Alignment of Learning Outcomes of Selected Courses in a University in Thailand: Input for Course Mapping and Revision

Education systems worldwide face pressures to produce graduates that meet the demands of the 21st century workplace. With the curriculum as the heart of the education system, curriculum mapping plays a crucial role in ensuring that course components align with established standards, highlighting areas for improvement such as unclear learning outcomes and misaligned course content and assessment plans. While curriculum mapping has been widely recognized as a tool for ensuring alignment with educational standards, limited research has explored its application at the course level within Business English curricula. Thus, this study aims to assess alignment among three Business English courses for third-year BA in English students at a Thai university using descriptive comparative method and course-level evidence-based mapping. Semantic and content analysis of empirical data helped identify gaps, redundancies, and overlaps among learning outcomes, teaching plan, and assessment plan. The findings reveal varying degrees of alignment across three courses, with emphasis on unclear learning outcomes, redundancies, and misalignments in teaching and assessment plans. Recommendations include revisiting course content, updating materials, linking activities, and refining alignment to improve classroom instruction and enhance education quality.