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Article In Conference |
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Study Guide: An Important Tool for Curriculum Development دليل الطالب للمنهج الدراسي: وسيلة مهمة لتطوير المناهج الدراسية |
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Arabic |
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Abstract |
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Workshop Means to Implement the Document of Views of Prince Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz on Higher Education, KAAU, Jeddah (Dhu Al-Hijjah 1425H/ February 2005 A.D.)
173
Study Guide: An Important Tool for Curriculum Development
Dr. Abdulmonem A. Al-Hayani and Dr. Awdah M. Al-Hazimi
Faculty of Medicine, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
hayani30@hotmail.com
ABSTRACT. Study guides can make a major contribution to learning. They
are likened to a tutor sitting on the students shoulder-available 24 hours a
day to advise the students what they should be doing at any stage in their
study.
Study guides are different from textbooks. Study guides have three roles in
facilitating learning: (1) assisting in the management of student learning; (2)
providing a focus for student activities relating to the learning; (3) providing
information on the subject or topic of study. A study guide triangle model can
be used to represent these different roles. Guides can be placed at different
points in the triangle reflecting the relative emphasis on these three functions.
The composition of a study guide will depend on its purpose.
Study guides may include an overview of the course, the expected learning
outcomes, the prerequisites, the timetable, the learning strategies and
opportunities, assessment information, staff contacts and personal comments
from staff. The guide can be designed to encourage students to interact with
the subject through questions, student activities and self-assessment
exercises. The guide may be developed as a portfolio or record of students
information. Extracts from previously published content information or new
information on the topic produced by the authors can be included in the
guide.
Steps in preparing a guide can be considered under the following headings:
(1) deciding on the function and format of the guide; (2) relating the study
guide to the curriculum; (3) writing the guide. A well-written guide is a
management tool that encourages both the teacher and the student to assume
responsibility for learning.
Aims of this review
Study guide is becoming an integral part of any reformed curricula of both
undergraduate and postgraduate education. It is a natural response to the explosion of
information in every specialty of both science and literature. The aims of this review
174 Dr. Abdulmonem A. Al-Hayani and Dr. Awdah M. Al-Hazimi
are:
1. To emphasize on the importance of study guide as an important tool to develop
our university curricula.
2. To guide people on the scientific steps to prepare their own study guide.
Introduction
Travel guides are an expanding area in publishing. Their popularity stems from
traveler’s needs to seek guidance or support when visiting a country or area, perhaps for
the first time. Travelers recognize that, to maximize the often limited time at their
disposal, they need to be pointed in the right direction to visit the attractions or sights of
the most interest to them. A good travel guide can meet their needs. The guide will help
them to get the maximum benefit from their visit and help them to understand and
appreciate what they are seeing. Advice is usually contained in the guide relating to
accommodation and the different forms of transport available at the destination and a
relative cost. Information in the guide may be read in advance of the visit to prepare the
traveler for the journey. Some travelers prefer to plan their own itinerary. In these
circumstances, information in travel guide is invaluable. Just as a travel guide is a useful
resource for the traveler, a study guide serves the same functions relative to student’s
studies.
By reviewing the articles and books that these searches yielded, we found
recurrent themes that can be placed under the following headings:
• Definition of the study guide
• The importance of study guides
• The function of study guide
• Designing and preparation of a study guide
• Electronic Study guides
• Conclusion and Recommendations
Definition of the Study Guide
Laidlaw and Harden [1] defined a study guide as “an aid, usually in the form of
printed notes, designed to assist students with their learning. It indicates what should be
learned, how it can be learned, and how students can recognize if they have learned it”.
A study guide can be seen as a management tool, which allows the teacher to exercise
his responsibilities while at the same time giving the student an important part to play in
managing his own learning.
The study guide can be seen as a tutor sitting on the students’ shoulder, available
24 hours a day to advise the students what they should be doing at any stage in their
study [2] .A study guide is an aid, usually in the form of printed notes, but they may be
presented electronically.
Harden [2] captured the idea well when he linked a study guide to traveler guide. The
study guide is quite different from a textbook or a book of readings; these are intended
to communicate information. While the study guide may also communicate information,
Study Guide: an important tool for curriculum development
175
its primary purpose is to communicate teaching. For this reason, it is sometimes referred
to as ‘a tutorial in text” [3].
The Importance of Study Guides
Study guide is an essential student learning tool and can be seen as one response
to a number of trends in curriculum development [2-5].
• A move to more independent learning
The undergraduate curriculum cannot equip students with the knowledge and
skills required for a life-time practice of any specialty. Students can learn more
effectively working on their own rather than attending formal lecture courses2. There
has been a move from teacher-centered approach where the student takes more
responsibility for their own learning. Students need guidance and assistance with this
approach and study guides have an important role to play.
• Increase availability of learning resource material
There is a wealth of learning resources material around. Printed material in the
form of textbooks or printed journals, audiovisual programs and more importantly the
World Wide Web (WWW). On the other hand, information overload is well
documented as a major problem facing education, with knowledge expanding at more
than 14% per year, a figure predicted to rise to 40% per year [2]. There are increased
expectations of training programs but the time available for their delivery is fixed.
Students are expected to learn more but within the same period of time. The result is
that they have to be selective in what they study and they need help to do this and study
guide have an important role to play.
• Curriculum change
Generally, the curriculum of many specialties (e.g. medical curriculum) has
become increasingly complex with integration and the introduction of new educational
strategies such as problem-based learning, and teaching and learning in a variety of sites
and contexts. Study guides help students to learn within an integrated curriculum and
assist them to make the best use of the resources available [4].
In Saudi Arabia, probably in most developing countries, the undergraduate curriculum
of many faculties & specialties is still traditional, teaching is discipline-based. Each
discipline has a separate block of time. The student has to synthesize these separate
blocks of knowledge for themselves. Now, however, there is intention to reform many
curricula in many most of the undergraduate specialties. Therefore, we are moving
towards a more complex curriculum where study guides are essential tool for student
learning.
• Increased accountability and effectiveness in education
Study guides help the students as well as the teachers to ensure that the learning
process is as efficient as possible. The guide can also help the teacher to become more
176 Dr. Abdulmonem A. Al-Hayani and Dr. Awdah M. Al-Hazimi
realistic. Some teachers have unrealistic expectations of what can be learned by the
students in a given time. By putting a time allocation on each learning activity it is
possible for the teacher to have a clearer idea.
Study guide can help the teachers to communicate between themselves. This is
important since many staff is now involved in teaching undergraduate students. The
study guide will co-ordinate activities and prevent unnecessary duplication [6].
• Distance learning
Distance learning is now a fast growing educational approach. The foundation of
every good distance education course is the study guide, whether in an electronic
version or the far more popular form of a printed handbook.
Functions of Study Guides
Harden introduced what is called “study guide triangle model” as shown in figure
(1) [2]. The guide can be located along the boundaries or within the triangle as illustrated
below.
Fig. 1. The study guide triangle [2].
This model can be used to represent different functions or roles of the study
guides. For example, some undergraduate teachers see the principal function of the
study guide as the presentation of content materials, with the key facts emphasized,
difficult concepts explained and illustrated, and new up-to-date facts provided.
Generally, the type of information can be classified into the following two categories:
Provision of
content information
Management of
learning
A
B C
? Guide to comprises
content related
information
? No student activities
? No help with learning or
? Guide to learning and to
the curriculum
? No content information
? No student activities
? Guide based on student
activities
? No content information
? No help with learning or
introduction to the
curriculum
D ·
Student
Activities
Study Guide: an important tool for curriculum development
177
• Previously published information: quotations from other texts, an article from a
journal and further references.
• New information: tips and comments from teacher, a glossary, key points on the
topic being studied.
Some of undergraduate teacher may see the guide as a tool to manage students’
learning, providing students with advice about the expected learning outcomes and how
they can achieve these, and guiding students in their approach to their studies and in
their use of the various learning resources. A third perspective of study guide is where
emphasis lays with the students activities. In this perspective the guide will provide, for
example, a set of questions to allow students to test their understanding of the text,
small project, assignment, students’ portfolio and record of achievement [2].
In practice, most guides provide a mixture of these functions in varying
proportions. There is no rigid prescription with regard to the function and role of a study
guide. The function depends on the purposes for which the guide is intended. Some of
the study guide will provide information on the topic as indicated by A in Fig (1). Other
study guide may assist students in managing their own learning, B in Fig (1). A third
type is the guide provides a focus for educational activities relating to learning as
indicated by C in Fig (1). However, most of the study guides are multidimensional
where all three functions are emphasized in different proportions. Table 1 summarizes
the main content of study guide.
Preparation of a Study Guide
There are several useful publications about the designing of the study guide [2-5], [7-9].
The time spent in the designing of a study guide is well rewarded. Students are likely to
make very good use of a well designed guide but may not look to those which are not
attractive and poorly repaired [4]. Harden [2] gives good practical steps in the preparation
of a study guide. Here are the main steps:
• Use advance organizers. Their purpose is to prepare the students for new topics.
They should take on board the background of the students and they need to
know to continue successfully in their study.
• Make use of headings which help to provide a structure to your writing.
• Build in some pre-test and self assessment exercise but try to make them
stimulating thinking and understanding not just factual recall.
• Incorporate some illustrations e.g. cartoons, pictures and figures. Bear in mind
that illustrations can have different functions – the most important being to help
your students better understand a piece of text. Illustration can break up the text
and make it less dense to read.
• Keep sentences short and simple. This will help the student to read it and
understand it easily. It is important to use familiar words especially in the
developing country where the language of instruction is not the mother-tongue
of most of the students
• Write in the active voice. Active voice is more easily understood.
• Adopt conversational style which is much more user friendly.
178 Dr. Abdulmonem A. Al-Hayani and Dr. Awdah M. Al-Hazimi
Table 1. Content of study guide, reproduced from (2).
A Information
1 Reference to texts and journals
2 Quotations from text and journals
3 Complete text or articles
4 Longer extract from text
5 Complete texts or articles
6 Short comments on the topic
7 Short notes
8 Key or core information
9 More extended account of the topic
10 Glossary, definitions or list of terms used
B Management of learning
1 Overview of topic or course
2 Learning outcomes
3 Prerequisites
4 Timetable
5 Learning strategies
6 Learning opportunities
7 Assessment
8 Staff contacts
9 Personal comments by authors
C Activities
1 Interaction with lectures and resource material
2 Application of theory to clinical practice
3 Self-assessment exercises
4 Record of achievement or portfolio
5 Personal information bank
6 Student comments on the guide
• Attention to the layout and the typography of the study guide are very important
issues. For instance, it is not advisable to use type smaller than 10 point;
otherwise you are in danger of the material not being read. If line lengths are too
short impair legibility.
• The guide should be divided in section on a clear scientific basis. This will help
the reader to move forward and backward more easily.
Study Guide: an important tool for curriculum development
179
• When it comes to the production phase. There are some important question that
should be addressed:
o How many copies of the study guide are required? This will help you to
decide whether it is an in-house printing production or commercial
production.
o Is color really necessary or is it just to make the product look nice? The
budget is important here.
o What type of paper should be used? There is a wide range of papers
available and you have to choose the reasonable type.
o Are you planning to print on the sides of the paper? You need to think
carefully about the capacity of the paper. There is nothing worse than an
image from a previous page shining through as you struggle to read new
information.
Electronic Study guides
To date, most study guides are printed on paper. Though a paper format can be
convenient, electronic study guides are gaining their place as learning tools in the
educational setting. Smyth [10] reported that the use of electronic study guide may have
the following advantages:
• Electronic study guide, in common with printed guides, can indicate what should
be learned, how it can be learned, and how students can recognize if they have
learned it.
• The electronic format allows the students to make links between different
sections of the guide. Moreover, student can make links between the guide and
different useful sites on the web. For example, student looking at a course
objective of heart sounds in cardiovascular system module can move almost
instantly to the relevant annotated list of learning opportunities. These might
include observation of a video-clip, visiting a web site, a description in a
textbook on auscultation, clinical experience in the ward or at cardiac clinic.
Using the electronic study guide students can review whether they have the
necessary prerequisite. If in doubt, they can use the self-assessment component
to test themselves and to have immediate feedback electronically. Of course all
these procedures are possible with a printed study guides but not by the same
quality and speed of electronic study guide.
• The electronic study guide offers students the opportunity to individualize the
study guide to their own requirements. For example, they can add further
information or links and relate it to their own studies. This personalized
electronic information can develop and grow as the students progress, through
the whole and graduate study or may be even to postgraduate level. On the other
hand, the printed study guide is less flexible in terms of updating, and may
require the whole section to be added or changed.
• The electronic study guide can help the teacher and students to keep with
explosion of information. It allows students to build in their own indexing and
180 Dr. Abdulmonem A. Al-Hayani and Dr. Awdah M. Al-Hazimi
retrieval system. They can make links to information in an electronic textbook,
an electronic article, a useful web site or any other electronic material on the
network. Though all these procedures are possible with printed guides, they are
often cumbersome and seldom practical.
• The electronic study guide will motivate the students to improve their
information technology (IT) skills. It motivates them to use word processor and
the internet. Today, the IT course is an integral part of the undergraduate
medical curriculum. When using an electronic study guide students can integrate
the use of computer in the day-to-day activities.
• In electronic guides we can incorporate color, illustrations, photographs and
video sequences. With this facility, photographs can be used to introduce the
staff responsible for the course. The guide can show the layout of the library,
practical laboratory or clinical unit where the student will be studying. More
importantly, clinical problems or procedures can be introduced visually in the
study guide.
• Excluding the initial investment in hardware (which may be shared and the
hardware may have other uses), electronic study guide production and
distribution cost may be less than the printed one.
• Generally, the electronic format of the study guide can be updated more easily
than the printed format.
• The electronic guide allows the students to share resources and communicate
easily with each other and with their tutors. It also allows communication
between different medical colleges in the global electronic village [11].
• A study guide template may be prepared electronically to allow the teacher to
use the template for designing a study guide for their own course. An electronic
template will allow the teacher to produce a high quality with high flexibility.
Though the electronic study guide offers many advantages against printed study
guide, a few disadvantages may be raised.
• The most obvious disadvantage is the necessity of the student and the staff to
have access to a computer. However, the computer networks became an integral
part of any faculty where students have access to the computers in a daily basis.
For example, in King Abdul Aziz University there is an excellent computer
network which is not used properly for education. Most of the students use the
computer every day for E-mail, chatting and browsing of the web. Therefore, it
is time to move the computer skills of our students to the write direction by
using the electronic study guide.
• Another disadvantage is the necessity of the teachers to have good computer
skills. This is real challenge to the use of electronic instructional materials in
general. However, one of the main programs in staff development should be IT
skills. The need of some familiarization with computers is not really a
disadvantage but an advantage – it assists the staff to acquire confidence in this
area. Using a ready made study guide template will play a big role in motivating
Study Guide: an important tool for curriculum development
181
the staff to start using the computer to develop and update their own study
guides.
During the development of electronic study guides, there are important issues to be
considered [11-14]:
• The student’s capabilities in the use of electronic media should be evaluated
carefully. No matter how “attractive” our study guide is, its usefulness depends in
part on the users’ characteristics and their ability to navigate and use computers.
• The format and the platform of the electronic study guide should be used friendly by
the students.
• The electronic study guide should be more attractive than the printed format. The
electronic format shouldn’t look like the printed one [15-19]. It should include video,
sounds, graphics, illustrations, pictures, animations, texture and background that
might change according to sections of the guide. However, too many attractive
elements might distract the students from the main purpose of the guide [20-22].
• The electronic guide should include all information about the course. Once the
student is sitting in front of a computer, it will be very irritating for him/her to have
to look for extra information, which is not contained in the study guide.
• A clear instruction about the use of the software should be included. A help menu
should be available to answer the common questions about the use of the software.
A demo demonstration is a useful tool.
• It is time consuming to have to return to the main menu every time you have to
finish with one section. Therefore, we have to be sure to include all necessary links
in all pages of the electronic study guide.
• Students need to have access to the study guide from their home or worksite, and
not just from inside the Campus, school or University facilities. In addition, student
should have authorization to access the study guide from the very beginning of the
course. A personalized login and password should be granted to each student
registered for the course.
• A security locks on information is needed to avoid student modification of the
guide.
• The electronic study guide should keep the track of the time and date when each
student logs in. This will help the teachers to monitor, electronically, individuals and
groups of students using the guide.
• Giving information by means of attachment should be avoided. It is too tedious to
be asked to open up documents in the form of attachment to gain access to
information and then return again to the core information of the guide.
• The electronic study guide should be updated and maintained periodically.
• In designing an electronic study guide, we should not get overexcited with high
technology forgetting the basic principles of instructional design. The study guide
should be designed on the papers before attempting to convert it to an electronic
format.
182 Dr. Abdulmonem A. Al-Hayani and Dr. Awdah M. Al-Hazimi
• Designing an electronic study guide is time consuming and it needs a team work.
Without a team including an expert software designer, the medical teacher may
waste his time in the technical aspect of the software.
Conclusion and Recommendations
By reviewing the literature, we can conclude that study guide is becoming an integral
part of any modern curriculum. Moreover, the growing number of both undergraduate
and postgraduate students in our universities will disturb the student : staff ratio, and
therefore will decrease the time allocated for each student from their teaching staff. This
would certainly necessitate the presence of a study guide for our courses which would
be able to answer most of the students’ questions and queries throughout the course of
study. Therefore we recommend:
1. Study guide should be part of any university course. Teaching staff should arrange
to develop a study guide for all courses.
2. Practical workshops are necessary to help the staff to prepare their own study
guide; therefore the universities (or faculties) are kindly requested to arrange for
such workshops.
3. Just like a course portfolio, a study guide became a necessity to get an
international accreditation especially in medical and health sciences faculties.
Therefore, it is recommended to make a study guide a must for these faculties, so
the process of accreditation would be easier.
As the major goal of the current paper is to raise awareness about the importance of
study guide as an educational tool, the appearance of many future study guides for many
courses would be an indication of fulfilling the paper main objectives.
References
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Publishing Year |
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2005 AH
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Added Date |
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Saturday, January 10, 2009 |
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