A comparative study on student perceptions of their learning outcomes in undergraduate science degree programmes with differing curriculum models

ABSTRACT

This study investigated students’ perceptions of their graduate learning outcomes including content knowledge, communication, writing, teamwork, quantitative skills, and ethical thinking in two Australian universities. One university has a traditional discipline-orientated curriculum and the other, an interdisciplinary curriculum in the entry semester of first year. The Science Students Skills Inventory asked students (n = 613) in first and final years to rate their perceptions of the importance of developing graduate learning outcomes within the programme; how much they improved their graduate learning outcomes throughout their undergraduate science programme; how much they saw learning outcomes included in the programme; and how confident they were about their learning outcomes. A framework of progressive curriculum development was adopted to interpret results. Students in the discipline-oriented degree programme reported higher perceptions of scientific content knowledge and ethical thinking while students from the interdisciplinary curriculum indicated higher perceptions of oral communication and teamwork. Implications for curriculum development include ensuring progressive development from first to third years, a need for enhanced focus on scientific ethics, and career opportunities from first year onwards.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning gains
• science skills
• undergraduate science
• student perceptions
• interdisciplinary science
• curriculum development

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Genesta Nicolson for assistance with statistical analysis, Lucy Mercer-Mapstone and Lorelei Hine for critical feedback on a draft of this manuscript, and the students who participated in our study. The manuscript was improved thanks to thoughtful commentary of the peer reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.