One of the main consequences of adapting to the
European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is the
replacement of traditional teaching methods, based
almost entirely on the lecture, with new methodologies
where active participation on the part of the students is
a key part of the teaching-learning process. It is,
therefore, of interest to offer empirical evidence
showing that the new teaching methods employed
really do serve to improve the results of the students in
the acquisition of skills. The aim of this paper is,
therefore, to assess the results obtained from bringing in
the new EHEA, compared to those obtained under the
traditional teaching system.
With the above aim in mind, we analysed the results
from the two existing groups of students studying
Financial Management I of the Degree in Business
Administration and Management (academic year
2009-10) at the Faculty of Economics and Business of
the University of Murcia. The first group comprised
students who had followed the course under the
traditional lecture-based teaching system. The second
group was made up of students taking part in the
innovation project being run by the Faculty of
Economics and Business. EHEA teaching methodologies
and materials have been employed in the second
group. Besides the lecture and the practical class, the
following teaching methodologies have been
employed: problem-based learning, workshops on
problems, group tutorials, group work and participative
models. The first group was assessed purely on the basis
of an end of semester examination, while in the case of
the second group, the final examination counted for
60% of the mark, 30% corresponded to individual work
and group practical work and 10% to participation in
class and responses to questions posed by the teacher.
It should be highlighted that the final examination was
the same for both groups, so the comparison o results is
free of bias in that aspect.
The results show that higher percentage of passes in the
group with innovative teaching – 93.75% versus 48.19%
in the lecture-based class group. The average grade
was also higher – 7.08 over 10 versus 4.52 over 10. These
differences are significant (t statistic 6.382 for the means
difference test). In order to rule out the possibility of
these better results being due to the assessment
awarded for the non similar parts of the examination, a
comparison was also made of the marks obtained
exclusively in the examination common to both groups.
While the number of passes (75%) and the average
mark of the group in the innovative method (6 over 10)
fall, the results remain significantly better than those of
the lecture-based classes group (t statistic for the
difference in mean marks was 2.485).Campus Mare Nostrum, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Universidad de Murcia, Región de Murci