EFFECTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: CASE STUDIES OF ALBANIAN, AUSTRIAN, JAPANESE AND CROATIAN UNIVERSITIES

The concept of an effective learning environment (ELE) includes various sets of psychological, didactical, methodological, organizational and other similar variables which provide for successful learning and student achievement. This research regarding student perception of the importance of ELE was conducted in 2010 and 2012 among nearly 500 university students in different countries across Asia, America and Europe. The first research in 2010 reported many similarities regarding the perception of the importance of some of the factors for successful learning such as communication with professors and colleagues, access to information and communication technology, student support services, library resources etc. During the past three years, universities have been faced with improvements and changes. Regarding this, students were asked to answer the same set of items as in the initial ELEsurvey. The purpose of re-testing these methods was to find which kind of improvement to an educational system has implications for the student’s perception of its importance.The results will be presented in the form of statistical data analyses and interpretations of the resulting implications. Further research will be done on the sample of students from other countries included in the first part of the project.