During 2007 all Danish university curricula were reformulated to explicitly state course objectives due to the adoption of
a new Danish national grading scale which stipulated that grades were to be given based on how well students meet explicit
course objectives. The Faculties of Science at University of Aarhus and University of Southern Denmark interpreted “course
objectives” as “intended learning outcomes” (ILO) and systematically formulated all such as competencies using the SOLO taxonomy
that operates with five numbered progressive levels of competencies. We investigate how the formulation of ILOs using the
SOLO taxonomy gives information about competence progression, educational traditions, and the nature of various science subjects.
We use all the course curricula (in total 632) from the two faculties to analyze and compare undergraduate and graduate courses
within each department, and different departments with each other.
Keywords Grade scale - Intended learning outcomes - Competences - Progression - Curricula - SOLO taxonomy
Full name: Bettina Dahl Søndergaard (Soendergaard).
The authors are listed in alphabetical order. They have contributed differently, but equally, to this paper.
‘Academic staff’ denotes all Assistant, Associate and Full professors.