Exploring Curriculum Flexibility and Compliance through the Use of a Metric for Curricular Progression
Exploring Curriculum Flexibility and Compliance through the Use of a Metric for Curricular Progression
复制标题
通过使用课程进度指标探索课程的灵活性和合规性
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
M. Ohland
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
G. Ricco;M. Ohland
工程纵向发展研究多机构数据库 (MIDFIELD) 包含十个合作机构的学生的学术记录，这些机构占美国工程专业学生的 10% 以上。 MIDFIELD 在课程探索方面的潜力是巨大的，以前从未尝试过。通过使用每个 ABET EAC 认证的 MIDFIELD 项目的院系毕业要求和超过 400,000 名工程专业学生，我们根据是否完全完成学期要求构建了一组课程检查点。虽然我们发现了指标构建中的预期模式，但我们还发现了一些指标，表明工程专业比以前想象的要灵活得多。近 50% 的工程学位毕业生没有以传统方式在前四个学期完成专业要求的所有课程。此外，学生不仅在早期课程中享受灵活性，而且在后期学期也享受专业课程占主导地位的课程。这项研究的目的是提供一个新的衡量标准来描述工程专业的灵活性，并进一步讨论学生在专业上的进步将如何需要重要的、未来的工作。简介和背景 MIDFIELD 小组的工作已得到广泛传播，可以在 MIDFIELD 网站上找到。此前，该项目广泛关注重要的工程教育问题，例如：学生对工程学科的坚持；使用定量和定性方法，女性在工程领域取得的成功；更好地理解工程的“管道”；和其他重要主题。纵观 MIDFIELD 工作的历史，除了使用数据库检查某些“看门人”课程（例如第一年的微积分和化学）之外，扩展到个人课程作业领域的情况很少。项目团队需要开发一种方法来研究广泛的课程组，并找到一种方法来描述可在各个机构应用的学生进步（或缺乏）的模式。产生这种心态的原因是：首先，对课程设置的讨论似乎是研究大规模坚持和毕业趋势的更自然的进展；其次，它是对之前 MIDFIELD 工作的补充，这些工作讲述了学生进步和/或“成功”社区内外的许多长期存在的神话；第三，它解决了我们社区内完全缺乏对全系统课程灵活性的衡量；第四，数据库中记录了 38,000 多个机构的不同课程编号，为所有 MIDFIELD 学校构建全面的、单独的课程指标最好作为论文或重大研究资助的主题。显然，需要更多衡量学生成功的指标来衡量学生的毅力或课程动力。当今的工程界必须与认证委员会打交道，该认证委员会的标准被批评为不易评估。呼吁全系统变革以解决评估问题的论文 P ge 22687.3 传统上是较大机构机构广泛努力的产物。尽管这些论文可以为工程师机构应产生的类型提供合适的框架，但它们没有为它们所产生的变革提供明确的路线图。 《2020 年工程师》的著名专栏类似于“不让一个孩子掉队”(NCLB) 的任务：该报告并未在美国甚至国际上的大多数工程机构中引起强烈反响或统一；该报告没有为必要的离散变革提供商定的路线图；它没有任何系统建设或能力改造资金；最后，它没有明显的、令人担忧的后果。这种衡量标准的目的可能会给工程教育界和整个高等教育界灌输一种警惕感。部分问题在于高等教育层面的数据政策和整合的现状。高等教育机构之间的协作数据整合一直很少，全国学生参与度调查 (NSSE) 等项目与综合高等教育数据系统 (IPEDS) 等 K-12 系统的结果相形见绌。 11] 联邦单位记录系统的完全缺乏在多个社区中引起了极大的恐慌。工程教育界本身已经被“课程”这个词所吸引。然而，搜索包含该词的期刊文章和论文会产生有关个别课程的论文、工程课程发展的历史基础或学校的案例研究，这些学校的课程改革已带来某种理想的变化。我们可以审视众多要求将基于项目的学习（PBL）更紧密地纳入工程教育课程的呼声，或者思考对侧重于改革化学、土木或机械工程中的一个或多个课程的课程改革的呼声，20]，甚至是更广泛范围的对整个课程进行改革的呼声。我们甚至可以简单地在顶点设计主题上涉足一大堆要求改革的呼声，这些呼声将研究场景描绘得像一场持续多年的洪水一样。26]工程教育本身的历史，无论是由原始资料来源还是现代资料来源报道，通常从大范围的角度来叙述课程的进展。历史上记载的内战后工程教育在“伟大战争”时代及以后的进展，常常讲述了由于必要性或即时性或为了响应某些共同主题而进行的完整课程改革的有趣故事。
The Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) contains academic records for students at ten partner institutions comprising over 10% of the United States’ engineering students. The potential of MIDFIELD for curricular exploration is vast and has never been previously attempted. By using department graduation requirements for each ABET EAC-accredited MIDFIELD program and more than 400,000 engineering students, we construct a set of curricular checkpoints based on semester requirements being fully completed or not. While we discovered expected patterns within the construction of the metric, we also discovered indicators that engineering majors are vastly more flexible than previously thought. Almost 50% of students who graduated with degrees in engineering do not complete every course required by their major in their first, four semesters in the traditional manner. Furthermore, students not only enjoy flexibility in their early curricula but also enjoy through their later semesters where specialization courses dominate the curriculum. The aim of this research is to provide a new metric for describing the flexibility of engineering majors and further the discussion into how student progression through a major will require significant, future work. Introduction and Background The work of the MIDFIELD group has been widely disseminated and can be found on the MIDFIELD website. Previously, the project has focused extensively on important engineering education issues such as: the persistence of students in engineering disciplines; the success of women in engineering using quantitative and qualitative approaches; a better understanding of the “pipeline” of engineering; and other important topics. Throughout the history of MIDFIELD work, expanding into the realm of individual coursework has been sparse outside of using the database to examine certain “gatekeeper” courses, such as first year calculus and chemistry. The project team needed to develop a method to look at wide groups of courses and find a way to describe patterns of student progression (or lack thereof) that could be applied across institutions. The reasons for that mindset are: first, discussion of sets of curricula seemed a more natural progression from studying large-scale persistence and graduation trends; second, it is complementary to previous MIDFIELD work that spoke to many long-standing myths within and without the community of student progression and/or “success”; third, it addresses the complete lack of measurements of system-wide curricular flexibility within our community; and fourth, with more than 38,000 different course numbers on file for institutions within the database, the construction of a thorough, individual course metric for all MIDFIELD schools is better left as a topic of a thesis or major research grant. The need for more metrics of student success that address persistence or curricular momentum is clear. The engineering community of today has to grapple with an accreditation board who’s standards have been criticized as not being readily assessable. The papers consumed with calling for system-wide change that would address assessment issues have P ge 22687.3 traditionally been products of expansive efforts by larger institutional bodies. Although such papers could provide a suitable framework for the type of engineer institutions should produce, they have provided no definitive roadmap for the change they engender. The noted columns of the Engineer of 2020 are akin to the mandate of No Child Left Behind (NCLB): the report does not resound strongly across or unify the majority of engineering institutions in the United States or even internationally; the report provides no agreed-upon roadmap for discrete changes that are imperative; it comes with no system-building or capacity-changing funds; and finally, it is without apparent and feared consequence. The purpose of such a metric may instill a sense of wariness in the engineering education community and within the post-secondary community at large. Part of the issue lies in the current state of data policy and integration at the post-secondary level. Collaborative data integration among post-secondary institutions has been sparse, with projects such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) dwarfed by the results of K-12 systems such as the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). 11] The complete lack of a federal unit records system has been of much consternation within multiple communities. The engineering education community itself has been consumed with the word curriculum; however, searches into journal articles and papers containing the word yield treatises on individual courses, historical underpinnings of the engineering curriculum’s development, or case studies from schools whose revamped curriculum has engendered some sort of desirable change. We can examine the numerous calls for Project Based Learning (PBL) to be incorporated more closely into the engineering education curriculum or ponder the calls for curriculum reform that focus on reforming one class or sets of classes in chemical or civil or mechanical engineering, 20] or even the broader scope of calls to revamp curriculum as a whole. We could even wade through a sea of calls to reform simply on the topic of capstone design, which paint the research scene like a deluge over a range of years 26] The histories of engineering education themselves, whether reported by primary sources or modern sources, recount curriculum progressions usually from large-scale points of view. The progression of post-Civil War engineering education through the “Great War” era and beyond often as recorded in histories tell interesting stories of complete curriculum overhauls as prompted by necessity or immediacy or in response to some common theme.