An Evaluative Study On Project-based Country/area Studies Courses Based On CIPP Model

Since the proposal of the “Belt and Road” Initiative,China has witnessed an increasing demand for professionals who are competent in foreign languages and well-informed in the politics,economy,culture,law,trade and so forth of foreign countries.To meet such demands,an educational institution in Northeast China has attempted to develop a curriculum on Country/Area studies(CAS)education for English majors.It could be necessary to evaluate the CAS courses systematically so as to better develop the curriculum.Based on the CIPP model proposed by Stufflebeam,this study attempts to evaluate the project-based CAS courses for English majors in the sequence of context,input,process,and product.With semi-structured interviews,observation and questionnaires as the research instruments,a mixed research design was employed.Three CAS courses were observed,15 students and 5 teachers of CAS courses were interviewed.Questionnaires were administered to 52 CAS students and 41 valid questionnaires were collected.Major research findings are as follows.Firstly,PBL was an effective way of teaching CAS courses,and most teachers and students were willing to follow PBL in the courses.While the support was provided at school and university levels,there was a shortage of teaching materials.Secondly,with different teaching designs compared,varied teaching goals of the courses led to diversified teaching methods.Thirdly,in the process evaluation,CAS knowledge was learned through lectures,independent reading and group cooperation.Some problems were found,including insufficient communication,and poor performance in cooperation.Fourthly,students and teachers were generally satisfied with their performance and course outcomes.PBL demonstrated appropriateness and generalisability for CAS courses,but the assessment of the course needs improving,possible solutions to the problems were raised accordingly.