Students' position regarding the quality of the teaching process at the university

This paper presents the results of research on "The Quality of Teaching in Higher Education", exploring students' status at the university with the em phasis on their position in the teaching process. The questionnaire was bas ed on 15 higher education quality criteria, and the participants (203 teach ers and 469 students from the University of Rijeka) assessed the difference between "ideal" teaching (assessment of the relevance and contribution of each criterion to successful university teaching), and "real" teaching (the extent to which every criterion is respected in actual teaching at the uni versity. The results show a statistically significant difference between "i deal" and "real" in seven (from 15) criteria according to the teachers. Acc ording to the students, "ideal" and "real" differ statistically on every cr iterion. Indicative results with significant implications could be perceive d when "ideal" and "real" were comparedbetween students and teachers. The M ann-Whitney U test shows statistically significant differences according to 7 criteria in "ideal" teaching. However, when "real" teaching is assessed by teachers and students, a statistically significant difference is found i n every criterion. Qualitative results (teachers' and students' comments) m ostly point at "external" problems which negatively influence teaching. How ever, the analysis of the students' comments shows that a part of the probl em could be primarily connected with teachers. The qualitative results supp ort the statistical tests, and it might be considered that most of the teac hers do not understand the importance of or neglect communication with stud ents, do not show interest for students and their problems, and are not rea dy to help the students to a sufficient extent.