A double road to success? Impact of dual education on effectiveness

Abstract

ABSTRACT Higher education institutions are challenged to prepare their students for employment in the labour market. Higher education policy reforms are looking for the right solution and we consider dual education as one such solution. The aim of our research is to present the perspectives of students, partner companies and lecturers on the perception of the effectiveness of the dual education and the quality of the practical training, which has been present at the University of Debrecen since the 2015/2016 academic year. The DUAL 2019 (N = 286) database was used, the data collection took place in the semester of 2018/2019, our results were supported by both quantitative and qualitative data. We were looking for the answer to the question of which student group had the best academic performance. We hypothesize that dual training has a positive effect on students ’academic performance. Based on student self-reports and quantitative results have shown that dual students have better academic performance than those in traditional education. In the interview part of the research it was revealed that the students perceive significant development of skills, but our results call for further quantitative procedures.Our results is indispensable in the sense that we must constantly monitor these educational policy reforms, because monitoring processes are essential in educational research.