6.5.1 Selection of Content (Curriculum Materials)

Curriculum content is a body of facts, ideas, concepts and skills that are presented, discussed and involved in the course. The content selected should reflect the pre-determined curriculum objectives and experiences needed by the learner.

One of the first tasks facing a curriculum developer, armed with a set of objectives and recommendations from a situational analysis, is to select appropriate content to meet those objectives.According to Print (1993), Content selection tends to emphasize either a;

• Subject approach (knowledge)
• Process approach (skills)

When curriculum developers undertake the actual selection of content, the stance they take on what content to include may be seen in terms of a continuum.

Subject approach(Intrinsic value of content)

process approach(Content is irrelevant).

This suggests that the approach towards selecting content varies between one emphasizing a knowledge based approach where the learning of factual material is of paramount importance, and one emphasizing the process approach where skills are highly valued and seen as integral to effective understanding.