Comparative Evaluation of Sustainable Framework in STEM Intensive Programs for Secondary and Tertiary Education

Abstract

Sustainability of learning environments is a key pillar of all societal development frameworks. A variety of research address the development of education as a fine balanced relation between flexibility, adaptability, innovation, and efficient resource allocation. The main limitation of current approaches is the lack of correlation between various efficiency analyses and budget expenditure of learning environments. The current research aims at undertaking a comparative evaluation of a sustainable framework in STEM intensive programs for secondary and tertiary education. This was done using several established methods like the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle for the development main framework, the Analytic Hierarchy Process for efficiency evaluation and Value Analysis for budget expenditure allocations and improvement identification. The main framework is based on learning objectives defined in accordance with Blooms’ revised taxonomy and student feedback was collected through surveys and group feedback. The main results of the study show that the framework had overall efficiencies over the 80% threshold in both secondary and tertiary education, whilst some of the components scored under 65%, identifying immediate improvement features. Further research involves the transition to an online and mixed teaching environment, by adapting the content and framework structure with the aid of smart learning environments.