Chiao-Ping Bao
Dept. of Industrial Management, I-Shou University, Taiwan (R.O.C.) cpbaao@isu.edu.tw
Yu-Ping Lee
Shu-Te University, Taiwan (R.O.C.) winona@stu.edu.tw
Ching-Yaw Chen
Shu-Te University, Taiwan (R.O.C.) cychen@stu.edu.tw
Abstract
This study proposes the “Chinkless-Teaching Concept (CTC)” based on “quality function development (QFD)” for increasing the skills and employment prospects of vocational stu-dents. The framework contributes to the following: 1) understanding baking entrepreneur demands regarding the characteristics of new hires; 2) planning practical baking curriculums;
3) duplicating this empirical study for different departments in a technical and vocational university.
Keywords: Chinkless -Teaching Concept, Quality Function Development, Technical and Vo-cational University
Introduction
The teaching materials used in gen-eral universities primarily focus on theory, whereas those in vocational and techno-logical universities emphasize practical skills. Most vocational and technological universities train students in cooperation with enterprises.
The sandwich and topping teaching methods are well established. The former allows students more creativity in working on their theses, projects and future studies, enabling them to perform better than stu-dents without practical training (Blair and Millea, 2004). Meanwhile, the latter can narrow the gap between academia and industry, and focuses on the ultimate goal of ensuring students obtain employment after graduation (Chen, 1991). However, both methods suffer numerous inadequa-cies, particularly in that the teaching meth-ods do not increase the possibility of stu-dents finding employment. Even when the sandwich-teaching method and topping-teaching method are applied, gaps persist between academic knowledge and practi-cal required skills. On the other hand, gaps may exist between the knowledge students acquire and the needs of enterprises.
Moreover, classroom learning is often dif-ficult for students to apply in the work-place. Bao et al. (2012) developed the Chinkless-Teaching Concept (CTC) model by using the Value Chain concept to solve this dilemma by optimizing textbook de-sign and teaching methods.
This study further presents an empiri-cal study that uses quality function devel-opment (QFD) to verify the CTC model.
Literature Review
Review of Sandwich and Topping Teaching Methods
The sandwich-teaching and topping-teaching methods are the
industry-academia collaboration models. The mod-els are designed so that students can apply classroom learning to their work situation to achieve on-the-job training.
Students in sandwich-teaching intern-ships may be assigned to companies where they are not interesting in working, and equally the host company may be uninter-ested in the interns (Chen et al, 2010).
Students who undertake practical training thus are often treated as a source of cheap labor (Chen et al, 2006).
Additionally, the topping-teaching method is applied when students are in their final years/semester of study, at which time they tend to be more mature and serious about career training (Chen et al, 2006).
Most importantly, students who ex-hibit outstanding performance in a top-ping-teaching program are often hired im-mediately after graduation, which helps improve the image of technical and voca-tional graduates and eliminate the stigma of low university performance rankings.
However, in-class activities and real op-erations still differ for students participat-ing in internships before graduation. Oth-erwise, the gap between learning and prac-tice narrows but still persists (Woodcock and Chen, 2000).
Although the topping teaching method has reduced the disadvantages of the Sandwich teaching method, the gap in the practical capabilities of graduating students must still be bridged before they start their careers. A clear drawback of the sandwich teaching method is that some enterprises may exploit students as cheap labor (Chen et al., 2006). The drawback of the topping teaching method is that stu-dents’ knowledge obtained in school is difficult to apply in the workplace (Bao et al., 2012). Although practical training has substantially improved, the following sec-tion demonstrates that major improve-ments are still needed.
Chinkless-Teaching Method
To enable students to reduce OR To help students reduce the gap between their capacities and industry requirements, the Chinkless-Teaching Method (CTC) model attempts to supply communication media that teachers, students and employers can use to reform technological and vocational education (Bao et al., 2012). The course designs included the concept of the indus-trial value chain. The links in the value chain were the subjects of the courses, while the chapters and the various course
chapters discussed the processing value chains. Technological and vocational teachers apply value chain concepts by rewriting textbook chapters to make them effective for reading, learning and practice.
Quality Function Deployment
QFD is a customer-oriented approach to product innovation. QFD guides product managers and design teams through the conceptualization, creation and realization of new products into summarizes the ap-propriate technical requirements for each stage of product development and produc-tion (that is, marketing strategies, plan-ning, product design and engineering, pro-totype evaluation, production process de-velopment, production, and sales) (Sulli-van, 1986).
One of the earliest applications of quality function deployment (QFD) to education was by Ermer (1995). Motwani et al. (1996), Lam and Zhao (1998), Hwarng and Teo (2001), and Bier and Cornesky (2001) implemented QFD ap-proach in education. Gonzalez et al. (2003) further strengthened the use of QFD in designing OR to design the supply chain management academic curriculum. In short, the successful application of QFD by these researchers enhanced the imple-mentation of this tool, enabling them to meet student needs], and current university education standards. These applications all confirm the potential of QFD to facilitate effective communication, timely
informa-tion transformainforma-tion, and efficient resource utilization. The following section presents a case study where QFD provides a framework for incorporating the needs of business entrepreneurs to develop a strat-egy for launching a campus-wide entre-preneurship initiative.
Methodology
This study proposes a conceptual framework “Chinkless-Teaching Concept (CTC)” based on the “quality function development (QFD)” for increasing the
skills and employment prospects of voca-tional students.
This study aims to identify the capa-bilities entrepreneurs’ desire in new hires.
Their responses were then grouped using QFD, which helps structure the necessary requirements from the customer perspec-tive. See Fig. 1. To illustrate the QFD process, this study presents a simple ex-ample of how its use to design a baking program for a vocational and technical university.
Step 1: Identify the requirements of baking entrepreneurs (VoBE)
The first step is to begin the QFD process to identify the needs and
expecta-employees. To fully identify the require-ments of all baking entrepreneurs, this study interviews seven baking business managers all of whom are school custom-ers. The KJ Method is then used to group
Curriculum Priorities 6
Backing En-trepreneurs Requirements
(VoBE) 1
Weights of Requirements
(WoR) 2
Relationship Matrix 5
Correlations 4
Chinkless-Teaching of Backing Curriculums
(CToBC) 3
Figure 1. A House of QFD for the backing curriculums to entrepreneurs
and categorize their requirements. This part is shown at the left of Fig. 1.
Step 2: Score the Weights of Re-quirements (WoR). Each requirement is scored using a scale that typically ranges from 1 to 9. The weights of four experts are then scored using the geo-matrix mean.
Step3: Create a baking curriculums using the Chinkless-Teaching Method (CToBC). Using the Chinkless-Teaching Method, curriculum creation was per-formed through seamless integration be-tween teachers’ vocational and technologi-cal university and baking business manag-ers.
Step 4: Identify the correlations. The correlations are the relationships between baking curriculum requirements in the roof of QFD. The correlations range from 0 to 9. The symbols in the roof of the house represent the relationships among the dif-ferent curriculum design elements. The inter-correlations among the academic requirements use the following symbols to indicate the strength of association:
(Strong association)
◎ (Moderate association)
○ (Weak association)
× (None)
Step 5: Identify the relationship ma-trix . The mama-trix shows the relationship between the requirements of baking entre-preneurs and baking curriculum require-ments. The relation matrix ranges from 0 to 9, with a value close to 9 indicating a stronger association. Meanwhile, a value near 0 indicates a weaker association.
Step 6: Calculating the curriculum priorities. The primary outcome of the house of QFD is stored at the bottom of the matrix (6 in Fig.1). Let δj (j = 1, …, n, where the number of CToBC is n) in row 6 denote the importance of the jth CToBC to reflect the priorities of entrepreneurs in relation to curriculum design. Equation 1 shows how to calculate δj assuming m WoRs and n CToBCs.
Where and represent the important of
the WoR (2) and the correlation
be-tween the WoR and CToBC (5),
respectively. That is is the average
weight of cell values in the column (5) with the WoR importance (2) repre-senting their corresponding weights.
Computing reveals which curriculum requirements (CToBC) are important and thus enables effort to be focused on im-proving baking curriculum.
Table 1 The Empirical Data --A House of QFD without the roof CToBC
Entrepreneurs' Re-quirements
(VoBE)
WoRs
Introduction of Baking Science Food Hygiene and Sanitation Backing French / Japanese Drawing and Color Matching Chinese Pastries Production Bread and Roll Production Snack and Bread Making Chocolate Making Cake and Pastry Production Professional Cake Decoration Production Management Baking Shop Management Hospitality Marketing Baking Retail Practice Off-Campus Practical Backing Industry Visiting Baking Product Development
Knife work 4.93 3.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.00 6.33 3.67 3.67 6.33 7.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.33 0.00 2.67 Cake Decorating 8.32 2.67 0.00 2.67 2.67 0.00 2.00 4.00 3.67 7.33 7.00 0.00 3.00 0.00 0.00 5.67 0.00 3.67 Basic weighing 8.28 5.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.67 8.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 6.00 0.00 3.00 0.00 0.00 6.00 0.00 4.00 Professionalism 9.00 9.00 7.67 6.00 6.00 7.00 7.00 8.33 8.33 8.33 8.33 9.00 8.33 8.33 8.33 6.00 6.00 8.33 Product Knowledge 8.65 6.00 5.00 2.67 4.67 4.67 5.33 6.00 6.00 6.00 6.00 5.33 6.00 5.33 4.67 6.00 4.67 6.00 Proficiency 9.00 5.00 3.67 2.00 5.67 9.00 8.33 6.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 2.67 4.67 3.33 3.67 9.00 3.00 6.00 Independent operation 8.28 5.33 1.67 2.00 3.00 8.67 8.67 8.67 8.67 8.67 8.67 3.00 6.00 0.67 3.00 5.67 2.00 8.67 Nutrition Analysis 5.65 8.33 2.33 0.00 0.00 3.33 4.67 3.33 3.33 3.33 3.33 2.00 4.00 2.00 2.00 3.50 1.00 3.33
Baking Knowledge
License acquisition 6.26 5.00 4.33 0.00 1.00 8.67 8.67 5.00 4.33 8.00 4.33 1.00 2.33 1.67 1.67 5.00 0.00 4.33 Assiduousness 8.65 3.00 1.00 1.67 0.00 8.33 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 2.33 3.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 0.67 9.00 Anti-Stress 8.65 3.00 1.00 1.67 0.00 7.67 7.67 7.67 7.67 7.67 7.67 2.67 9.00 3.67 1.00 6.67 0.67 8.67 Physical strength 8.65 3.00 0.33 1.00 0.00 8.67 9.00 9.00 7.67 9.00 9.00 1.00 6.00 1.67 1.00 0.67 1.00 9.00 Professional ethics 9.00 3.00 3.00 0.00 0.00 8.67 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 1.00 6.00 1.67 1.00 3.00 1.00 9.00 Work Attitude 9.00 3.00 3.00 0.00 3.00 8.67 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 4.00 6.00 1.67 1.00 6.00 1.67 9.00 Communication 8.65 6.00 6.00 2.67 1.00 8.67 8.67 8.67 8.67 8.67 8.67 4.00 9.00 4.67 6.00 6.67 1.00 8.67 Alertness 7.65 2.33 8.67 0.00 1.00 6.00 6.00 5.33 5.33 5.33 5.33 2.33 3.00 2.33 1.00 3.67 1.00 5.33
Personal Quality
Logical 8.00 7.67 6.00 2.67 3.67 8.67 8.33 7.33 7.33 7.33 7.33 6.67 9.00 6.67 6.00 6.67 1.00 7.33 Enthusiasm 8.65 3.00 0.67 5.33 6.00 7.00 9.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 3.00 6.00 3.00 3.00 8.33 3.00 7.00 Self - request 8.65 6.00 3.67 7.00 9.00 7.00 7.67 7.67 7.67 7.00 7.67 7.00 8.33 7.00 4.67 7.67 4.00 7.67 Interesting 8.28 3.00 0.33 6.00 6.00 7.67 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 5.33 6.00 5.33 3.00 6.00 3.00 9.00 Division of work 7.65 2.33 0.33 4.00 3.00 8.33 8.33 8.33 8.33 8.33 8.33 4.67 6.00 4.67 3.00 7.00 1.00 8.33 Good contacts 6.95 1.67 0.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 9.00 3.00 0.00 3.00 0.00 6.00 Master professional 8.65 5.33 6.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 6.00 7.67 6.00 3.00 6.00 3.00 7.00 Work environment 7.96 2.00 2.67 3.67 6.00 7.00 7.00 7.67 9.00 7.00 9.00 4.00 6.00 4.00 0.00 6.00 3.00 7.00
Others
Destiny 7.27 2.00 0.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.33 4.00 0.00 3.00 0.00 3.00
Weighted Average 851 556 542 632 1389 1464 1417 1436 1492 1468 689 1177 675 487 1101 355 1388 Curriculum Priority 10 14 15 13 6 3 5 4 1 2 11 8 12 16 9 17 7
Data Analysis
Regarding the House of QFD for de-veloping baking curriculum for entrepre-neurs, Table 1 lists the values for steps 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Table 2 lists the result of steps 3 and 4.
Table 1 reveals that entrepreneur re-quirements include 25 items that new hires should be asked. These items deal with areas that include baking knowledge, per-sonal qualities, and so on.
Requirements were weighted using scores calculated by the geo-matrix mean of seven experts. The scores ranged from 4.93 to 9, and values closer to 9 indicated that higher importance was assigned to entrepreneur requirements.
Professionalism, professional ethics and work attitude are the main require-ments. A score approaching 4.93 signifies that knife work is less important in entre-preneurs' requirements. Using the Chin-kless-Teaching Method, 17 curriculums
were created by three baking teachers in vocational and technological university and seven baking business managers. The four courses differ categorically from cur-rent implement baking curriculums, and are called Baking
French/ Japanese, Baking Industry Visits, Baking Product Development, and Snack
and Bread Making.
In the relationship matrix, the scores are calculated using arithmetic mean based on the scores assigned by seven experts.
Arithmetic mean is adopted because it can include 0.
is defined in Step 6 above. The formula is used to obtain the weighted average.
The highest score is 1492, while the lowest is 355. The weighted average is used to determine the curriculum priority.
The correlations listed in Table 2 show the process of establishing a relationship be-tween two or more curriculums. For
ex-●○ ○ ● ○ ● ◎ ◎◎ ○ ○ ● ● ◎ ● ○ ● ◎ ○ ● ● ◎● ○ ●○ ●○ ◎ ○ ●◎ ○ ◎ ◎ ● ○ ○ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎○ ◎ ○● ○○ ○ ○◎ ○ ◎● ○○ ○ ●○ ◎◎○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○○○ ○ ○ ○ ●○ ○ ○ ●○ ○ ○ ●○ ○ ●○ ○ ○ ◎ ● ◎○ ◎○ ○ ◎ ◎ ◎◎○ ○ ◎ ○
○
○◎○○ ● ●◎○ ○◎◎
Introduction of Baking Science Food Hygiene and Sanitation Baking French / Japanese Drawing and Color Matching Chinese Pastries Production Bread and Roll Production Snack and Bread Making Chocolate Making Cake and Pastry Production Professional Cake Decoration Production Management Baking Shop Management Hospitality Marketing Baking Retail Practice Off-Campus Practice Baking Industry Visiting Baking Produce Development
Table 2. The Empirical Data -- the Roof of QFD
ample, the「 Drawing and Color Match-ing」 course has five strong associations with other baking practice courses, and is unrelated to six baking management courses.
Conclusions
Based on the above, the following can be concluded: (1) In-depth understanding of baking entrepreneurs’ demands regard-ing desirable characteristics in new hires, (2) Obtaining baking curriculums that are suitable for use in industry, (3) Identifying the relationship among courses, (4) Ex-ploring the importance of each course from baking teachers in vocational and technological universities and baking business managers.
This study can have extremely valu-able feedback effects on technical and vo-cational university education, and the framework of the research thesis can be duplicated; moreover, different depart-ments can also apply the Chinkless-Teaching Concept of high-quality curricu-lum design.
References
Bao, C.P., Lee,Y.P, & Chen, C.Y. (2012).
The recreation of the chinkless-teaching concept by using value chain analysis to bridge the theory and prac-tice. International Journal of Organiza-tional Innovation, 5(1), 268-280.
Bier, I.D., & Cornesky, R.(2001). Using QFD to construct a higher education curriculum. Quality Progress, 34 (4), 64–68.
Blair, B.F, & Millea, M.M. (2004). Quan-tifying the benefits of cooperative edu-cation. J. Coop. Edu, 38(1), 67-72.
Chen, C.Y., Lee, Y.J., & Kao, K.S. (2006).
The specific practice of the Last Mile
project at Taiwanese universities of science and technology: a discussion of the different effects between topping and sandwich teaching methods from the perspective of industry.
Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 5(3), 401-407.
Chen, C.Y., Lee, Y.J., Kao, K.S., & Ho, Y.T. (2010). A study on the topping and sandwich teaching method effi-cacy towards the last mile application from the perspective of vocational and technical college graduates. World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 7 (2), 176-185.
Chen, X.G., (1991). A discussion of edu-cational institutions’ cooperation be-tween academia and industry. Techno-logical and Vocational Educ. Double Monthly, 4, 22-27.
Ermer, D.S. (1995). Using QFD Becomes an Educational Experience for Stu-dents and Faculty. Quality Progress,28 (5), 131-136.
Gonzalez, M., Quesada, G., & Bahill, T.
(2003). Improving product design us-ing quality function deployment : the school furniture case in developing countries. Quality Engineering Journal.
16(1), 47-58.
Hwarng, H.B., & Teo, C. (2001). Translat-ing customers’ voices into operations requirements – A QFD application in higher education. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Manage-ment, 18(2), 195–226.
Lam, K., & Zhao, X.(1998). An applica-tion of quality funcapplica-tion deployment to improve the quality of teaching. Inter-national Journal of Quality and Reli-ability Management, 15(4), 389–413.
Motwani, J., Kumar, A., & Mohamed, Z.
(1996). Implementing QFD for im-proving quality in education: An ex-ample. Journal of Professional Services Marketing, 14 (2), 149–159.
Murgatroyd, S. (1993). The house of qual-ity: Using QFD for instructional design in distance education. The American Journal of Distance Education, 7, 34-48.
Sullivan, L. P. (1986). Quality Function Deployment. Quality Progress, 19(6), 39-50.
Woodcock, D.J., & Chen, C.Y. (2000).
Taiwanese universities and educating of future manufacturing managers.
Journal of Management development, 19(20), 853-869.