General education competencies from students’ perspectives: a case study of a sports university in Taiwan

In this highly competitive world, many students seem to focus more on getting a degree rather than on cultivating general education competencies. The study adopted importance-performance analysis (IPA) to assess sports university students’ opinions of general education competencies and the quality of the general education programme. The findings showed that students thought highly of the competencies surveyed; however, there was a quality performance gap for the competencies. In addition, students’ priorities of the competencies reflected the characteristics of their college; and their perceptions of importance could predict their satisfaction with the general education programme. It is recommended that features of competencies-based education (CBE) be utilized to allow learning to be more flexible and student-centred for sports university students. What’s more, both teachers and students need to be made aware of what the competencies mean and why it is necessary to have these abilities. The study concluded that IPA provided information from students’ perspectives, but improving students’ satisfaction and providing quality education that students really need should go hand in hand. This requires the university to interpret IPA results with careful consideration of the context.