Nijhuis, Steven André (2022) Improving project management teaching in higher education: Towards a validated competence profile for the design of a profession specific learning line. PhD thesis, University of Twente, Netherlands.
Abstract
This thesis studies the subject of teaching project management (PM) in higher education. Several higher education studies show a desire to teach PM, a highly requested business skill. However, the practice of teaching PM in higher education receives criticism from scholars and graduates. Chapter 2 explored the PM offerings in higher education institutes. Delivery and assessment modes were mainly aimed at student insights, while the level of learning aspired to was PM experience or even ability. Chapter 3 looked in-depth at competence research in PM, focusing on the attribute competences: knowledge and skills. This chapter compared important and critical PM attribute competences. The results showed that criticality provides a better definition of the profession. However, the study did not result in a list of competences to be included in a curriculum. Chapter 4 described how the project type and the manager’s experience are related to critical PM competences. It studied whether the application area or amount of experience as a project manager affected the required competence profile. Results indicated that a curriculum should focus on process competences. Chapter 5 explored project managers’ priority processes. The identified priority processes showed a weak relation with the project type, especially for junior project managers, and PM experience showed a weak relation with identified priority processes. Higher education will adequately prepare students for a job as a project manager by providing a broad introduction to PM and insights into 13 PM processes in the educational profile. However, this is primarily cognitive preparation; higher education has limited options for preparing students with real PM experience. When possible, students should prepare for a – capstone – course in PM using group-work assignments designed and executed according to contemporary PM methods. The explorations produced an overview of the practice of teaching PM in higher education, reviewed existing research on important competences, explored the concept of criticality, and showed an overview of process priority profiles for various types of projects. All were first-time contributions. Moreover, a taxonomy for PM attribute competences was developed, providing future research in PM with a near-comprehensive list of attribute competences to consider.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Endedijk, Maaike; Kessels, Joseph W M and Vrijhoef, Ruben |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | project management education; higher education; competence profile; critical competences; process competences; teaching methods; curriculum design; capstone projects |
| Index terms: | project manager, exploration, manager, profession, higher education, option, teaching method, project management, taxonomy, competence |
| Subjects: | institututions, decision analysis, personnel development, teaching methods, educational institutions, project management theory and practice, practitioner, data analysis and analytics, profession, environmental resource management |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Sustainability, Education, Roles and Professions, Risk Management, Project Management, Human Resources |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here