Curriculum Studies and Development
What this domain tests
Definitional precision (curriculum versus syllabus versus scheme of learning), curriculum models and their authors, curriculum types, and the NaCCA standards-based design used in Ghanaian SHS.
Definitions you must not blur
- Curriculum: the whole planned learning experience - aims, content, methods, assessment and the unwritten.
- Syllabus: the content outline for one subject.
- Scheme of learning: the term-by-term breakdown of strands and indicators with weeks, resources and assessment.
- Lesson plan: the plan for a single indicator in a single lesson. The curriculum is the whole; the rest are its operational documents.
Models
- Tyler: objectives → learning experiences → organisation → evaluation (a means-end model).
- Taba: grassroots, teacher-driven, seven steps.
- Wheeler and Kerr: cyclic models.
- Stenhouse: process model - content and process are valued over pre-specified behavioural objectives; the teacher is a researcher.
- Skilbeck: school-based curriculum development.
- Evaluation: Tyler's objectives model; Scriven's formative/summative distinction and goal-free evaluation; Stufflebeam's CIPP (context, input, process, product).
Types of curriculum
Intended (official), implemented, enacted, experienced, hidden (unwritten messages) and null (what is deliberately omitted). Learning that never appears in the syllabus, such as punctuality or queueing, is hidden or null - not the intended curriculum.
Ghana's standards-based design
NaCCA's SHS curriculum is organised into strands and sub-strands, each with a content standard (the broad expectation of what learners should know and be able to do), learning indicators (specific and assessable), exemplars and core competencies. The six core competencies are critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, cultural identity and global citizenship, personal development and leadership, and digital literacy. Values and the 4Rs (reading, writing, arithmetic, oracy) run through the design. Assessment is criterion-referenced against the indicator.
Worked example
A teacher writes 'Explain the causes of inflation' and labels it a learning indicator.
Reasoning: 'Explain the causes of inflation' is closer to a content standard - a broad expectation. A usable indicator must be specific, observable and assessable, and sit inside a named strand and sub-strand, for example: 'Analyse three causes of inflation in Ghana using price data from 2022–2024.' The verb is not the problem; the missing pieces are context, scope and evidence. A teacher planning from the broad statement alone cannot assess it consistently.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing 'curriculum' where the stem means one subject's outline (syllabus).
- Confusing Tyler's ends-means model with Stenhouse's process model.
- Treating the hidden curriculum as a written document.
- Listing competencies NaCCA does not use, or adding a seventh.
- Writing indicators with vague verbs ('know', 'understand') that cannot be assessed.