What is Plan-Implementation and How is It Taught?

Abstract

Concepts and theories of plan implementa-tion that have been presented in the literature are reviewed to provide the basis of comparison for a survey of planning programs carried out in 1981 The survey aimed to find out how planning educators conceptualize plan implementation and how it is taught Responding programs were clustered by program type, and implementation-related courses classified as generic, contextual, or substantive Findings included an association between program type and the type of courses taught, probably attributable to the process of curriculum development While there was a broad consensus among respondents on the importance of plan-implementation, there are conspicuous gaps between their concepts of plan-implementation and the concepts which prevail in the research and literature, and the types of courses through which many programs claim to be teaching plan-implementation. This implies that such existing courses may not be enough Planning educators need to provide their students with a better exposure to the concepts and findings of implementation theory and research