A Survey on Students' Course-taking Practice and Problems at Taiwan Normal University

Author: Hwang Jenq-Jye , Lee Chung-Foung(Graduate Institute of Education, National Taiwan Normal University)

Abstract：

There are five purposes in this study:(1) to find out the factors which influence students' course-taking decisions; (2) to find out the limitations and problems of students' course-taking; (3) to investigate how frequently students take courses offered by other departments or other universities; (4) to investigate students' need of course-taking guidance; (5) to investigate students opinions about their curricculum.
The research tool is a questionnaire designed by the research group, which includes 40 questions. The sample was taken from Taiwan Normal University. A survey was executed in the second semester of 1985 Academic Year. 899 students in schools of Education, iberal Art, Natural Science, and Art have filled out the questionnaries and returned them. The data were analyzed by caculating the frequencies, percentages and X2 statistic.
Many findings are very important. For example, both what and how a teacher teaches are more important than other factors that influence students' course-taking decisions; a student has a need to know the course content, teaching style and evaluation methods of any courses /he wants to take; the students also need course-taking guidance form their major departments, however, they suggested that their higher-grade peers were good counselors to them and have actual influences on their decisions. Based on these findings and others, many suggestions to the university are made finally.

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