The Benefits and Challenges of Modular Higher Education Curricula (2024)

Over the past twenty years, universities have increasingly employed credit-based modular curriculum structures in an attempt to cater to the needs of more diverse student groups and to allow students greater flexibility and choice in managingtheir studies. Scholars generally agree that modular degreeshave many advantagesforstudents in terms oftheir capacity to offer flexibility, choice, access and mobility.It is also widelyargued that modular structures may be beneficial to universities in that they potentially allow institutions torespond to the needs of employers, expand student markets, develop more efficient uses of resources and increase opportunities for curricula breadth. However, it is also argued that modularisation creates the possibility of fragmentation and incoherence of the educational experience, potentially weakens learning outcomes and comes with epistemological, structural and pedagogical challenges.

Author: Sarah French

Published: 2015

Download PDF

The Benefits and Challenges of Modular Higher Education Curricula (2024)

FAQs

What are the benefits or advantages of modular learning? ›

The advantages of modular learning include positive transfer, systematic generalization, and the ability to specialize towards multiple tasks without negative interference. Modular learning offers advantages such as sustainability, flexibility in learning paths, and improved time flexibility for learners.

What are the struggles of students in modular learning? ›

Financial difficulties, personal concerns, technological concerns, peer pressures, health concerns, and legal issues were cited as reasons for learners' modular distance learning challenges.

What are the effects of modular learning to high school students? ›

One of the most significant impacts of modular learning on students is that it increases their engagement and motivation in the classroom. When students are able to progress at their own pace and choose which modules they want to work on, they are more likely to be engaged in the material.

What are the disadvantages of modular learning? ›

MODULES ARE FOR FORMALITY CAUSE AND NOT INTERNALIZED BY THE STUDENTS. MANY STUDENTS SAID THEY ACTUALLY NEVER LEARN FROM THE MODULES. SOME STUDENTS TEND TO COPY THEIR ANSWERS FROM OTHERS WITHOUT READING THE MODULE. NOT ALL STUDENTS DO THEIR MODULES WHOLEHEARTEDLY.

What are the main advantage and disadvantage of modular? ›

The modular is fast and easy to integrate because they are pre-built and usually require no calibration. Also, it does not require any specific equipment, thus suitable for any business type. The development cost is lower. Coming to the disadvantages, they have a limited number of configurations.

What are the challenges encountered by teachers in modular learning? ›

Results revealed that the challenges of teachers in modular distance learning includes time-consuming, incomplete and unanswered modules, inadequate parental support, and insufficient trainings to teachers.

What are the teachers issues and concerns in modular learning? ›

Problems include stress (Hidalgo-Andrade, Hermosa-Bosano, & Paz 2021), knowledge and skills needed in the delivery of distance learning education (Alea, 2020), parental roles on distance learning (Agaton, 2021), availability of resources (Robosa, 2021), time for the implementation of competencies (Arrieta, 2020), and ...

What are the challenges of teachers in modular distance learning? ›

Ethical issues were considered in the conduct of the study. Results revealed that the challenges of teachers in modular distance learning includes time-consuming, incomplete and unanswered modules, inadequate parental support, and insufficient trainings to teachers.

What are the effects of modular learning to the students? ›

At the same time, the perception of the students had a difference in terms of their grade level. This study implies that this modular distance learning approach helps students improve their perception of modules. Therefore, a modular approach must be continued in face-to-face instruction even if the pandemic vanishes.

How effective is modular education? ›

Modular learning has been found to be effective in various contexts. Studies have shown that modular distance learning approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic have been perceived as agreeable and have not significantly impacted academic performance.

What are the problems with modular and blended learning? ›

Some significant challenges to blended learning models include the expense of technology, inadequate training, technological issues, the need to adapt content for blended learning, decreased motivation, and weakened relationships between students and teachers.

What are the factors that affect modular learning? ›

Students rated “sometimes” that their module completion was affected by the factors such as the content of the Self-Learning Module, parental support, internet connection, social media, health condition, and proximity of the house from the school.

What are the positive and negative effects of distance learning? ›

It is to save time and costs for moving to the place of training, as well as to save nervous energy in stressful situations typical of full-time training [1]. The negative aspects of costeffectiveness include time constraints when completing tasks [11], increasing the load on students and teachers [14, 10, 13].

What are the benefits of module for students? ›

It helps students to obtain information more systematically and practically. That modules are one of the teaching materials packed wholly and systematically; there is a set of planned learning experience inside designed to help students to comprehend specific learning goals [3, 4] .

What are 4 advantages of modular programming? ›

In conclusion, modular programming is a powerful technique that can make software development more efficient and manageable. It offers several benefits, including improved code readability, reusability, easier debugging and maintenance, and support for parallel development.

What are the advantages of modules? ›

Flexibility, scalability, maintainability, and reusability are some of the main benefits of modular systems. These systems are able to adapt to changing requirements, environments, or technologies by replacing, adding, or removing modules without affecting the rest of the system.

Which are two benefits of using a modular approach? ›

Modular design is shown to improve the design process by allowing better re-usability, workload handling, and easier debugging processes.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Manual Maggio

Last Updated:

Views: 6141

Rating: 4.9 / 5 (69 voted)

Reviews: 92% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Manual Maggio

Birthday: 1998-01-20

Address: 359 Kelvin Stream, Lake Eldonview, MT 33517-1242

Phone: +577037762465

Job: Product Hospitality Supervisor

Hobby: Gardening, Web surfing, Video gaming, Amateur radio, Flag Football, Reading, Table tennis

Introduction: My name is Manual Maggio, I am a thankful, tender, adventurous, delightful, fantastic, proud, graceful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.