Abstract:

Learning outcomes (LOs) provide a student-centered approach to writing syllabi. The alignment among them and the selected topics and educational materials, activities, teaching, learning and assessment methods is necessary for writing such syllabi which can have a positive impact on students’ learning achievement. The goal of the research was to increase students’ knowledge and skills level expressed in Grade Point Average (GPA) numbers via their teachers’ purposeful work on LOs improvement and the subsequent changes in the syllabus. The paper investigated whether there was any positive impact of lecturers’ involvement in a training session and their students’ academic achievement. An experimental approach (with pre and post- experimental measurement of students’ GPAs) was applied. The duration of the experiment was 2 semesters. In the first semester a group of 17 volunteer lecturers from 7 universities in Georgia were involved in a four-week (12 hrs.) training on writing efficient LOs, after which they were expected to apply the gained knowledge and skills in the improvement of their syllabi. 6 teachers from this group were selected at random. Their students’ mean results in the semester preceding the changes and following them were compared. Paired samples T-test was held to see the statistical significance of the obtained results The experiment results revealed that there was an increase in GPAs in all 6 groups, however, some groups’ GPAs raised insignificantly, while the majority of the groups’ GPAs increased significantly. A conclusion was made that such trainings are needed to help lecturers develop such LOs that would have a positive impact on students’ learning.

Keywords:

Learning outcomes (LOs), assessment methods, GPA, academic achievement.