An Evaluative Technique for the HPER Curricula

The "minimal marketing" strategy. often utilized the past by Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER) departments, which designed programs and simply waited for students to appear is no longer effective. When University administrators became aware that this position was no longer tenable, they probed for additional ideas and tools. This paper discusses one alternative approach to the development of a higher-education curriculum strategy. A new technique, the importance-performance analysis, can provide direct inputs to management in strategic areas such as the identification of consumer satisfactions and dissatisfactions by various segments of the population. The concept of importance-performance analysis is based on the notion that there are more than one set of consumers for any product, such as a HPER degree. In the case of HPER graduates, there are at least threee major sefments of the community that have an interest in the quality of the educational program: employers; parents; and students. Often administrators discover that all of these groups are not satisfied with the higher education experience for any number of reasons. In order to respond sensibly to the varied expectations of a modern day college curriculum, the administrator must keep ahead of current trends by gleaning relevant data from a variety of reliable sources. For the purpose of illustration, the results of an importance-performance analysis of a community segment is included in this presentation. Military recreation supervisors were asked to indicate the importance of each of several educational attributes when considering the performance of recent college graduates under their command. The data from the survey was combined to form a graphic index of particular educational strengths and weaknesses as perceived by various recreation management officers. With this information in hand, the HPER administrator can work to overcome perceived deficiencies or capitalize on areas of strength through adjustments in its overall curriculum strategy.