Transforming the Academic System into a Trimester System in Higher Education: Case Study at KAU

Strategic Plan of Some Universities

In their article, Nauffal and Nasser (2012) were using a case study approach and analyzed the strategic planning processes of two universities. The first institution, Qatar University, is a public university, and the second institution, Lebanese American University, is a private nonprofit university. This research employs qualitative methods such as survey analysis, documentary analysis, and interviews to provide a detailed description of the two universities’ strategic planning techniques as well as the role of leadership in inspiring change through effective communication, continuous assessment, and accountability throughout the planning and implementation process. In the private university, the president actively participated in the meetings of the steering committee and its subcommittees. On the other hand, leadership distanced itself in the initial phase of planning in the public university from those who were actually involved in the planning process which is major the difference between the two universities.

The researcher Arif and Hegazy (2020) conducted a study aimed at identifying the current status of strategic planning at the Faculty of Education at Jouf University from the teaching staff’s perspective. The sample consisted of 99 members; the researcher used the descriptive survey method to answer the research queries. The survey included two axes: the current status of strategic planning and providing suggestions and solutions to improve the current status of strategic planning. The study concluded that Jouf University’s strategic plan is in line with national development plans, and it has clear measurable objectives as well as performance indicators to measure the range of objectives achievement. The plan also represents a frame of reference for operational and implementing plans for all university sectors across the country. The researcher provided some recommendations for Jouf University, of which the important point was: Jouf University has to continue supporting strategic planning processes and following up its strategic plans.

The strategic plan of the College of Computing and Informatics (CCI) at Saudi Electronic University includes several points, all of which are aimed at several areas, including educational outputs, increasing scientific production, supporting development, participating in community service, and investing in college resources. The strategic goals of the College of Computing and Information Technology at KAU are very similar to the strategy of the CCI at Saudi Electronic University. However, the difference is one of the goals of CCI’s strategic plan at Saudi Electronic University is to integrate scientific programs and build bridges between applied sciences and information technology that can serve all the bodies that were built as goals for the college, which may integrate the college with other colleges in achieving one of the goals. ⁵

Techniques that Help in Implementing the Strategy and Enhance the Quality

Syed et al. (2013) explain the integration of qualitative and quantitative techniques, such as SWOT, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) in making strategies for business schools in Saudi Arabia. They state that well-designed and well-implemented strategic planning will help higher education institutions (HEIs) in keeping up with the changes. In contrast, a poor strategy led them to belate in the rapidly changing field of higher learning. The researcher integrates AHP, SWOT, and QSPM in Strategic Planning at the College of Business Administration Al Kharj (CBAK) in Saudi Arabia. The AHP approach is used to facilitate decision-making by organizing feelings, judgments, and perceptions into a hierarchic structure that shows the forces that influence a decision. They follow Professor Fred R. David’s strategy formulation framework that contains three stages: input stage, matching stage, and decision stage. In this study, they integrate AHP in the input stage with External Factor Evaluation Matrix and Internal Factor Evaluation Matrix. Furthermore, they used SWOT Matrix in the matching stage to generate strategies that are compatible with the external and internal factors. Lastly, they used QSPM in the decision stage by the Attractiveness Score from one to four to detect the attractiveness of each strategy considering the external or internal factors. Consequently, select which strategy is best for the college. They conclude that the HEIs that integrate AHP, SWOT, and QSPM in strategic planning are less probably to inappropriately choose alternative strategies to follow and take into account the key external and internal factors.

Aldaweesh et al. (2013) discuss implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) and the best leadership practice to enhance the rank and quality of Saudi universities. This paper proposes a review and framework to improve the higher education strategy. They suggest indicators to help decision-makers in universities to improve the performance and quality of higher education and earn a competitive advantage. The research problem was the effect of TQM implementation to gain a competitive advantage and the best leadership practice to improve the quality and the rank of the university. They collected data by conducting semi-structured interviews with 38 quality managers from four Saudi universities to find the key factors that affect the implementation of TQM and the leadership practice in the universities. Their conceptual framework contains some major themes in implementing TQM; these are leadership, information management, human resource management, and educational management. Then adopting the suitable leadership style, wherein this paper focuses on two styles: transactional leadership and transformational leadership. Finally, their findings would help improve the universities’ quality, ranking, and strategies and create a competitive environment.

Fooladvand et al. (2015) refer that strategic planning analyzes the basic environmental risk factors and offers the solutions which are more possibly suitable to reach the goals. In this regard, they mention that one of the methods that can be used to evaluate strategic planning is the balanced scorecard (BSC). BSC offers a diverse collection of performance indexes in four groups that include financial performance indicators, customer, internal processes, learning, and growth. The main advantage of a BSC in system establishment is to measure past performance and conduct future performance which leads to filling the gap between the goals stated by senior managers and the objectives perceived by the employees.

The main goal that Ameen (2019) made clear in his research was to see how strategic planning has aided in the process of improving higher education performance, using the University of Duhok as a case study. The questionnaire consisted of 32 questions separated into strategic planning and was based on the opinions of the university colleges’ Deans and heads of scientific departments. Curricula, educational programs, scientific research, students, buildings and facilities, provision of services to civil society, internal self-education, and finally the identification of internationally recognized quality standards were among the issues addressed in the study of higher education efficiency. According to the findings, the study discovered a link between strategic planning criteria and the effectiveness of higher education performance. This factor accounts for 14.8% of the return, whereas the remaining 85.2% is related to other factors not included in the study model.

Purpose of Trimester Scheduling

Students who face difficulties in the regular classroom environment because of their low performance usually need more time, and additional individual instructional time, to accomplish a particular task. This indicates the trimester schedule advantage, which is having fewer students in the classes, and more individualized instruction due to the longer time of classes. In other words, the trimester schedule benefits the teachers and the students more than the regular schedule.

With the trimester schedule, the students will be having fewer classes, the ability to decide what classes to take, and more concentration since they will have fewer subjects than at any other time (Brown, 1975). Besides, the trimester system will enable the students to have more time, space, and equipment to utilize in classes such as industrial arts and lab classes. In case of failing a class, students’ time can be used efficiently by repeating the class during the same year. Moreover, this trimester system offers the students the opportunity to graduate faster than the regular system (Blackwell & Kegley, 1976) as well as offers scheduling flexibility by giving the students the option to take more electives (Simmons & Hendon, 1975). The school day efficiency can be improved by rearranging the number of classes per grading period, including the hours spent in classes. In other words, rather than schedules running educational institutions, the educational institution should run the schedules.

In 1995, Canady and Rettig (1995) concluded that the schedule can be viewed from three perspectives:

A schedule can be considered as a resource, as an organization’s people, time, physical space, and other resources can be utilized more effectively.

The academic trimester system has proven its effectiveness in various international experiences, it is worth noting that most of these educational organizations consider ensuring the quality of education, environments, and educational outcomes among their most prominent aims and strategic goals. Prominent among these educational organizations is education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ⁶ Ensuring a supportive and stimulating learning environment based on quality is a common goal between the strategic plan of the UAE Ministry of Education and the strategic plan of KAU. This study reviews the educational initiatives of the UAE that have been undertaken to ensure the quality of the educational process and have been planned and implemented to improve the educational experience. Based on UAE educational initiatives result, it is indicated that the pursuit and initiatives to achieve educational quality must be a continuous and iterative process, and there must be a balance between the speed with which the change occurs and the time required to achieve the effect of this change (Tamim & Colburn, 2019).

In addition, the academic trimester system is the academic system adopted in higher education in Japan. The academic year in Japan is divided into three semesters: Fall, Winter, and Spring. For example, the primary objectives of the International University of Japan, which was founded in 1982, are to “teach and conduct research in academic theory and applications necessary for practical solutions of issues facing international society and international businesses” and “contributing to the development of international society”. ⁷ Also, Chuo University, founded by lawyers in 1885, has since grown from a specialized law school into a comprehensive university. The university’s mission is to develop individuals who have a global vision and the ability to apply knowledge and contribute to society and humanity. And it strives for excellence and develops its historical and newly emerging institutional strength to make it deeper and longer-lasting, thus contributing to the global community. ⁸

In general, this knowledge-based society places higher education in a unique position, and this is what makes higher education arouse the increasing interest of researchers.

Yamaguchi and Tsukahara (2016) discuss how Japanese higher education deals with quality assurance, as the government has introduced a set of important changes in higher education in accordance with the main goal of Japanese universities. Where Japanese higher education aims to conduct teaching and deep research in specialized academic subjects and develop intellectual and practical capabilities, while the technical colleges’ goal specifically is the teaching of specialized academic subjects and the development of the capabilities required for the practice of professions. This goal shares with the goals of the College of Computing and Information Technology at KAU in several essential points.

Effects of the Trimester System

According to Faulkner (1997), Peebles High School (PHS) is one of the four rural high schools that is located in Ohio Valley Local School District in Adams County. Instead of following the traditional semester schedule, PHS decided to implement a trimester system in 1995–1996. This study focuses on gathering the required information to discover if switching to the trimester has a positive effect on PHS.

PHS includes classes from 7th to 12th grades with approximately 540 students, 35 teachers, and another 16 staff. The survey was only introduced to high school faculty and administration that worked in 1995–1996 since the school started to implement the trimester system only in 11th and 12th grades in that year. While grades seven and eight did not participate in the survey due to their different schedule and system. Because of gaining the venture capital grant, professional staff was able to study several factors to evaluate their effectiveness in the present time. PHS was facing several difficulties such as the lack of the physical space, materials, and money to hire more teachers to handle the overloaded classes. Despite the fact that students had taken all of their available electives, the conducted students’ survey showed that many students wanted more classes since they had enough credits to graduate by the end of their senior year except for English and Government. The curriculum was not meeting students’ needs, and PHS faculty members were ready for a change.

After attending several conferences and seminars seeking possible solutions for the PHS crisis during 1994–1995, faculty members found two possible solutions: a block-scheduling system and a trimester system. Both of these systems would ease some of the PHS issues through teachers’ pooling and expanding class offerings. However, the block-scheduling system did not hold any solutions for space and faculty members shortage problems. On the other hand, the faculty members found after a deep investigation that the implementation of the trimester system seemed a real plausible solution, as the trimester plan allows accommodating more new classes without the need to provide more physical space or hire more faculty members. The faculty, staff, parents, and community members were informed about the trimester system through faculty meetings and in-service sessions. As PHS started offering classes ranging time from 1 hour to 2 hours with 3–6 periods a day, instead of holding 7 periods a day with class meetings for 40–50 minutes. This helps the students taking their main core classes in a 2-hour block and receive one credit upon the successful completion of the class and take some of their electives that were scheduled for 1-hour blocks, earning half a credit upon the successful completion of the class. Besides, the students have the ability to decide what classes to take, including the order of the chosen classes and when they can be scheduled in order to average out their schedules academically and selectively.

In December 1996, the surveys and interviews that were related to students’ and teachers’ perceptions were conducted to gather required data from 11th and 12th grade students, faculty members, administrators, and other staff, in order to investigate the ability of the trimester to achieve PHS established objectives and improve the education by meeting students’ needs. The survey introduced to students was composed of 10 questions; 8 of them were multiple choices, and the other 2 questions were open-ended questions. On the other hand, the teachers’ survey contained seven questions; six questions were multiple choices and one fill-in-the-blank question. Based on the students’ survey results, the majority of students showed an acceptance of the trimester system. A total of 66% students thought that the trimester schedule was easier, 14% thought it was harder, and 20% thought that applying a four-nine-week schedule did not make any difference. In addition, 60% observed that their grades were higher after applying the trimester system, 6% found that their grades were lower, and 34% thought their grades did not change. For the fourth question, 56% thought the learning process was better, while 16% found that their learning process was worse, and 28% thought that the learning amount did not change. Besides, 89% found that there was more variety of the classes that could be chosen, which is a huge percentage. However, 5% thought their classes’ variety was more limited, while 6% of the students did not find any difference in the number of class selections. For the sixth question, 69% found that the trimester system raised the importance of attendance, 4% found that attendance became less important, and 27% stated that the importance of attendance was still the same. Generally, 84% liked the trimester schedule more than the regular schedule, while 15% of students liked it the same, and 1% did not like the trimester schedule at all.

The teachers’ survey was delivered to them through mailboxes; 10 out of 20 were returned. For the first question, all the teachers agreed that they had more classes to teach. Besides, no teachers thought that they offered fewer classes, while 80% expressed their ability to offer more different classes, and 20% stated that the number of students’ amount stayed the same. For the third question, 40% observes an increase in students’ amount for every trimester, 50% noticed a decrease in the number of students per trimester, and 10% stated that students’ amount stayed the same. All teachers have not seen fewer students after applying the trimester, while 80% stated that they have seen more students, and 20% stated that students’ amount stayed the same. In addition, 60% expressed that their teaching style has changed to keep up with the length changing of time for classes, while 40% did not need to change their teaching style. Lastly, the teachers were asked if the trimester schedule was a good solution for the PHS major indicated problems, which were the shortage of space, lack of faculty, and the schedule that did not meet students’ needs. The majority of teachers (80%) found that the trimester schedule solved all PHS problems, while only 20% thought that it was not a good solution. In summary, the criteria for switching to a trimester schedule at PHS have been met, and the learning environment was improved to meet PHS students’ needs.

As for the professional level, Showell (2018) from the University of Texas conducted a psychological study on a group of teachers who practice the profession of teaching in a school that underwent a schedule change for the trimester system. The goal was to provide insight into the experiences of teachers who were a part of the school schedule change. This study has proven that this system increases the strength of collaboration and joint planning due to the extra time that results from the addition of the third semester.