Curriculum Development Competency of Pedagogical Students: An Exploratory Study from Vietnam

Abstract

The curriculum development capacity of pedagogical students as pre-service teachers at universities of education plays a decisive role in the process of achieving the educational goals of a nation. In Vietnam, ethnic minority students have more drawbacks than their peers, so the issues of enhancing curriculum development capacity for ethnic minority students in pedagogical universities in Vietnam need to be paid more attention. In this study, the researchers used a quantitative research method to assess the curriculum development competency of students in general and ethnic minority students, in particular, at several pedagogical universities in Vietnam. The study was carried out online through Google Forms. After data collection, the study obtained 1 246 responses from 1 510 students of nine pedagogical universities. Research findings show that (1) there are three groups of competencies with 15 components of curriculum development competency, including comprehension (knowledge) of curriculum development (A1); practical skills (skills) of curriculum development (A2) and emotional competency (attitudes) about curriculum development (A3); (2) The curriculum development competency of ethnic minority students in pedagogical universities is quite good, in which the component competencies range from 3.7 and 3.9 in average point for each of the above groups of competencies (on a 5-point Likert Scale). Research findings suggest contributing to providing scientific bases and useful suggestions for developing sustainable education in different regions of Vietnam.