STUDIA UBB GEOGRAPHIA, LIX, 1, 2014, pp. 77-88 (RECOMMENDED CITATION) VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR TOURISM. SPECIFIC ASPECTS WHICH INFLUENCE THE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF THE QUALITY OF THEIR LEARNING EXPERIENCE SILVIA IRIMIEA 1 , ADRIANA ŞERBAN 2 ABSTRACT. – Vocational Education and Training for Tourism. Specific Aspects which Influence the Students’ Perception of the Quality of Their Learning Experience. Quality in education has been defined in various ways, each definition representing a different approach. Karl Popper defines human rationality by the adequacy of one’s action to a specific situation. Furthermore, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues that the actions that people undertake are based on their previous life experiences and on their social and professional status. Vocational Education and Training (VET) addresses young people and adults whose social status can influence their level of satisfaction with the quality of the educational process. The present article seeks to present the results of a questionnaire-based survey applied to the students who have attended the travel agent and tourism manager courses at the Centre for Tourism Training of the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. The data illustrate the strong influence of the variable age and previous educational experience on the subjects' satisfaction regarding some aspects of the training activities. Keywords: VET, quality assurance, EQUARF, Pierre Bourdieu, Karl Popper, previous life- experience. 1. INTRODUCTION A brief history of quality assurance and evaluation in education reveals that the notion of quality has proven to be a complex one, which can be approached from multiple angles and perspectives (Harvey and Green, 1993, Nica, 2004, Ilieş, 2003). The documents of the European Council and the European Commission define the process of quality assurance as a generic term which refers to a continuous process and comprises: evaluating, monitoring, assuring, maintaining and improving the level of quality of a system, program, or institution (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, 2005). 1 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Centre for Tourism Training, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania, e-mail???????. 2 Babeş-Bolyai University, Centre for University Development and Quality Management, Cluj- Napoca, Romania, e-mail???????.