Conceptualizing Curriculum Evaluation in Education Degree Programmes in Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Curriculum transformation in schools impacted the skills demanded on new teachers. The major changes in the curriculum is on the new students aspirations which focuses on the development of the 21st century skills. Teachers’ educational background, personality attributes, cognitive ability, students and teaching related skills are among the factors that affect the quality of teachers. These attributes and skills most part of it are developed through their university experience. Teacher education curriculum is considered effective only when it produces effective teachers at least as measured by the Malaysian Teacher Education Standards. To ensure continuous improvement in teacher education, curriculum evaluation at university level takes place with the awareness of the new needs, criteria and demands from stakeholders based on countries experiences. The curriculum evaluation leads to new curriculum development, preparing students with new skills, 21st century skills based on future needs (Ministry of Education, Malaysia, 2015). Curriculum evaluation in teacher education programme serve its own needs, the specific stakeholders, external and internal. Due to the differences in types, resources, curriculum structures and the numbers of the Institutions involved in teacher training, variation exists in the implementation of the teacher education curriculum in HEIs. This paper conceptualizes the curriculum evaluation in teacher education programmes in HEIs to suit the current demand for teachers. The study adapts the curriculum evaluation process using Stufflebeam’s CIPP evaluation model. Each of the category context, input, process and output is represented by respective variables. The paper defines the concepts and models of curriculum evaluation introduced by past research and established theories. The dependent variable of this study is the ‘product’ labelled as quality and competitive graduates represented by the indicators of teacher professionalism from the Malaysia Teacher Standard. The competitive teacher graduates are measured through four dimensions of teacher graduates; the practice of professional teachers, the teaching skills, knowledge and understandings of educations philosophy and finally the leadership skills in teachers.