Teacher Dimensions in Technical Higher Education - A Student Perspective

The current paper is based on a survey conducted on 321 engineering students studying at University Politehnica of Bucharest and University Politehnica of Timisoara. The research aims at outlining the profile of the teacher in technical higher education as depicted by engineering students. The study surveyed students. opinions regarding the teacher-student relationship, teacher. s role as an evaluator, professional expertise, education in general, personality traits, teachers. roles and managerial skills. The results of the study highlight the importance of the student-teacher relationship, the teacher. s roles as evaluator and examiner and his/her professional expertise. Teachers. personality traits, managerial skills and roles seem to be less important to students. Moreover, the t test data show significant statistical differences between the real and ideal teacher in technical higher education from a student perspective. Nevertheless, students and society as a whole have different perceptions of teachers. Regarding the dimensions of the teacher in technical higher education, based on the statistics, on a 1 to 5 scale, the results show similarities of the two models. For instance, students rank first intelligence and last elitism and competitiveness as teacher attributes. Furthermore, the present study also demonstrates that universities comply with the system proposed by Marlene and Lee Canter that allows teachers to apply positive support for students.