Appendix I

Improving the Quality of Higher Education

Most students experience a sense of disorientation as they enter into higher education. They move from an ordered and familiar environment in schools on to a phase of uncertainty and confusion with a lot more freedom at universities. Several studies on this transition, from school to university, have indicated that the students spend a lot of their time trying to discover what is expected of them to learn or what learning consists of. Therefore, when designing "good" courses the following questions must be addressed if they are not to confuse the students even more:-

1. What do I want my students to learn?
2. How can I express my goals to my students and make them clear to myself and to my colleagues?

From students' perspective, clear standards and goals are vitally important to an effective educational experience. To help students adapt to the freedom of higher education, we must state clearly our requirements, with an explicit set of constraints which is gradually relaxed as students gain more experience.

AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

A course should have its stated aims, objectives and learning outcomes which the curriculum, structure, teaching methods and forms of assessment are designed to fulfil.

AIMS are general statements of educational intent, seen from the student's point of view. Course specific aims should include the "development to the level required for the award of a body of knowledge and skills appropriate to the field of study and reflecting academic developments in the field" (CNAA 1992). General education aims like the development of students' intellectual and imaginative powers; their understanding and judgement; their problem solving skills; their ability to communicate; their ability to see relationship within what they have learned and to examine their field of study in a broader perspective should also be included. Each course should aim to stimulate in each student an enquiring, analytical and creative approach, encourage independent judgement and critical self-awareness.

OBJECTIVES are more specific and concrete statements of what students are expected to learn. It should indicate how the course will fulfil the aims. Course specific objectives are related to a general objective and provide a framework for specific types of learning by describing the behaviour or performance which are appropriate to the field of study and identify the ways in which they will be developed and evaluated. General objectives should identify ways in which transferable intellectual skills will be developed and evaluated, particularly in relation to their ability to:-

1. communicate in speech, writing and other appropriate ways;
2. argue rationally and draw independent conclusion based on rigorous, analytical and critical approach to data, demonstration and argument;
3. apply what has been learned
4. demonstrate an awareness of the course in a wider context.

OUTCOMES are learning objectives written in terms of what the students should know, understand or be able to do, upon completion of the subject module. They are not necessarily tied to a specific performance variable and may include exploring what other things have been learnt or achieved, the intended as well as the unintended. The use of outcomes enables one to explore student learning; opportunity to identify prior learning and associated learning. Otter (1992) drew attention to the usefulness of this approach in course design and assessment as vouched by academics from a wide range of disciplines. Objectives do not have to consist of things that students can be observed to do (behavioural objectives). The students' grasp and understanding of concepts are acceptable objectives.

Expressing aims and objectives clearly helps to improve the quality of education. Students are clear about the key elements of competences they should acquire and they also enable teachers to think more critically and deliberately about student progress and connect it with teaching. Student learning is about what students will be learning rather than what lecturers will be teaching.

PITFALLS:

Devising and articulating objectives can be done in a superficial way. Therefore:-

1.        Avoid restating syllabus topics using the language of aims and objectives. e.g. "To acquire knowledge about exchange rates and trade" for an economics subject. Firstly, no additional information is provided to students. Next, what does it mean by "To acquire knowledge about exchange rates and trade"? If it implies an understanding of key concepts and their application to real situations then the objectives should be: "To explain the meaning and function of flexible and fixed exchange rates in relation to the concept of equilibrium" and "To explain the significance of a current account deficit". Although the student may not know the meaning of the terms at first, at least they know where to direct their attention and when reviewing their knowledge, they can concentrate on the relevant sections.

2.        Avoid vague, extremely general aims that are practically content free. e.g. "To improve written communication skills", "To understand the links between the practical and the theoretical", "To be an independent learner". These very comprehensive statements are declaration of educational goals. For the students, what do they mean? More precise statements related to the particular profession or discipline would be more useful and helpful to students.

3.        Not to confine yourself to describing only observable student behaviours as it narrows only to learning that are measurable and ignores those that are educationally important. e.g. "To understand" - although not observable is a valuable educational aim. Aims and objectives should describe progress towards understanding.

4.        Steer clear of imitation objectives as they imply surface approaches to learning.

REMINDER:

1.        The aims of the subjects must be explicit, relevant to and consistent with the whole course of study.

2.        Objectives must be connected to the learning activities and designed to enable students to achieve them.

CONCLUSION

Make your intention for student learning explicit. Examples of aims and objectives which have been found to be useful to students and staff are provided in the Annex.

ACTION/DISCUSSION

How can your Course Team set meaningful objectives?

Ref:

CNAA (1992): Academic Quality in Higher Education, (Council for National Academic Awards).

Otter, S. (1992): Learning Outcomes in Higher Education, London UDALE/HMSO

Ramsden, P. (1992): Learning to Teach in Higher Education, Routledge

Annex

Aims

Students should:

• Acquire skills of economic analysis and reasoning (economics)
• Develop their ability to pose purposeful questions about the past and answer them imaginatively (history)
• Develop the capacity to think creatively and independently about new design problems and make a realistic estimate of their own potential for solving them (engineering)

Students should:

• Recognise and explain the role of government in planning through a detailed examination of the 1947 Planning Act (environmental planning)
• Be able to explain, using graphical and algebraic methods, the meaning of elasticity in different contexts (economics)
• Appreciate the range of normality in the living human body due to age, sex, and body build, and the effects of posture, phase of respiration, and pregnancy (anatomy)
• Understand the properties of ionising radiation (physics)
• Comprehend fundamental concepts in the historical study of the French Revolution: be able to examine, for example, eighteenth-century meanings of 'bourgeoisie' and 'feudalism' and distinguish them from twentieth-century interpretations (history)
• Be able to interpret contemporary human activities in the light of the psychology of memory (psychology)

The aims of a law course

Students should:

• Understand, and be able to identify, use, and evaluate rules, concepts, and principles of law, their derivation, and the various theories that attempt to systematise them
• Acquire the techniques of legal reasoning and argument, in oral and written form
• Understand the institutions of the law, and their social, economic, and political context
• Learn to find the law, to carry out independent research and analysis, and to think creatively about legal problems
• Develop a continuing interest in the law, and obtain satisfaction from its study and practice
• Develop a critical interest in the reform of the law
• Appreciate the responsibilities of lawyers to the courts, the legal profession, the community and individuals within it
• Develop a commitment to promoting justice

Here is another example of objectives/outcomes - for a module in which students will be introduced to theory and research on information processing:

On completing the module, students should be able to:

1. explain the mechanisms of information processing: perception, sensory receptors, sensory store, encoding, short-term memory, long-term memory;

2. distinguish between examples of short-term and long-term memory;

3. explain the relationship between short-term and long-term memory;

4. describe the role of hierarchical organisation in fostering long-term recall.

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