BIM and Sustainability Education: Incorporating Instructional Needs into Curriculum Planning in CEM Programs Accredited by ACCE

Abstract

Higher education ought to support the identification of training needs for industrial building information modelling (BIM) curriculum development and sustainability education in the fields of civil engineering and management (CEM). This paper proposes a framework based on a four-phase step-by-step quality function deployment (QFD) application for CEM curriculum planning and quality management. The framework attempts to respond to requests collected from 17 professionals and professors in order to integrate BIM into the higher education curriculum in China with a specific focus on construction management programs accredited by the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE). The entropy method and a K1–K6 scale adapted from Bloom’s revised cognitive process were employed to evaluate the CEM curriculum in QFD. The proposed framework was successfully applied to CEM curriculum planning, which included two curriculums of the four main knowledge areas provided by the Chinese CEM guidelines: construction cost and flow construction. Two curriculum areas showed that content should focus on knowledge such as (a) Program evaluation and review technique(PERT) planning; (b) construction optimization in flow construction; (c) principles of bill of quantities and (d) construction consumption in construction costs. As for teaching quality management in China, the higher education curriculum should focus on three aspects to promote curriculum integration: (a) pedagogical design; (b) teaching resource and material and (c) curriculum assessment. This research sheds light on the pedagogical shift to a similar context that has established guidelines accredited by the ACCE, with respect to reviewing curriculum planning from a knowledge system perspective in order to meet industrial demands at the operational level.