June 11, 2012

This in-depth survey discusses the issue of introducing the integrated curriculum in the study plan leading to the first university degree at the University of Jordan, so that the program in a specialization includes all relevant knowledge systems or links to that specialization. These systems are put together into a large, complete and coherent cognitive unit. According to this curriculum, the student bears a real responsibility in his learning and in developing his critical thinking and in his quest to achieve more knowledge in a scientific way.

The researcher relied, in the first place, on the results of direct and extensive empirical surveys among university students and faculty in various disciplines. The study concludes, among its findings, that University of Jordan students attach great importance to the characteristics of the content of the study program based on the integrated curriculum, but they see that what is actually achieved from these characteristics and personal benefit to them is at the lowest average level in the best cases. The faculty members also gave great importance to the foundations on which the structure of the university curriculum is based on the integrated curriculum. While acknowledging that what has been achieved from these foundations is at the intermediate level, they agreed that their responsibility is great in activating this university curriculum.

The study concludes that the curriculum is far from being applied at the University of Jordan, although it is accepted as an idea and content among students and faculty members. The study presents proposals to reconsider the university’s curriculum so that the new curriculum consists of a general cultural component, a private component, a specialized third, and a free fourth component. The researcher calls for a new academic organization that guarantees the unity of the curriculum in each of the university’s faculties and in each academic department, with the establishment of a central unit whose mission is to introduce faculty members and students to the new curriculum, a philosophy, objectives and organization.