Decision support approach for enhancing course learning outcomes achievement and accuracy of continuous improvement

Abstract

Assessing and Enhancing Course Learning outcomes (CLOs) achievement is an important task for any educational institution in Outcome-Based Education (OBE) systems, due to its scientific significance, it improves the educational process, and meets the needs of the labor-market x. Course decision-makers (example: head of department or schools, course instructors, or course coordinators) are often encountered with decision taking on course improvement plans due to the complexity of the assessment process, large amount of data, and lack of experience in the assessment and continuous improvement process. Very few tools are available for decision-making in the enhancement of CLOs achievement and guide the education institution about the accuracy of the continuous improvement process. This paper proposes a decision support approach that systemically assesses and evaluates CLOs to provides the decision support that enhances the educational process in the course level. Moreover, it provides the decision support for the educational institution in regards to the accuracy of the assessment, evaluation, and continuous improvement process. This approach provides more relevant, accurate, useful, valid and unbiased results for better decision support in the improvement of the educational process to ensure best fit between the needs of the educational institution, satisfaction, validity, and affordability (time, effort, and money).The proposed approach uses course-embedded assessment that focuses mainly on the actual work produces by students in CLOs that relates to student performance on a particular activity. The application of fourty courses in different semesters has been conducted, and the results are analyzed to illustrate the model's efficiency. The results show that the proposed approach provides decision support for enhancing CLOs achievement, and the accuracy of continuous improvement process, which will lead to the enhancement of the educational process.