Health care management courses in Greek universities

Abstract

Purpose -The object of this study is to formulate, establish and apply a suitable and reliable tool for measuring the course experience satisfaction of Master graduates. A questionnaire was formulated, based on similar tools, and adjusted to the reality of Hellenic Higher Education, in order to measure the satisfaction of graduates in three Master programmes in the area of health care management. Design/methodology/approach -Master graduates of the study (n ¼ 162), 2003-2007 admission years, filled in the questionnaire either electronically (web-based) or by phone interview. The overall response rate was 50.6 per cent. In total, 37 statements were used for the measure of satisfaction while other questionnaire parts recorded the demographic, occupational and educational characteristics of the graduates. Findings -Analysis revealed seven factors, listed as teaching, skills, assessment, feedback, social opportunities, facilities and organization of the course. Gender and first degree content do not affect the produced total satisfaction score. Married participants scored higher than those that are single in three factors and older participants scored higher than younger ones in two factors. The University of Crete's graduates scored higher than other graduates in two factors. Originality/value -The paper is the first attempt to assess satisfaction, based on the grounds of quality, for Master programs in Hellenic State Universities. In this study are presented the first results and conclusions of the application of the developed questionnaire. Further results, relative to graduates' occupational status changes and professional development, are currently under investigation.

Listening to and Learning from Graduates‘ Perceptions: Implications for Change?

“…Taking into account that satisfaction of graduates is a complex notion (Hartman & Schmidt, 1995, Rhodes & Nevill, 2004, Di Biase, 2004, Richardson, 2005, Garcıa-Aracil, 2009, Kotsifos, Alegakis, and Philalithis, 2012, and the interactions between satisfaction and WoMC, the same complexity applies when investigating factors affecting WoMC of former students.As previously mentioned above, WoMC is proved to be extremely influential in the intangible service of education (Bruce & Edgington, 2008, Moogan, 2011 thus, exploring correlations between course experience satisfaction and WoMC can provide course managers with valuable data regarding improvements on course quality, curricula content and meeting students expectations and qualification needs. In other words it is possible to use this perception of service literature as a "tool" which in combination www.ccsenet.org/ies International Education Studies Vol.…”

“…The previous article focused upon satisfaction issues of graduates from three different Health Management Masters, regarding demographics (Kotsifos et al, 2012). The Masters have been organized by three Greek Public Universities, specifically the University of Crete (UoC), the National and "Kapodestrian" University of Athens (NKUA) and the University of Piraeus (UoP).…”