Millennial student expectations towards higher education in Latvia
2017
Licite, L., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia) | Janmere, L., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia)
The learning habits of students in higher education are changing frequently and universities have to modify their learning environment to the needs of their students. The method of teaching ten years ago is not the method to achieve learning with Generation Y because Millennial students are quite opposite of their predecessors, Generation X. The aim of the research paper is to explore Millennial students’ expectations towards higher education in Latvia. To achieve the aim, a survey of 179 Millennial students was conducted to determine the engineering student expectations from higher education in Latvia. The research showed that the students were relatively more in favour of the Millennial generation values rather than traditional values in higher education, yet their support was not absolute. The students demonstrated agreement with such essential aspects for the Millennial generation as the availability of technologies and the Internet for an effective study process, teaching personnel’s knowledge of their discipline and ability to make students interested in a topic and give fast feedback. However, the students’ opinions were not similar with regard to the roles of an academic and a student in the study process – in determining the content of a study course, a timetable of classes and the attendance of classes. Most of the students believed that they had to be given an opportunity to influence everything, while a third were rather in favour of the role of an academic as an authority in the study process. The differences in the values of the Millennial students in Latvia with regard to education may be partly explained by the fact that the Millennial generation in Latvia emerged only in the early 1990s, i.e. after the Soviet Union collapsed, and their value orientation has not yet become definite.
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