Teaching and Self-teaching in Higher Education

A student willing to develop personally and professionally, subject to the teacher's training and educational actions, then becomes aware of his own potentialities, of the demands and development trends in society; he designs, carries out, evaluates and adjusts those actions ensuring his personal development. He discovers the mechanisms and the path of his own learning, formulates personal goals, acquires and uses self-teaching and self-training methods fit for such goals, evaluates and valorises his own acquisitions. Communicating with his teacher and colleagues, a student gets information, clarifies, deepens, consolidates, systemizes, checks his own ideas and views, improves his strategies for approaching reality, develops his cognitive attitudes. The goals of our study were to: identify the goals of self-training and the basic criteria in their formulation; analyse the progress of these goals throughout the surveys; identify self-education and self-training methods used by the student; identify the underlying reasons of self-teaching and self-training. Regarding the surveyed sample, we found, among others, that: social needs are very important in establishing the reasons of self-teaching; self-training is directed toward all dimensions of personality, professional competences, creativity and communication prevailing; self-assessment becomes increasingly objective. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.