Perceptions of non-formal education by gender, level of education and field of study

Purpose Many studies point out that a complication in the professional training is connected with the division of education into the formal and non-formal part. There is a need to integrate these two components to achieve a greater learning effect. The aim of the study is to find out whether students perceive non-formal education as important and to identify which form of extracurricular education they prefer. The aim of this study is to find the relationships among the variables of the educational process of young people. Design/methodology/approach Around 844 Czech secondary and tertiary students participated in the study. The participants expressed their attitudes towards non-formal education through a questionnaire. Welch’s ANOVA test and Games-Howell’s Post-Hoc test were used to verify the hypotheses. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to determine correlation relationships. Findings Students perceive non-formal education as important. The importance was perceived significantly least by high school and beginning university students in technical fields. Digital forms of education are favoured by students. Significant differences in this area are connected with the different field of study. Students are interested especially in the particular area of non-formal education that is connected with their field of study. Originality/value The study provides desirable results in relation to the possible adaptation of education to the needs of students. The article reminds that digital education is promoted because of its flexibility and changing competencies. Specific forms of non-formal education will be appropriate to differentiate according to the fields and the age of students.