Abstract—In the academic landscape, the dissertation of
knowledge is of great importance to research-active academics.
Yet the majority of students do not possess the necessary skills to
effectively convey ideas in written format. Besides the lack of
academic writing skills, plagiarism is another problem rife in
academia and is rarely acknowledged. This problem is
worsening with the increasing availability of technology. Apart
from these two major problems, students often find that
mastering mathematical problem-solving skills is arduous and
leaves them without the confidence to complete math-intensive
courses in their institution. Solid academic skills build a strong
foundation for students’ futures. Hence, a rigorous official
preparation programme is needed to boost the educational
attainment levels of disadvantaged groups of students. This
paper charts the development of such a programme, entitled the
Certificate in Academic Skills. A systematic approach, based on
the backward design model, was utilized to develop this new
programme, and resulted in the development of a programme
capable of being delivered to all stakeholders. The CIPP model
was used to evaluate this new curriculum. Based on this
evaluation, we are confident that this vocational certificate will
meet its intended goals and stand up well to further examination
and scrutiny.
Index Terms—Curriculum design, curriculum process,
curriculum evaluation, curriculum map.
Jing Hua Ye is with the Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, Ireland
(e-mail: jinghua.ye@cit.ie).
Cite: Jing Hua Ye, "Designing an Academic Skills Bridging Course for University Freshmen," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 9, no. 11, pp. 836-842, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).