An educational rationale for determining levels of undergraduate units

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 26: Learning for an Unknown Future

July, 2003, 692 pages
Published by
Helen Mathews and Rod McKay
ISBN
0 90 8557 55 8
Abstract 

Almost all Australian universities structure their programmes by offering units of study at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels, a practice which significantly impacts upon student progression and student expectations of degrees of difficulty within individual units of study. While the determination of unit levels is widespread, responses to an Australia-wide survey of universities indicates that the process of levels determination is not clearly grounded in educational theory. To address this situation a dialogue process model is proposed which combines a discipline-centred framework and a learner-centred framework. Some suggestions are also put forward to enhance the implementation of this model by curriculum designers.

Keywords: curriculum structure; levels of undergraduate units of study; educational theory