Different Perceptions of Importance of Educational Objectives
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 119, Issue 3
Abstract
In higher education we give much thought to what we teach, and curricula reviews are regular parts of course development activity. We seem to give less thought to how we teach our material, and we seldom ask ourselves why we teach what we do. There appears to be an implicit assumption about what the important subject‐based and skill‐based objectives are for a particular discipline and how they should be met. In this paper we present data that challenge the assumption of agreement about objectives among staff, students, and employers involved in a particular education program—the baccalaureate building course at the National University of Singapore. The course aims to provide a broad education for managers in the construction industry, so we asked students, teaching staff, and prospective employers to rank a list of educational objectives in terms of importance. The differences we found between the rankings of the three groups are discussed, and the wider implications these may have for course design in higher education are considered.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 119 • Issue 3 • July 1993
Pages: 317 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 18, 1992
Published online: Jul 1, 1993
Published in print: Jul 1993
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