Research on the Competence Based Education Model in the Practice Teaching of Tourism Higher Education ()
1. Introduction
Like theoretical teaching, practical teaching has its own complete and independent system. The practical teaching system is an important way for colleges and universities to achieve their training objectives. The practical teaching of tourism management major in colleges and universities is usually regarded as an auxiliary part of theoretical teaching (Bao, 2018; Bao et al., 2019). The discussion of practical teaching is usually conducted as an organic part of tourism theory teaching, and the practical teaching of tourism management major is analyzed and understood from a one-sided perspective. The goal of practical teaching is often targeted at the training of students’ explicit practical skills, which leads to the relevant research is also limited to experiments, training and practice.
At present, China’s tourism colleges and universities are training more students in theory, but their practical ability is relatively weak. In order to have a relatively stable teaching order, China’s tourism colleges and universities generally arrange students to practice in the last academic year, which not only gives consideration to the interests of enterprises, avoids the frequent flow of personnel, but also takes into account the interests of schools, reducing the pressure on school education and teaching, but harms the interests of students. Due to the lack of front-line experience in the industry, teachers often talk on paper in the classroom. What teachers teach and what students learn are disconnected from the needs of the enterprise, and students have to start from scratch when they come to the enterprise, resulting in a waste of human, material and financial resources. Classroom practical teaching, campus practical training and enterprise practical training should run through the whole teaching process rather than simply putting the practice in the last academic year (Bao et al., 2019; Lu et al., 2010).
Tourism colleges and universities have realized that they should strengthen the class hours of practical teaching in teaching design and gradually improve the strength of practical teaching. However, the training objectives of the tourism management major, especially the training objectives of the tourism management undergraduate major, still focus on knowledge accumulation. The theoretical nature of knowledge is still strong, and the students’ practical operation ability is relatively weak. The students cannot fully adapt to the requirements of the rapid development of the current tourism industry. It can be seen from this that the practical teaching of tourism management major, especially the undergraduate tourism management major, lacks systematicness, coherence and comprehensiveness, and it is urgent to adopt an advanced practical teaching system to break through the traditional practical teaching model. CBE mode has the characteristics of a whole process, gradual progress, training and integration, which plays a certain role in overcoming the disadvantages of dispersion and fault in the traditional practical teaching mode of tourism management specialty.
2. The Interactive Analysis of Competency Based Education Model and Practical Teaching of Tourism Management
Competence Based Education is a teaching mode centered on ability cultivation. After World War II, it was born in the United States and is now widely used in vocational education and training in North America, Britain, Australia and other regions and countries. In the early 1990s, China introduced the competency based education model into China through joint educational cooperation projects with Canada, which was favored by many educators. Although the competency based education model originated from modern vocational and technical education, it has been widely used in various education and training institutions at all levels. For traditional higher education, the competency based education model also has many advantages worth learning from (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Manfredo, et al., 2003; Cronin & Taylor, 1992).
Competence based education mode is a kind of teaching thought and practice mode that determines the training objectives, designs teaching contents and evaluates teaching effects based on the ability necessary for a specific occupation (Wang, 2015; Huang & Bao, 2009). The most significant advantage is that it is based on the professional role and the basic principle of the industry’s ability to demand jobs. The main purpose is to strengthen the students’ subjective initiative in learning. The ability based education model takes the application ability as the basis, goal and evaluation standard of education, which changes the traditional practice of taking subjects as the main body to determine class hours and courses.
Tourism management major is a comprehensive and application-oriented discipline, which requires students to have strong practical operation ability and the ability to solve practical problems and deal with emergencies. At present, the training of students’ practical ability is weak, which is a common problem in tourism management. The advantage of CBE model lies in the close cooperation with the industry. The industry has a high degree of involvement in the development of school curricula, and the graduates’ practical ability is strong, which is more in line with the enterprise’s talent training requirements. Therefore, it is of great significance to learn and draw lessons from the advanced experience of the competency based education model for the education and teaching reform of tourism management major and to improve the practical ability of college students.
Therefore, teaching links should be designed and improved according to the development of the tourism industry and the characteristics of the tourism management specialty, and a practical teaching mode centered on students’ “ability based education” should be established. The practice teaching system should be based on the training of practical skills and comprehensive quality of tourism management specialty. According to the teaching objectives of the tourism management major, combined with the feedback of the society and enterprises on demand for talents, and drawing on the relevant experience of domestic and foreign universities, optimize the curriculum structure. Practical teaching should closely cooperate with theoretical teaching to cultivate the students’ comprehensive ability step by step. In the teaching process, the teaching content is constantly updated, the cultivation of students’ application ability is emphasized, and various practical teaching links are scientifically and reasonably arranged, so that the teaching curriculum is reasonable. Of course, in the teaching link, we should not only focus on the practical ability of the curriculum, but also not ignore the theoretical knowledge of tourism management.
3. Analysis on the Construction of Competency Based Education Model in Practical Teaching of Tourism Higher Education
First, relevant theoretical research, including the basic theory of practical teaching mode and ability based education mode (theory).
Second, the current situation and problems of tourism practice teaching.
Third, the construction of tourism practice teaching system with competency based education model as the core. It includes the necessity and ideas of the construction of the tourism practice teaching model (Figure 1).
Fourth, the implementation strategy of the tourism professional practice teaching system. The setting of the undergraduate practical teaching system for tourism management major should follow the principle of gradual progress. It is discussed in four parts, mainly including industry cognitive practice modules (such as expert lectures, industry surveys, post visits, etc.), training skills practice modules (such as tour guide skills training, hotel skills training, scenic spot skills training, etc.) Professional skill practice module (mainly refers to field practice, such as tourism area research, tourism development idea design, etc.) and comprehensive ability practice module (such as post practice, etc.).
Fifth, the support system of tourism practice teaching. It is planned to carry out special research from the aspects of optimizing the practice curriculum system, the construction of experiment and practice bases, the construction of teaching staff, and the supervision and management mechanism.
At the same time, we should establish a better team of practical teaching instructors. The quality of school teaching is directly related to the quality and teaching ability of teachers. Because society and enterprises have put forward higher requirements for talents, the goal of practical teaching will also be improved, and higher requirements are put forward for the ability of teachers. Teachers of tourism management are required not only to have rich basic knowledge of professional theory but also to have the strong practical ability and rich tourism experience. For example, teachers who teach tour guide knowledge should be familiar with the development of the tour guide industry and master tour guide related skills. Teachers who teach hotel knowledge should be familiar with the entire hotel industry and related skills.
4. The Implementation Steps of Competency Based Education Model in Tourism Higher Education
Qin Juan earlier proposed the paradigm of integrating practice and training into the whole teaching activity (Qin, 2014), and gradually strengthened the application of competency based education model in the teaching of higher tourism education in each academic year. The specific implementation time can be broken down as follows:
In the face freshmen, based on the general education of leisure major, students are invited to conduct in-depth enterprise research in the form of teams organized by teachers in the form of teams at the end of the semester and during the holidays, select a certain type of tourism industry, obtain knowledge of the tourism industry and formats through field research on relevant leisure institutions or enterprises of this type in a certain region, and finally complete the Tourism
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Figure 1. Tourism management undergraduate education practice teaching system.
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Figure 2. Decomposition and implementation of the ability based education model for tourism management undergraduate education.
Industry Research Report. In the sophomore year, students of leisure major are divided into different classes in different majors, and their core courses are offered in different majors. During the period from the end of the sophomore semester to the end of the first semester of the junior year, the professional teacher led the students to go deep into the enterprise’s post practice for six months (Wu, 2018). During the practice, the teacher led the team to guide the students continue through the feedback of the enterprise during the practice process. After the practice, the teacher returned to the school to learn the elective and expanded courses of similar majors and cross professional work ability needs, and conducted another practice survey. Finally, complete the graduation thesis, as shown in Figure 2.
5. Conclusion
To sum up, the practical teaching of higher tourism education should be centered on the competency based education model. At present, it has a good internal and external environment and a basis for carrying out relevant design. From the perspective of a complete system of tourism practice teaching, this paper studies and designs the practice teaching mode of tourism management specialty, discusses the basic connotation, target system, construction framework and implementation approach of the practice teaching system of tourism management specialty, and provides new ideas for effectively improving the practice teaching level of tourism higher education in Inner Mongolia.
It can be said that the construction of a practical teaching system for tourism management major oriented by the competency based education model is an important way to cultivate innovative tourism professionals who meet the needs of social development. To cultivate high-quality professionals who meet the development needs of the tourism industry, we must pay attention to the cultivation of practical skills on the basis of ensuring theoretical teaching (Liang, 2018). The practical teaching of tourism management specialty is an important teaching link to enable students to master the basic skills of the tourism industry, cultivate their awareness of tourism service, and improve their ability to find and solve problems, and guide students to transform their theoretical knowledge into practical work ability.
The establishment of the tourism practical teaching system should focus on the reform in the aspects of the formulation of practical teaching training objectives, the design of practical teaching projects and the construction of the practical teaching guarantee system so that students can finally have the ability to creatively solve practical problems with the knowledge they have learned. Only based on the characteristics of the tourism industry and the nature of the tourism management specialty, and constantly carrying out innovation in the practice teaching mode, can we better cultivate practice oriented, high-quality and innovative talents for society, and can we meet the needs of social development for tourism professionals.
As a highly practical and application-oriented discipline, the tourism management major in many schools in China, through long-term exploration, mainly relies on a stable off-campus practice base to carry out its off-campus internship, internship and study courses. It adopts the diversified practice form of “inside + outside”, “scenic area + theme park”, and “tourism colleges + tourism administrative departments” to build a platform for students’ off-campus practical learning. Through practical teaching, the students have a lot of good practical operation abilities and the ability to solve practical problems and deal with emergencies, which has effectively improved the quality of students majoring in tourism management.
Funding
This research was funded by the Chifeng University Tourism and Cultural Industry Innovation Research Team Program (Cfxykycxtd202003), the Chifeng University Construction of First Class Disciplines and Master’s (MTA) Program.