The Curriculum Evaluation - Research Paper Example

? Curriculum Evaluation Assignment Introduction A curriculum is generally dynamic in nature. It incorporates entire learner’s informal and formal understanding. It can be affirmed that curriculum is not regarded as prescription or intention, but rather it determines and is determined by what happens in actual situations. The assessment or evaluation of educational curriculum is often viewed to be a continuous process. The main function of curriculum evaluation is not fixed. It is constantly changing according to the varying demands and needs of the society. Thus, it is to be stated that any newly constructed curriculum should fulfill the needs and demands of every societal member by a greater level. In essence, evaluation is considered to be a significant component of the curriculum design process for the overall program, learner and the faculty. It can be pointed out that the curriculum evaluation has the following purposes: Determining learners' accomplishments and confirming capabilities which lead to a certification or a grade Measuring enhancement in the instructors (faculty), learners and programs Complying with the authorization standards by measuring program and student performance Determining the value of the particular curriculum to the educational institutions (Duke University Medical Center, 2002). With this concern, this paper mainly deals with the analysis and the evaluation of the master’s program or program of study curriculum of Boston College, followed by the recommendations to improve the curriculum design and subjects. The audience of this study could be the higher education department faculties and supervisors who are responsible and authorized to prepare or involve others in the process of developing curriculum. Considering curriculum course, it entails core subjects related to higher education. As the curriculum involves higher education course which is multidisciplinary, it requires all the students in terms of audience for deriving and adapting common foundation. A proper wholehearted participation of the students who are key audience can ensure success of the course by a considerable extent. Furthermore, this particular curriculum entails foundational studies, research methods, concentration courses and electives. Oral Presentation Outline Oral presentation outline generally consists of the analysis and evaluation of the master’s program curriculum. It is worth mentioning that evaluation of the procedure of curriculum development plays a crucial role in keeping and channelizing the direction of the college students on the preferred way. This is mainly for the accomplishment of predetermined objectives along with keeping the system update with respect to ever changing scenario of time. Curriculum development process also undergoes change due to newer developments in the education sector and its evaluation keeps it convincing, dependable and puts it in the right track. For a conceptualized understanding and analysis qualitative method has been applied to derive reliable as well as valid information related to subjects. Qualitative method encompasses review of scholarly journals and articles. Furthermore, the curriculum has been analyzed by reviewing the courses as well as structure of other universities and colleges to gain a better insight. Application of subjects and its relevancy in practical field depicts weightage and importance of that particular subject within a specified curriculum. For analyzing a curriculum, an effective analysis tool is implemented and applied to derive valid information about course materials and their applicability along with importance. According to course analysis tool for a particular curriculum, it entails specific elements to gather relevant knowledge. There is a need to particularly focus on a detailed evaluation of information regarding a particular curriculum, which stands to be an important factor. Furthermore, relevant topic as well as learning goals is analyzed to understand its applicability in practical fields. Analysis of the Curriculum Analysis of the curriculum relates to determining the prospective value addition that the curriculum can offer to the recipient. The analysis mainly would entail evaluation of each and every topic contained within the prepared curriculum along with the duration of time that has been allotted to each topic area for studying. The master’s degree curriculum of Boston College has been viewed to be structured into six levels of study. Students select a study program in consultation with their respective academic advisors. The explanation of the six levels has been conducted here: Level 1: Core Since the ground of higher education is somewhere multidisciplinary, it is quite vital that all students share a common basis. Thus, all graduate students in the Program of Higher Education are obligatory to take a course in the social and historical foundations of higher education i.e. Higher Education in American Society. Students have one further core course based on their selected concentration (The Trustees of Boston College, 2013). Level 2: Foundational Studies in Higher Education Based on the necessities of selected concentration, students may select from amid a set of courses that wrap up higher education from the standpoint of diverse foundational disciplines such as law & policy, organizational sociology, philosophy, comparative studies, psychology and history. In this particular level, having discussion with the respective advisors, students must select three of the following six courses in order to accomplish their requirement. In this regard, the courses comprise Philosophy of Education, Education Law along with Public Policy, Theory of Student Development, History of American Higher Education, Global as well as Comparative Higher Education and Organization along with Administration of Higher Education (The Trustees of Boston College, 2013), Level 3: Methodological Requirement To make sure that every incoming student from master department is required to evaluate research articles critically, all masters’ students are obligatory towards taking a methods course. The options of these methods courses include Interpretation & Evaluation of Educational Research, Models of Program and Curriculum Evaluation, Education Statistics and Assessment in Student Affairs (The Trustees of Boston College, 2013). Level 4: Concentration Courses In this particular level, every student enrolled in Higher Education Program is obligatory towards acquiring 6-9 credits depending upon the concentration of the students in order to acquire in-depth knowledge about a specific course area (The Trustees of Boston College, 2013). Level 5: Field Experience and Comprehensive Exam To expand practical experience, master's students are required to accomplish a supervised field experience in the ground of higher education for a single academic year. Several program graduates have been able to protect jobs in specific sectors by a greater level due to their participation in these sorts of experiences. Master's students with considerable full-time work experience in higher education (i.e. exceeding 3 years) may be able to surrender the field study requirement with the consent of their respective faculty advisor. Field Experience placements are usually unpaid, even though paid graduate assistantships are frequently obtainable and can be incorporated as field experiences (The Trustees of Boston College, 2013). Level 6: Specialized Electives in Related Studies and Higher Education To accomplish core courses and design an individualized curriculum as well as program, master's students usually take a minimum of two elective courses with an actual focus in the higher education or emotional or learning studies. With the permission of the faculties or the advisors, the students may also select electives from curriculum studies, human development courses, counseling sessions, evaluation programs or instructions in the School of Education or somewhere else at Boston College. It is also possible for the students to carry out an Independent Study to follow their own area of interest. In the curriculum, apart from the higher education program, lots of elective courses are there for the students like Techniques and Principles of Counseling for the Higher Education & Community Settings, Practical Aspects of Program and Curriculum Evaluation, Management of Organizational Marketing and Psychology of Drugs and Alcohol Abuse among others (The Trustees of Boston College, 2013). Evaluation of the Curriculum The process of evaluation or assessment is fundamentally described as the method of determining about to what extent the learning objectives are aligned to the deliverance of curriculum programs and instructions to the students. As educational objectives basically changes, these are aimed to produce certain enviable alterations in the behavioral approaches of the learners or the students and then evaluating the procedure of determining the level to which these alterations in the approaches are in reality taking place (Wise, 2008). The curriculum plan and assessment are strongly related with each other. It can be apparently observed that there are various assessment techniques, such as reviewing other universities curriculum, deriving information from students and reviewing articles and journals which serve the purpose of obtaining valuable ideas concerning whether a new curriculum is needed or the existing curriculum needs to be revised. It has been viewed that most of the evaluations of the existing curriculum have followed a post-facto design because little or no information is acquired at the initial period of designing the curriculum (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1978). In order to make an evaluation of the existing curriculum of Boston College with regard to master’s degree program study, a comparison can be drawn with the curriculum of another institute. On the basis of the comparison, the effectiveness of the program with respect to Boston College can be determined. Furthermore, evaluation of course subjects depicts an important aspect of analyzing a particular curriculum. Context evaluation provides a basic knowledge about the contents of the course. In this regard, this particular evaluation encompasses objective, structure and content related to course material of the curriculum. Moreover, the notion of input evaluation mainly encompasses lecturers, students and course-management supplement evaluation, which helps in attaining reliable and relevant information about course materials (Hussain, Dogar, Azeem, & Shakoor, 2011). Data Collection Tools In relation to the context of evaluation process concerning master’s degree curriculum of Boston College, the data collection instrument of Context Input Process Product (CIPP) model can be used. CIPP is often viewed to be a program evaluation tool which can also be defined as a Decision-Making Model. This can be better understood with the help of the following graphical representation. Source: (Phattharayuttawat, Chantra, Chaiyasit, Bannagulrote, Imaroonrak, Sumalrot, & Auampradit, 2009) CIPP Model can be adopted as well as implemented and used for determining the competence of the Master’s program particularly in the field of psychology. The factors that can be considered in relation to this model include input evaluation through the aid of evaluating lecturers, campus along with students, process evaluation comprising course management, general management and grading, product evaluation through the number of psychologists employed in study field and context evaluation through determining structures, objectives and content related to the curriculum (Phattharayuttawat, Chantra, Chaiyasit, Bannagulrote, Imaroonrak, Sumalrot & Auampradit, 2009). The following would depict the curriculum based evaluations relating to the program of master’s degree of Boston College. Source: (Hall & Mengel, 2002) In the process of curriculum evaluation, curriculum based assessment (CBA) along with curriculum based measurement (CBM) can be taken into concern in order to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum. To preserve greater dependability as well as validity of the evaluation, scoring procedures are generally used (Hall & Mengel, 2002). CBA represents a method that is applied systematically for assessing basic academic abilities of a student. CBA is a technique based on which a reliable evaluation about the course materials can be conducted. CBM also represents a technique for analyzing as well as evaluating basic knowledge of the students. Implementation and application of CBM encompass various characteristics that help in the evaluation procedure. Application of CBM tool is technically adequate and it helps in standardizing the measurement tasks along with making them time efficient. In accordance with these two techniques, the evaluation of a particular curriculum becomes reliable and relevant. Curriculum evaluation is conducted for achieving the goals as well as matching these goals with the intended outcomes. Curriculum evaluation is implemented for formally determining the quality as well as effectiveness of a particular program. Furthermore, it has been revealed that for evaluating a particular curriculum, certain procedures are involved. For evaluation focus must be given to a particular component to gather information. Correspondingly, after deriving the information, it is formally organized and then analyzed for making a formal report. The last step of evaluation procedure consists of recycling of information to derive continuous feedback (Hall & Mengel, 2002). Curriculum approaches frame an important part of the evaluation. Behavioral approaches are mainly based upon the blueprint of the curriculum. Blueprint encompasses goals as well as objectives that are specified within curriculum contents and activities. This particular approach activates on the basis of educational plans that are required for setting up goals as well as objectives. Managerial approach facilitates the development with regard to educational goals and objectives. In this approach, curriculum is designed by considering students, parents as well as teachers’ plans. It further enhances curriculum innovation as well as change. System approach fosters administration, curriculum, counseling as well as evaluation processes (Hall & Mengel, 2002). Recommendations Changes in the curriculum have to be made with the altering scenario of the world. In each and every single day, new psychological inventions are bringing pioneering developments particularly in the field of psychology. Thus, if a curriculum of a specific college seems to be not updated, then there is a chance of switching to other colleges by the students. Development of curriculum is a process which includes investigation of the existing curriculum, evaluation on the basis of the grading, Grade Point Average (GPA) and placement of graduate psychologists. Along with the above evaluation procedures, content, structure and objectives of curriculum is also required to be evaluated. However, the curriculum of Boston College did not entirely take into concern such as aspects. It is worth mentioning that there ought to be an improvement in the objectives, contents and structures of the programs for the purpose of enhancing the standards of the curriculum of master’s degree of Boston College by a significant level. Considering the subject area covered by the curriculum of Boston College, it deals with law, psychology, public policy and history among others. These subjects require an enhanced understanding as well as dedication. Courses such as methodological requirements necessitate in-depth analysis and understanding of related subjects. Practical experiences will enhance the understanding of the students with regard to these courses or subject areas (Phattharayuttawat, Chantra, Chaiyasit, Bannagulrote, Imaroonrak, Sumalrot, & Auampradit, 2009). Conclusion Academic evaluation is considered to be a long-standing tradition particularly in the education sector (Duke University Medical Center, 2002). It can be viewed that traditional assessment tools have certain limitations that limit their applications for making effective instructional curriculum planning. So far findings are concerned, a brief analysis of the masters’ curriculum belonging to Boston College has been conducted aiding the institution towards raising the standards of the curriculum at large. It is to be stated that CIPP model can be used for evaluating the effectiveness of the existing curriculum. Selection of the appropriate tool is quite important for the purpose of obtaining unbiased results of the evaluation process. As per recommendations are concerned, on the basis of the outcome of the evaluation, certain bold steps need be taken to revise the curriculum. In this regard, topics or different subject matters in the curriculum need to be developed very cautiously, so that the institute can retain its existing students and also attract new students by a greater level. As assessed above, the basic elements to look for while evaluating a particular curriculum are gathering information for a better decision-making process. Data collection governs the effectiveness and relevance of information with regard to the entire curriculum. Relevant data is processed and analyzed for preparation of a detailed report for implementing courses within the curriculum. For a curriculum to be effective, learning goals must be clearly identified and appropriate criteria must be applied. Courses involved must reflect reflective thinking to endure students’ insight within this competitive scenario. Thus, evaluation of curriculum fosters development as well as applicability in practical and educational situation. References Duke University Medical Center. (2002). Why is evaluation important. Retrieved from http://cfmmodules.mc.duke.edu/curriculum/eval/value2.html Hussain, A., Dogar, H. A., Azeem, M., & Shakoor, A. (2011). Evaluation of curriculum development process. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 1(14), pp.263-271. Hall, T., & Mengel, M. (2002). National center on accessing the general curriculum. Curriculum-Based Evaluations Effective Classroom Practices Report, pp.1-15. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1978). Curriculum evaluation. AAHE-ERIC/Higher Education Research Report 7(8), pp.48-50. doi: 10.1002/aehe.3640070810 Phattharayuttawat, S., Chantra, J., Chaiyasit, W., Bannagulrote, K., Imaroonrak, S., Sumalrot, T., & Auampradit, N. (2009). An evaluation of the curriculum of a graduate programme in clinical psychology. South East Asian Journal of Medical Education 3(1), pp.14-19. The Trustees of Boston College. (2013). Curriculum masters program. Retrieved from http://www.bc.edu/content/bc/schools/lsoe/academics/departments/eahe/graduate/mahea/curriculum.html Wise, D. (2008). Curriculum evaluation. Exeter PGCE (PCE)-Curriculum Evaluation Handbook, pp.1-27. Read More