Addressing the learning outcomes for professional skills using an integrated teaching strategy

Abstract

Students at a South African university are exposed to an annual report project which combines elements of four courses as an integrated teaching strategy. The purpose of this paper is to report students’ perspectives as to the extent this integrated teaching strategy addressed the learning outcomes for professional skills as required by the International Education Standard 3 Initial professional development—professional skills (2015). The study used survey research to collect data from 74 students to determine students’ perspectives on whether the integrated teaching strategy addressed the learning outcomes. Students indicated that many of the professional skills listed in International Education Standard 3 are addressed by the integrated teaching strategy. In particular, interpersonal and communication skills were rated as the highest skills acquired, in particular teamwork and communication skills, followed by organisational skills, intellectual skills and personal skills. There were some significant statistical differences for some of the skills between the perspectives of the students when the results were sorted on a gender basis and a language basis. Where some skills were not highly rated by the students, it may be that these skills were not wholly needed by students to complete the integrated project. However, overall, students rated the majority of the skills above the midpoint of the rating scale which suggests that students saw the integrated teaching strategy capable of developing the professional skills investigated in this study.

Keywords

• Integrated project
• international education standards
• learning outcomes
• professional skills