Course: Nursing Pedagogy and Curriculum

Development for MSc Nursing

By Tesfaye Assebe
March 2024

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 Unit V: Subject Benchmarking and
Curriculum Development

• Presentation outline
• Use of Benchmarking in curriculum development
• Components of Subject Benchmark Information
• Definitions and Conceptions of curriculum
• Curriculum Development, Planning, and curriculum design
process
• Curriculum Evaluation

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 Objectives
• At the end of the session the students able to
• Use Benchmarking in curriculum development
• Describe components of Subject Benchmark Information
• Define curriculum and Conceptions of curriculum
• Describe curriculum Development, Planning, and
curriculum design process
• Describe curriculum Evaluation

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 What is curriculum ?

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 Definition of curriculum
The word curriculum comes from the Latin word meaning "a course
for racing." or literally means "to run a course.“
The term curriculum means many things to many people.
• Curriculum
 Planned learning experiences that the educational institution
intends to provide for its learners.
 Content:- what one learns.
 A sequence of courses.
 A set of performance of objectives
 outcomes in the forms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
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The curriculum is not just a list of courses
• Organizations of the educational program actually created in
schools by teachers, students, and administrators.
• All planned learning for which the school is responsible.
• All the experiences learners have under the guidance of the
school.
• Both a written document and the actual practice of
implementing an academic program.
• Unique and based on the healthcare needs of the population it
is designed to serve.

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Benchmarking aims

• To compare the processes and practices of one institution to

another institution with lower and higher standing.
• In nursing, benchmarking is conducted to improve their
international reputation (status) and ranking in terms of
research outputs, research grants, and publications as well as
students’ perceptions of their experiences and employers’
evaluations of the graduates.

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 Importance

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 The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Education
and Training Authority (ETA)

• Formerly called Higher Education Relevance and Quality

Assurance Agency (HERQA) is
• instituted as an executive organization in the country
responsible for regulating, monitoring and evaluating the
quality of education

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 ETA Activities
• Authentication: Verifying and certifying the authenticity
(validity) and legality of educational credentials (authorizarion)
earned from local HEI

• Equivalence: Verification of the level of the foreign educational

credential to be valid and equivalent to the local one.

• Accreditation: Accreditation is a systematic quality assurance

process in which higher education institution programs are
evaluated to determine if minimum standards are met.
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 Accreditation
• It is a mechanism to make sure that programs are opened after standards are

met.

• In line with this, no institution is allowed to start a program before the

accreditation of the program by the Agency.

• Re-accreditation is the renewal of accreditation.

• Accreditation process begins with a written request by the Higher Education

Institution.

• The institution presents the request attached with legal, governance and

systematic documents; and when overall preparations are finalized.

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 Internal assessment indicators
Sr.# Areas/standards (# indicators) Internal Audit performance
1st Assessment 2nd Assessment
# %# %
1 Program Outcome
2 Curriculum
3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment
4 Students
5 Academic Staff
6 Educational Resources
7 Research, and Community Engagement
8 Program Management
9 Continual Quality Improvement
Overall
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 Curriculum conception

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 Component of curriculum

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 Curriculum Planning

Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities

required to achieve a desired goal.

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Factors affecting curriculum planning

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Curriculum design

• Curriculum design focuses on the

– creation of the overall course blueprint,

– mapping content to learning objectives,

– how to develop a course outline and build the course.

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• Each learning objective is met with

– assessment strategies,

– exercises

– content

– subject matter analysis, and

– interactive activities.
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 Selection of curriculum design

An important decision for selecting an appropriate design is based on

1. The goals and objectives.
2.The nature of the learner
3. The nature of society
4. The political and social constraints prevailing.

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 characteristics of curriculum design

• Curriculum design is purposeful

• Curriculum design is deliberate
• Curriculum design is creative that can be pursued in a rigorous
series of steps.
• Opportunities for innovative thinking, novel concepts, and invention
to be introduced.
• Curriculum design operates on many levels
• Curriculum design requires compromises well-perfection is not its
aim.
• Curriculum designs can fail

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Curriculum Development

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Stages of curriculum development

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 7. Curriculum revision
8. curriculum improvement

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step. 1. Situational analysis/Needs assessment

• “...The systematic collection and analysis of all subjective and

objective information necessary to define and validate
defensible curriculum purposes that satisfy the program/course
learning requirements of students within the context of
particular institutions that influence the learning and teaching
situation.”
• (H. D. Brown, 1995)
• Performing a needs assessment should be the first step in
developing a curriculum.
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 Situational Analysis /Need assessment….

• is a discrepancy between an existing set of circumstance and some

desired set of circumstance.
• The discrepancies can be described in terms of Knowledge,
attitude and performance
• Describe the rationale, problem, logics, facts, and figure related to
health/soci-econmic issue that would influence the reader for the
need a specific program.

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 Cont’d

• Useful information about students

– Academic background and experience
– Motivation
– Demographic characteristics
– Learning style and habits

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 Cont’d
Useful information about society

• Students to whom we design courses are part of the society

• Understand community since students live with them and most
likely work for them
• The need and aspiration of the society
• The socio-political and economic philosophy of the society
• Social and economic need

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 Cont’d

The needs and aspiration of the society

• We have national development need derive from society
– Malnutrition

– HIV/AIDS

– Sanitary problem

– MCH problem

• As we design our courses, we should be conscious of the need to

train our students based on these problem

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 Cont’d
The socio-political and Economic Philosophy of the society:

• In Africa public universities financed and supported by

government
• Course offered in line with it and priority of the country need
• In order to design and modify courses we need to be careful
on education relevancy to the country
• Need to up to date
• Researcher carried out to keep and changing KAP

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 Pose the right questions: Outcomes

• What is the desired outcome of the course or training?

• What do the students or trainees need to be able to do at the
conclusion of the course?
• What kinds of skills do they need?
• Setting?
• professional functions?

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Resources and constraints
• What resources are available to make this happen?
– Space
– People
– Money
– Technology
• What are the constraints?
– Money
– Time
– Human resources and personnel
– Funds for materials/curriculum development
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 Analyze and interpret the data
What does the data mean?
– Sources
– Patterns and trends
– Different perspectives
– Who is the audience for your findings?
– Do you need a formal report?
– Don’t discount your experience

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 Importance of the need assessment
• Diagnosis of needs
• Formulation of objectives
• Selection of content
• Organization of content
• Selection of learning
experiences
• Organization of learning
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• Determining evaluation
mechanisms
• Is there demand for the course?
• Who are the likely stakeholders?
• Where will the course be held?
• How many students will be
admitted to the course? etc
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 Step 2. Objective Formulation

 These are breaking down of graduate outcome at General,

intermediate, and specific manner that allows logical acquisition
of content and process
 In formulating objectives, we are trying to address a fundamental
question: what is the purpose of teaching this course?

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 Step 2…

 Learning objectives should be formulated in measurable

terms and should measure all of the following:
content to be mastered
skills to be mastered
habits to be learned
techniques to be acquired
behaviour and attitudes to be developed.

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 Blooms Taxonomy

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Step 3. Selection of Learning experiences to achieve these selection

• concerned with making decisions about the experiences in

theory and practical which need to be given to the students
undergoing any educational programme.
• This section will help you understand the concept, basis,
principles and criteria of selection of learning experience.

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Elements of learning experiences

• A qualified learner
• subject matter for learning
• contextual relevance of the learning
• Learning outcomes.

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 Step 4, selection of the Content

• It should comprise and reflect a selection of knowledge, skills,

values and attitudes relevant and valued by the profession,
subject disciplines and by the wider society.
• The content is usually derived from objectives

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 Steps 3 ...Cont’d
We should check:
• That the content reflects the job that the learners will be asked to
do after training
• That the content relates directly to the learning outcomes
• That the total time given to each element of the course is
appropriate
• Balance between theory and practice is appropriate
• That the content is pitched at an appropriate level for the learners

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 Step 3...
• Based on your discipline, you select the knowledge, skills and
attitudes needed in order to achieve the set objectives
• What you should come up with are the main topics and sub-
topics to be covered
• You should also identify the main tasks to be carried out
• The amount of the content you select will obviously be dictated
by the time available and the depth you consider necessary to
go in to.

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 Steps 3...

• Is the topic of special interest to the students?

• Is the topics appropriate to the students’ level of attainment?
• Are you, capable of handling the topic effectively?
• Are there adequate resources
• An effective way to teaching depends on how well the learning
experiences are organized

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 Step 5.Organization and integration of the learning experiences

Effective organization involves:

 Continuity: means that one learning experience should reinforce
another.
 Sequence: is starting from simple aspect and gradually build up
to ones that are more complex.
 Integration: means that various learning experience related to
the same subject should be so organized to form a whole

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 Steps 3...
• How will you organize what you teach (sequencing)?

1. Topic-by-Topic or parallel Theme Approach: topics

are treated independently of one another and can thus be
studied in any order, topic 1, 2....
2. Chronological Sequencing/Historical approach: here
events happening over period of time are presented in
the same order in which they happened

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 Step 3…

3. Cause and effects chain approach: here the content is

presented in cause and effect order.
E.g. Disease, which are caused by bacteria, virus....

4. Structured or Discipline’s own logic approach/

Prerequisite; in discipline one topic sometimes can not
be learned prior understanding of some other topics

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 Step 3...

5. Problem cantered approach: in this approach content is

organized in the form of concrete problems, which are
presented to the learner for exploration and solution

• An instructional student-centered approach: which uses

carefully constructed clinical problems as a context for
students to:
• define their learning needs, conduct self-directed enquiry,
integrate theory and practice, and apply knowledge and skills
to develop a solution to a defined problem.
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 Step3…

Other procedures for content/curriculum organization

include

 Moving from simple to complex

 Moving from the whole to parts or vice versa

 Moving from known to unknown

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Step 6. Curriculum evaluation

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 Factors affecting Curriculum Development

1. Knowledge explosion

2. Technological expansion

3. Specialization

4. Economic and political factors

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Summary

• Benchmarking

• Conception

• Planning

• Design

• Development

• Monitoring Evaluation

• Revision

• Improvement
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 Summary

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 Thank you!

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