Methods used in the Educational Process: A Theoretical and Empirical Perspective

Abstract

In the context of an evolving and developing educational system based on a social reality, the diversification of the curriculum in higher education, and not only, required the introduction of new modern teaching and learning methods and techniques without renouncing at the most valuable classical ones. “The method” is defined as the path or working modality used by teachers and students in teaching interaction to achieve the proposed educational goal. Methods serve cognitive and formative goals of education. We will analyze with priority the methodology for teaching in the socio- humanistic disciplines. One classification of the methods used in the educational process was made by Dale and is known in the literature as “Dale’s Cone of Experience”. We can also find another similar classification under the form of an instrument named The Learning Pyramid. We conducted a research using the opinion survey, based on a questionnaire using a representative sample of students from 3 specializations from University of Craiova: International Relations and European Studies, History and Sociology. Through this research we aimed to identify how students from the three specified specializations would classify of the audio-visual methods found in “Dale’s Cone of Experience” and “Learning Pyramid”, depending on the manner in which this methods influence their learning process.