Document Type : Research Paper I Open Access I Released under (CC BY-NC 4.0) license

Authors

1 Associate Professor in Curriculum, Department of Educational Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran

3 Master's student in Curriculum Studies, Department of Educational Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran

10.22124/jsmd.2026.30065.2966

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the planned and implemented curriculum of the undergraduate sports science major University of Mazandaran.
Methodology: This research was designed quantitatively and followed the descriptive survey method. The statistical population included 22 professors and 340 students of the Sport Sciences major at the University of Mazandaran in the academic year 2023-2024, respectively. To select the professors, the census sampling method was employed, and to select the students, Morgan's table and proportional stratified random sampling were used, resulting in the selection of 181 students to participate in the study. The research instruments included researcher-made questionnaires for professors and students, along with a quantitative classroom observation checklist. These tools were designed to assess both the intended and implemented curriculum, and their content validity was calculated as 89%. The reliability of the questionnaires, calculated using Cronbach's alpha, was as follows: for the intended curriculum, 0.97 (professors' questionnaire) and 0.90 (students' questionnaire); for the implemented curriculum, 0.96 (professors' questionnaire) and 0.83 (students' questionnaire. . The reliability of the observation tool using the coefficient of agreement was also obtained as 0.92. Descriptive statistics (percentage and frequency) and inferential statistics (dependent t-test and one-sample t-test) were used to analyze the collected data.
Results The results showed that from the professors' perspective, there was a fundamental gap between the intended and implemented curriculum in all elements (goal, content, teaching-learning strategy, and evaluation). From the students' perspective, there was a gap between the intended and implemented curriculum in terms of goals, as well as in other elements (content, teaching-learning strategy, and evaluation. The results from classroom observation also indicated that there was no congruence between the implemented and intended curriculum.
Conclusion: The existence of a gap between the intended and implemented curriculum shows that a revision of the curriculum is necessary to improve the quality of education in this field. Also, in order to realize the approved curricula, a set of factors is needed to reach the implementation stage properly.

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