What secondary and higher education students says about the teaching practice – A quality education study in Évora and Beja (Portugal).

Quality is, currently, a concern of most systems, despite having multiple meanings. Basically, it reflects an intrinsic property of any entity, which allows it to be compared with any other entity of its kind. Naturally, quality is also assumed to be education main target (eg, MEC, 1999). In an attempt to answer to these concerns, a three years project was designed (2007/2010), which sought to realize the perspectives of Portuguese secondary and higher education students, about teaching quality, seeking an understanding of all factors involved (Ferreira, 2009). In this article we present results for the variables “students’ motivation”, “teachers’ commitment” and “teaching methodologies”, comparing the differences found in the transition from secondary education to higher education. Analyzed the standardized importance of the variables under study, we found that in the transition to higher education there is a decreased emphasis on teaching methodologies, valuing the motivation level and teachers’ commitment, confirming that in the methodologies developed to improve the quality of education, the teacher is the basic element of their development (Montoro, 1999). These results confirm Gonçalves et al. (2005) studies, which concluded that the performance of teachers and motivated students are among the factors influencing students’ satisfaction levels