George Beauchamp (1981) recognized the following procedures for curriculum development described by Tyler: the process of determining objectives, selecting and organizing learning experiences, and evaluating the program of curriculum and instruction. Two additional ingredients are included in Beauchamp’s design model: a set of rules designating how the curriculum is to be used and an evaluation scheme outlining how the curriculum is to be evaluated. The essential dimensions of his position of curriculum development are shown in Figure 2.
According to Beauchamp (1981), a curriculum possesses five properties or characteristics: (a) It is a written document; (b) it contains statements outlining the goals for the school for which the curriculum was designed; (c) it contains a body of culture content or subject matter that tentatively has the potential for the realization of the school's goals; (d) it contains a statement of intention for use of the document to guide and direct the planning of instructional strategies; and (e) it contains an evaluation scheme. Thus, by definition, a curriculum is a written plan depicting the scope and arrangement of the projected educational program for a school.
As shown in Figure 2, provision is made for a statement of goals, or purposes, for the school. Beauchamp argues that at the level of curriculum planning, it is recommended that these goal statements be phrased in general terms, whereas the preparation of specific behavioral objectives should be left to the level of instructional planning.
A large part of a curriculum would consist of the organization of the culture content. Beauchamp designates the realms of culture content as languages, communications, health and physical education, fine and applied arts, natural sciences, social sciences, and mathematics. The culture content is also identified in terms of characteristics other than school subjects. These he refers to as cognitive components, affective components, and inquiry and skill components consistent with Bloom’s (1956), Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia’s (1964), and Harrow’s (1972) taxonomy domains. These characteristic components are included so that culture content may be more specifically related to goals and ultimately to behavioral objectives during the instructional planning stage.
Across the bottom of the model four levels of school organization are shown. Typically these would be labeled in terms of the administrative organization of the school district or individual school, such as grade levels (primary, elementary school, middle school, high school), or ordinal years. This three-way organization of the culture content would require decision makers and curriculum planners to be cognizant of such design characteristics as scope, sequence, and vertical and horizontal articulation.
Two additional components are included in Beauchamp’s model. One is a set of rules or statements designating how the curriculum is to be used and how it is to be modified based on experience in using the curriculum. An evaluation scheme constitutes the final component of the model. The evaluation scheme is designed to provide feedback data for the products and processes of the curriculum system and the instructional system. Outputs immediately lead back to the curriculum system and the instructional system, thus providing a dynamic cycle of feedback and correction to the fundamental processes of schooling: curriculum and instruction.