Do Virtual Campuses Provide Quality Education? A Study on the Perception of Higher Education

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of technologies in all aspects of daily life, especially in educational contexts. Indeed, in most universities, using a virtual campus as a support for teaching is now a general practice, even in face-to-face teaching. However, although there are multiple studies on the quality of education and services provided by virtual campus platforms, as well as statistics on the use of the various tools and forums, very few studies have considered students’ perceptions of the quality perceived by students concerning the pedagogical use that teachers make of virtual campuses. Even fewer studies have examined this as a function of what year the students are in. In order to examine this more thoroughly, an ad hoc questionnaire was applied to 783 students enrolled in the first three years at various universities in Spain, covering all knowledge areas. The results show that first-year students had more positive opinions of the quality of their teachers’ virtual-campus practices than students in subsequent years. More specifically, those first-year students perceived greater encouragement and motivation from the teaching staff and more communication between teachers and students. These findings suggest the need for good teaching practices that consider motivation, communication and collaborative groups, not only during the first year, but also throughout university courses in order to ensure quality education.