All programs define their program educational objectives (PEOs) that illustrate the knowledge of students for the concepts and their applications after the completion of the degree. PEOs attainment not only gives the evidence for the success of any program but also describes the student skills and knowledge for the various concepts related to the specific program. The chapter explains the planning process, assessment tools, and review panel for the program educational objectives in various educational programs in Arab universities. The same model can be applied for any program for planning, assessment, and review process because the general scenario and relevance of PEOs are the same in the higher educational systems.
TopIntroduction
Program educational objectives (PEOs) are the broad statements that describe the career and professional accomplishments that the program is preparing graduates to achieve. PEOs are one of the tools to measure the quality of the curriculum. The PEOs are the highest level of assessment in the higher educational system where the basic level is measuring the course learning outcomes (CLOs) followed by measuring program learning outcomes (PLOs).
Every program maps the PEOs with PLOs and CLOs for presenting the quality of curriculum.
Most of the Accrediting societies focus on various programs are planning, assessing and reviewing its program educational objectives (PEOs) because based on the scenario and process quality of education can be performed and therefore it becomes easier to assess the overall quality of the program as well (Hamilton, et al. 2020).
The learning objectives for all programs mostly focus on three domains which are related to cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Cognitive objectives focus on mental skills or knowledge and are common in higher education systems. (Hamilton, et al. 2020) PEOs specify how program goals will be achieved and should include a method for evaluating results (Yang, et al. 2020). While program goals should clearly state the intentions of a program, objectives should describe the mechanisms and strategies used to accomplish those intentions.
All the programs in the higher education systems are required to disclose its PEOs on their website, faculty manual, program brochure and other relevant documents. Program learning goals and objectives describe what students will learn, what skills they develop, what experiences they will have (or likely have) as a result of completing the requirements for the degree program. These are statements that describe the expected accomplishments of graduates during their first few years after graduation. The audiences for objective statements are external constituents such as prospective students, employers, transfer institutions and student sponsors.
PEOs should be specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result-oriented, and Time-bound. The outcome objective focuses on what the target population(s) will know or will be able to do as a result of the program’s activity therefore the PEOs are classified as short-term, intermediate, or long-term (Arshi and Malik, 2022).
The establishment of PEOs took into consideration the institutional mission at different levels: University, College, Department and Program. Figure 1 shows the general instruments and process for the assessment of PEOs.
Figure 1. Instruments for measuring the PEOs
The program accreditation committee established a first draft of program educational objectives (PEOs) considering the mission of the program (Toquero, (2020). The program also clearly explains the difference between program outcomes and PEOs. Program outcomes (POs) are also called student outcomes or students learning outcomes (Van et al 2015: A. Naim, et al. 2023). PEOs are intended results or consequences of instruction, curricula, programs, or activities whereas PEOs are achieved results or consequences of what was learned which is further measured by assessing the course learning outcomes.