Teaching research of the implementation of High Academic Performance groups

To promote teaching in English, the Valencian government, in collaboration with public universities, created the High Academic Performance (Alto Rendimiento Academico; ARA) groups in the academic year 2010/2011. This program aims to enhance the performance of outstanding students via small groups and teaching in English since the beginning of their university studies. The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the opinions of both students and professors, as well as their English level and the degree of publicity regarding the availability of ARA groups. To do so, we considered respondents related and unrelated to these ARA groups, and conducted surveys at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Alicante, which has an ARA group in the Biology degree. Respondents unrelated to these groups showed a considerable lack of knowledge about them, although Biology students are getting more aware (+20%) of them. All students and professors agree in the importance of teaching in English and over 65% think that there is an advantage of teaching in small groups. However, despite the satisfaction level of students in the ARA group is high (average of 8.3 out of 10), they do not think this high performance groups enhance their chance to get a job, which contradicts the views of 60% of their professors in this regard. As expected, the English level is higher in ARA groups compared to non-ARA groups, but the level is increasing in both cases. It is still necessary to work on improving the dissemination of ARA groups so students are aware of their existence and can take advantage of their benefits.