Abstract:
The globalization of education has enhanced the transfer and sharing of knowledge throughout the world. With this rapid and ever expanding globalization, there is a need to form standards that will govern the transfer of knowledge as well as learners from different parts of the world. The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) is a student-centered standard of describing learning which assigns credits to learning outcomes in accord- ance to the workload of an average learner. However, the ECTS does not provide a clear and logical method that relates the credits to a given workload of lecture hours, exercise hours, laboratory hours, and self-study hours. Therefore, there is need to formulate a mathematical model that will relate the three variables (Lecture, Exercise, Laboratory hours) and output the correct number of self-study hours based on the workload. In this study, the input versus output data were analyzed using Box-Behnken design method to generate a mathematical model that relates the four (4) variables and assigns the correct number of credits to a given workload. With the developed mathemat- ical model, it has been found with two (2) Lecture hours, one (1) Exercise hour, and one (1) Laboratory hour gives the same number of self-study hours like only two (2) Lecture hours and two (2) Laboratory hours which in total translates to five (5) ECTS Credits.