Doctoral Dissertations

James G. Ward

Date of Award

8-1987

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Curriculum and Instruction

Major Professor

John R. Ray

Committee Members

Ilona Leki, Patricia Davis Wiley, Russell L. French, Anand Malik

Abstract

This study was undertaken to provide English as a Foreign Language program administrators with an efficient, effective, systematic, and comprehensive guide to curriculum evaluation. The study applies the curriculum evaluation framework developed by Dr. Jerry Bellon and Dr. Janet Handler of The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to an overseas English language teaching program and analyzes the impact of the framework.

The study was divided into two phases. In Phase 1, the Bellon and Handler curriculum evaluation framework was applied to the English as a Foreign Language program at the Huffco Indonesia intensive English Language program in Balikpapan, Indonesia, by the researcher, who was employed at the site. In Phase 2 of the study, the impact of the evaluation framework was analyzed.

Following the organization of the Bellon and Handler evaluation framework, questions were designed by the researcher and his dissertation committee for phase 1 of the study. One set of questions formed a status description. Another set of questions collected information about the program's goals, organization, operations (curriculum and instruction), and outcomes. A third set of questions addressed recommendations to improve the program under study.

The researcher attempted to answer the questions for the first phase through interviews with teachers and the administrative staff Ill and review of written documents of the Manpower Training and Development Department of Huffco, Indonesia, the department in charge of the intensive English program.

In a separate notebook, the researcher recorded the comments and actions of all respondents outside of the interview setting during the second phase of the study. Only the comments made directly to the reseacher were recorded. Second-hand comments were not included. The reactions of respondents during the interviews were also recorded. Data were recorded under the name of the respondent. This information was used to answer the questions concerning problems that emerged during the evaluation and ways to avoid and/or solve these problems, positive results of the evaluation process, and unexpected outcomes. Suggestions were made to improve the framework.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS