Trends in the Integration of Generic Skills to College Chemistry Curriculum and their Implications

Abstract

University science and engineering education has traditionally focused on science knowledge and scientific methods. However, the recent global trends are to emphasize generic abilities and skills such as communication skills, personal and social responsibility, ethics, and team skills that go beyond science when it comes to university science and engineering education. Furthermore, the current trends aim to incorporate generic abilities and skills into the regular science curriculum to ensure inclusiveness and accessibility. Based on these factors, there is the perception that chemistry professionals need to develop generic skills as well as chemistry knowledge, and that generic skills can be effectively developed in various contexts in the field of chemistry itself. This article presents the background and process in which education for cultivating students' generic abilities and skills is integrated into the college chemistry curriculum in the case of the United States, Europe, and Australia. The American Chemical Society, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, and the European Chemical Society have established new standards for their chemistry bachelor programs, including generic abilities and skills, through accreditation such as the ACS Approval program, Chemistry Threshold Learning Outcomes (CTLO), and the Eurobachelor® framework, respectively. In order to cultivate students’ generic abilities and skills in college chemistry education, a fundamental change from curriculum design to one that emphasize teaching-learning methods and evaluations is needed. To this end, professors' active participation is essential, so cooperation between academia and the government and financial and institutional support from the government are needed. Considering the criticism coming from academia for the demands for all universities to rapidly change into competency-based education in connection with the government’s financial support, all of which is taking place without sufficient discussion and preparation in Korea, it is worth noting the implications of mutual respect and cooperation between the government and academia in the aforementioned three cases.