Assessing the Quality of Students' Acquired Competencies in a Master Programme

• Author: Sumedrea, S.
• Position: Dept. of. Management and Economic. Informatics., Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 107-112

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series V: Economic Sciences • Vol. 7 (56) No. 1 - 2014

ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF STUDENTS’

ACQUIRED COMPETENCIES IN A

MASTER’S PROGRAMME

Silvia SUMEDREA1

Abstract: Developing and monitoring the quality of the educational process

in higher institutions is a key issue of the Bologna process. The aim of this

paper is to present the results of an empirical study concerned with assessing

the quality of the competencies gained by Master’s students in strategic

financial management. Prior to this paper, a research study has been carried

out to identify the managers’ perception over the Master’s students’

competencies and the results indicated that competencies in strategic

financial management are crucial for future managers. The research is

focused on improving the quality of the educational process by developing a

wider base for communication with the Master’s students in order to help

them develop better learning skills and to facilitate their forthcoming

insertion in the labour market.

Key words: quality assessment, professional competencies, Master’s

educational process.

1 Dept. of. Management and Economic. Informatics. ,”Transilvania University of Braşov.

1. Introduction

A large number of recent studies

(Ceobanu, et al., 2008; Sumedrea,

Antonoaie, 2008) have revealed the fact

that, as elsewhere in the world, universities

in Romania have to face a competition that

has more and more economical features.

The universities from the European Union

have to face a global educational market;

they are constrained to secure financial

resources through competition, whilst the

labour market has go ne through dramatic

changes as a consequence of the financial

crisis and the natural decline in population.

Rituparna Das (2009) stresses that

professional education is undeniably a

production process and that a final year

student equipped with managerial skill and

training is human capital but also skilled

labour; he then concludes that a final year

professional student is a product of

professional education. Applying the

above idea in the educational system, we

can find inputs, processes and outputs;

when referring to a professional student,

the output at every stage is represented by

the results in every semester and the input

is represented by modules of different

curricula assimilated during the semester.

A wider range of educational services

offered to young people allows them to

choose the one that is most suitable for

them. The European System of

Transferable Credits offers an

unprecedented mobility and more and

more students, when selecting the

university of their choice, take into account