Academic Staff’s Views and Practices of Modular Course Delivery: Graduate Program at Addis Ababa University in Focus

Abstract

This study aimed at assessing the academic staffs‟ views and practices of the modular course delivery of the master‟s program at Addis Ababa University. More specifically it aimed at answering questions like; what are the attitudes of the staff towards the currently introduced modular curricula and block teaching? What are the major strengths as well as weaknesses of the modular course delivery as perceived and practiced by the academic staff? The study employed a survey method and was also supported by qualitative data collection procedure. Accordingly, 123 academic staff members who teach at the master‟s level participated in the study. The result revealed that most of the academic staff either have negative attitude or are uncertain about whether or not the current modularized curricula really is a move away from the traditional task-based teaching learning approach to process-based and integrated system of teaching learning. The study also noted instructors‟ uncertainty or negative attitude towards the adequacy of the duration of the study period (18 months) of the master‟s program , the relevance of the pedagogy module to their students, whether the current modular system can create more valid ways of assessing students‟ performance and achievement. The result indicates that a large number of staff are in favor of modular curricula but they are against block teaching especially in the fields of natural science. The study concludes that the majority of the staff do not believe that the recently introduced modular system could achieve its intended learning outcomes.