The Educational Documents Abstracts (ERIC) database lists over 500 current studies addressing curricular issues in higher education. This paper examines a random sampling of these studies in an effort to provide a representative picture of current thought concerning college and university curriculum.
One curricular issue that has been addressed in several studies (e.g. Abraham, 1990; Council of Graduate Schools in the U.S., 1991) is that of providing curricula that is meaningful and relevant to international students. According to Abraham (1990), one of the pivotal components with respect to providing curricula to international students is the provision of an English reading assessment program.
Abraham (1990) states that colleges and universities need not only to assess the reading skill level of international students, but they also need to use these assessment data to establish a base-line level of reading proficiency to which students who are non-native speakers of English can be compared. He further reports that in order to fully benefit from curriculum in any class, it is important that institutions of higher education bring students up to required levels of college reading.
In another discussion of the issue of international students and college curriculum, McCarthy (1986) stated that a fundamental part of producing curriculum improvement in this area is that no serious curriculum revision take place without faculty support and involvement. Moreover, in her evaluation of efforts at Illinois State University to internationalize curriculum, McCarthy (1986) stated that findings showed that not only can changes be effected, they can be accomplished with minimal funding.
Most college students are under 27 years of age; however, there is a subset of the college population that is considerably older (40 years of age and above) than the average college student. Hart and Weinman (1990) examined the question of whethe...