Higher-Order Learning Outcomes in an Undergraduate IT Project Management Course

Introduction

Learners in higher educational institutions (HEI) are expected to exhibit deep learning instead of surface learning (Biggs, 1989; Felder & Brent, 2005; Rogers, 2000). In deep learning, the learner engages in learning tasks to seek meaning; whilst in surface learning, she does minimum essential work to meet assessment requirements (Entwistle, 1987). Deep learning facilitates the development of higher order thinking skills – cognitive activities that are beyond the remembering and understanding levels in Bloom’s traditional taxonomy (Dori, Tal and Tsaushu, 2003, p. 770). Thus, recall of knowledge and understanding of information are lower order thinking skills, whilst analyzing information, posing questions, providing scientifically grounded arguments, making decisions, and system thinking are higher order thinking skills. Robins, Rountree, and Rountree (2003, p. 156) for instance, aimed at learners’ deep learning in an introductory programming course. Whilst experiential and high engagement teaching methods such as problem-based and project-based learning motivate students’ deep learning (Felder & Brent, 2005), it is unfortunate that university teachers in Ghana mostly use formal lectures which hamper learners’ development of these desirable higher order learning outcomes. Consequently, graduating students struggle in the marketplace (Ghanaweb, 2017). In addition, whilst developed country HEIs have small class sizes and professors who “take pride in innovative teaching styles that minimize lectures” (Holmes, 2002, p. 368), most developing country HEIs have inadequate resources, but bigger class sizes (Afful, 2016).

Worryingly, existing information systems (IS) education research has neglected the foregoing issues in developing country contexts. These studies have concerned so-called developed country contexts like Australia (Ahmad & Maynard, 2014; Sheard, Carbone, & Hurst, 2010; Tutty, Sheard, & Avram, 2008), USA (Cummings & Hill, 2015; Everett, 2015; Gayle, 2013; Sharp & Schultz, 2013), Finland (Kinnunen & Simon, 2012), and Thailand (Ractham, Kaewkitipong, & Firpo, 2012) – to mention a few. If students taking an IS course in an environment that fosters deep learning outperform their peers taking the same course in a more traditional classroom setting (see Brooks, 2011), then there is an urgent need to explore changes that could be made in developing country settings to achieve deep learning, and in effect high order learning outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore the relationship between teaching methods and the achievement of learning outcomes in an undergraduate IT Project Management course in a developing country. By documenting the changes a lecturer made in delivering an undergraduate IT Project Management course in two academic years, this paper presents evidence of how higher order learning outcomes were achieved in a resource-poor context like Ghana. This paper has five sections. The first section reasons out the need for and the purpose of this paper. The second section presents the revised Bloom’s taxonomy as a theoretical framework for this paper. The third section presents details of teaching and learning activities in the said course. The fourth section shows an evaluation of these activities with respect to the level of learning outcomes achieved. The fifth section presents a discussion of the lessons learnt.