Evaluation of Curricula in Higher Education

Abstract

Evaluation of teaching at universities is traditionally realized in terms of student ratings. Curriculum evaluation is rarely done in a systematic manner. More often, the emphasis is placed on a particular aspect, which is only of little help in terms of modifying education. A very prominent example is that of medical education. Here, evaluations of curricula primarily focus on new curricula by contrasting them to traditional ones. The article at hand deals with a different evaluation approach, in which five phases have to be considered and contrasting results to other teaching formats are not the main focus. In this article, the authors concentrate on the first phase (baseline evaluation) of the systematic evaluation of a medical curriculum. They describe several challenges of such an evaluation approach and illustrate the strategies used to overcome them. In addition, associated relevant empirical findings from this evaluation study are presented.

21st century medical education

“…This evaluation process should be ongoing, part of student, preceptor, and administration routine, rigorous, and set against objective, measurable standards. Spiel and colleagues have published a comprehensive framework for planning and carrying out a comprehensive, systematic evaluation 83 including:…”

Program Evaluation

“…These include formulating the study questions, designing the evaluation, setting standards to assess the program impact, conducting ongoing monitoring of the program functioning, collecting and analyzing data, assessing program effectiveness relative to costs, and reporting results. For examples of evaluation in various fields of clinical and applied psychology see, e.g., Bickman et al (1995), Gueron and Pauly (1991), Hope and Foster (1992), Maggin et al (2011), Spiel et al (2006), or Wong et al (2008.…”

Assessment to Transform Competency-based Curricula

“…[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Whether it was called needs assessment, 12 need for change, 13 or sense of urgency, these articles clearly identified source(s) and/or processes that created urgency for changing curricula. Assessment data were specifically mentioned as a source to create urgency.…”

“…Assessment data were specifically mentioned as a source to create urgency. For example, internal reviews, 12,[14][15][16] survey data of students or new graduates, 12,16 and survey data from faculty members 12,15,16 were all used to justify curricular reform. Other influences that added to the sense of urgency were new accreditation standards 12,17,18 and availability of grants.…”