Abstract:

Curriculum reform in higher education has been taking place in many countries, with much attention paid to many such as the national-level Bologna process in Europe, institutional-level Melbourne Model in Australia and discipline-level Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000). Reforms are not always accepted favorably by relevant stakeholders. Announcements, consultations, implementation and staff and student development all need to be in place to ensure smooth transition and the process can still produce negative result and criticism. Despite the vast amount of literature on curriculum reform, existing studies (e.g. Muller, Jain, Loeser, & Irby, 2008; Sunal, Hodges, & Sunal, 2001) focusing on faculty views of curriculum changes in higher education are scarce. This paper gives a detailed account of the reform initiatives taking place in the recent Hong Kong educational system and in particular, focusing at a research-intensive university in Hong Kong through literature and consultations. Being aware that teachers often face challenges in dealing with curriculum changes, this small-scale study aims to identify areas which faculty members require assistance in their professional development by investigating university teachers’ perception of the curriculum reform in the Science discipline. Through quantitative and qualitative methods, it was found that academics expressed doubts towards the implementation of outcome-based and student-centered learning approaches in the new curriculum despite their understanding of these concepts. Conclusion of the study points to the importance of bottom-up support in the implementation of curriculum reform.

Keywords:

Curriculum reform, Hong Kong, 3+3+4, bologna process, graduate attributes, assessment.