Implications for the Organization and Operation of Liberal Arts Curriculum by the Difference in Educational Consumers' Perception of the Identity and Content of Liberal Arts Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine whether there are differences in the perception of the importance of liberal arts education by role and content for each educational consumer and to derive implications for how to reflect these differences in the organization and operation of the liberal arts curriculum. To achieve this, basic statistical analyses and one-way ANOVA were conducted on survey data collected from 1,720 students, faculty, graduates, and industry representatives in Busan, Korea. The results confirmed differences in perception among each educational consumer regarding which role of general education is considered more important. In particular, students perceived all roles of general education except for ‘complementing major education’ as less important compared to other consumer groups. Clear differences were also observed in the importance attributed to specific content areas by each group. While Faculty and industry representatives perceived the importance of humanities most highly, students and graduates prioritized employment-related areas such as practical skills, IT utilization skills, and foreign language abilities. Moreover, they perceived the importance of humanities and social sciences, which correspond to the traditional liberal arts and education areas, as less significant. Based on this difference in perception of the educational consumer groups, four implications for practitioners to consider in the process of development and implementation of liberal arts education were proposed.