Student Satisfaction

Students were asked to express their evaluation of the didactic theatre activity carried out within the Political Economy course of the Department of Political Sciences in 2018 and 2019. To this end, a web page with an online questionnaire was created, using Microsoft Form. The link to the questionnaire was sent by email after the conclusion of the theatre activity and after the exam sessions of the Political Economy course. The questionnaire consisted of 8 closed questions and two open ones.

The response rate was satisfying: half of the students who participated in the activity in 2018 and a third of those who participated in 2019 filled in the online form. Students’ satisfaction was measured according to the Likert’s scale with a score ranging from 1 to 5. The scores assigned by the students in correspondence with the eight questions of the questionnaire are all very high (Table 2). In 2018, the overall rate of satisfaction (question h) is maximum (5). The success of the activity carried out in 2018 contributed to the explosion in the number of students who wished to be enrolled in the educational theatre activity in the following year. The number more than quadrupled and, consequently, the students were followed a little less individually than in the previous year. This is reflected in a slight lowering of the rate of satisfaction which however remains very high, above the level corresponding to ‘very satisfactory’ (4.2 on the scale from 1 to 5), with half of the students giving the maximum score (5 – very much satisfying). Figure 1 reports the percentages of students for each level of satisfaction.

The answers with the highest score concern the supervision of theatrical activity and the economic content. The open answers, reported in the Appendix A, are extraordinarily positive, and we have already commented on some of these in Section 1. The answers show the satisfaction of having learned some techniques of public speaking, and that the students have increased confidence and self-esteem, and improved their relationship with fellow students; they have a better understanding of the economic contents, and have acquired new skills in writing short economic texts. The average marks in the final exam of students, who undertake also didactical theatre, are higher than those of students who attend only the main course without carrying out any theatrical activity. However, it is impossible to determine the precise impact of the theatrical activity on the final marks by comparing the average mark of these two different groups of students, because they are qualitatively heterogeneous, since students who undertake theatrical activity are volunteers, interested in theatre and strongly motivated. Nevertheless, we note, week by week, evident and great improvements in understanding economic issues, in public speaking abilities and in team-working skills of students who participate in the theatrical activity. Good academic results of these students in the final exams in economics can be explained by this observed progress.