items (t>1.75) were included in the Student Perception Tool (SPT). The validated tool was even tested for its reliability using the Split Half method and Cronbach Alpha test. For both, the tests lower value was above the acceptable limit (>.70). During the study, it is analyzed that a tool is an aid for gathering most of the pieces of information related to the research. However, to make it the best aid, the researcher should have diversified knowledge related to the subject. Even the tool should have flexibility so that it can be used by the other disciplines of higher education also.

Keywords: higher education, Likert scale, quality, reliability, research tool, validity

https://doi.org/10.37948/ensemble-2020-0201-a008