Invited Paper - What effect does an academic's concept of curriculum have on their engagement with its design and development?

At a Glance

Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2020-09-04
Authors	Lynette Johns-Boast
Institutions	National University College, New Generation University College
Analysis	Full AI Review Included

Executive Summary

Core Problem: Higher education curriculum design lacks a common, integrated definition, leading to poor engagement and development practices among academics in engineering, computer science, and information systems.
Focus Discrepancy: Academics overwhelmingly focus their design efforts on the course level (single units of study) and fail to maintain a coherent, integrated view of the overall program level curriculum.
Design Methodology: Curriculum design and development at the course level is predominantly a solitary activity. Academics infrequently discuss proposed changes or ideas with peers, hindering program alignment.
Curriculum as Specification: Participants, reflecting their engineering backgrounds, frequently viewed the formal curriculum as a specification or a “designed object,” likening curriculum goals to project requirements.
System Failure (Drift): A phenomenon termed “curriculum drift” was identified, defined as the rapid movement of a coherent program out of alignment. This is typically caused by changes in teaching staff or small, frequent course outcome adjustments implemented without reference to degree goals.
Proposed Solution: The research aims to develop an “analytic framework” and a model of ‘curriculum as abstract’ and ‘curriculum as process’ to provide a mechanism for monitoring and controlling curriculum drift and improving systemic coherence.

Technical Specifications (Reframed: Study Parameters and Qualitative Data Points)

Parameter	Value	Unit	Context
Total Participants	22	Academics	Involved in teaching Computer Science, Software Engineering, Engineering, and Information Systems
Participating Institutions	3	Australian Universities	Two were first-tier, research-intensive institutions
Data Collection Method	Grounded Theory	Methodology	Constructivist approach (Charmaz ⁴)
Initial Interviews	6	One-to-one sessions	Used to inform subsequent focus group themes
Focus Group Interviews	5	Sessions	Each group had 3 or 4 participants
Formal Qualifications (HE)	7	Participants	Held Graduate Cert. in Higher Education, or equivalent
Observed Design Focus	Course Level	Ratio: Program Level	Primary focus of academic engagement
Observed Activity Type	Solitary	Activity	Curriculum design and development at course level
Study Date Range	Ongoing (Initial findings)	Year	Data collected prior to June 2013

Key Methodologies (Reframed: Research Procedures)

The study employed a Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology (Charmaz ⁴) to investigate academic engagement with curriculum design, treating the process as an iterative design or problem-solving activity ^21,22,23.

Initial Data Collection (One-to-One Interviews):
- Six in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with engineering and computer science academics from one research-intensive university.
- These interviews identified initial themes (e.g., solitary activity, course-level focus) which informed the structure of subsequent focus groups.
Focus Group Implementation:
- Five focus group sessions (1 to 1.5 hours each) were conducted, involving 3 or 4 participants from multiple specified disciplines.
- Sessions were moderated guided discussions exploring approaches to, and understanding of, curriculum at both course and program levels.
Activity-Oriented Modeling:
- Participants used a magnetic whiteboard, colored pens, and prepared labels (representing curriculum elements drawn from literature/interviews) to develop a visual model of curriculum.
- This activity served to break the ice and stimulate discussion regarding the concepts and understanding of curriculum elements, constraints, and influences.
Concurrent Analysis and Iteration:
- Data collection and analysis were conducted concurrently. Initial data analysis informed subsequent data collection, specifically by highlighting the confusion caused by the lack of a common curriculum definition.

Commercial Applications (Reframed: Systemic Design Challenges in Engineering Education)

This research identifies critical systemic design flaws in the development and maintenance of engineering and computer science degree programs. Addressing these flaws is essential for producing high-quality, aligned graduates required by industry.

Systemic Challenge	Description and Impact on Workforce Quality
Curriculum Drift Control	The lack of a mechanism to monitor and control “drift” results in programs that rapidly move out of alignment, potentially failing to meet the specific requirements of professional accreditation bodies (e.g., ACM/IEEE Ironman curriculum ⁶).
Design Process Inefficiency	Curriculum design is treated as an unstructured, solitary activity, despite academics having explicit training in systematic design/problem-solving. This leads to inefficient development and poor integration of learning outcomes.
Specification Ambiguity	The lack of a shared, integrated definition of curriculum (as content, process, or artifact) hinders effective collaboration and communication among faculty responsible for designing interconnected courses.
Need for Visualization Tools	The difficulty in understanding complex connections between program outcomes and individual course outcomes necessitates the development of visual mapping tools. These tools would assist program conveners in ensuring coherence and cohesion.
System Coherence Failure	The finding that “curriculum coherence is not widespread” ¹⁸ indicates a failure in the educational system to promote the complex learning required for modern engineering roles, which rely on integrated knowledge across multiple disciplines.

View Original Abstract

Abstract Paper ID #8372Invited Paper - What effect does an academic’s concept of curriculum haveon their engagement with its design and development?Ms. Lynette Frances Johns-Boast, Australian National University Lynette Johns-Boast is a Lecturer in software engineering at the Australian National University College of Engineering and Computer Science. Her research interests include curriculum design and develop- ment, experiential and cooperative learning, personality and successful teams in software engineering, open educational resources (OER) and learning object repositories (LOR), engineering education includ- ing the transfer of learning between the university and the workplace, and women in engineering. Prior to joining the ANU in 2005, she had 20 years’ experience in the information technology industry in Aus- tralia and the United Kingdom, including establishing a very successful small business which provides bespoke software and consultancy services to the Australian Federal Government in Canberra. Lynette holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Modern European Languages from the ANU and a Graduate Diploma in Information Systems from the University of Canberra. She is currently a PhD candidate in Higher Ed- ucation at the Centre for Higher Education, Teaching & Learning at the ANU. In 2012 Lynette received an Australian Council of Engineering Deans National Award for Engineering Education (High Commen- dation) and in 2007 she received the ”WICked Woman of the Year” award from the Canberra Women in Information and Communication (WIC) for her contribution to developing, encouraging and mentoring young women in industry and at university. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2013 What effect does an academic’s concept of curriculum have on their engagement with its design and development?AbstractThe undergraduate curriculum is one of the most important products higher education institutionsoffer their stakeholders 1 as it both determines and drives outcomes. Despite this, the most notableoutcome of a “review of the literature on curriculum in higher education in the UK, the USA andAustralia … [is that there] is the dearth of writing on the subject” 2. That literature which doesaddress higher education curricula assumes a common understanding of the term curriculum andtargets curriculum related issues such as ‘inclusive curriculum’, ‘learner-centered curriculum’,internationalization of the curriculum or it focuses on the design of individual courses - that is,single units of study 2.Accepting that an important aspect of our role as academics is “not to impart knowledge, but todesign learning environments that support knowledge acquisition” 3, what impact might a highereducation academic’s understanding of the term ‘curriculum’ have upon the process and activitiesthey undertake when designing and developing courses and programs of study?This paper reports on the initial findings of an on-going study whose aim is to tease apart thefactors that affect an individual academic’s engagement with curriculum design and development.So far, data has been collected from 22 academics involved in teaching computer science,software engineering, engineering, and information systems courses at three Australianuniversities. The constructivist grounded theory methodology proposed by Charmaz 4 wasselected for this project. Accordingly, data collection and analysis are being conductedconcurrently, with the outcome of earlier data analysis informing subsequent data collection.Initial data analysis indicates that academics focus their attention on course level curriculumrather than program level; don’t frequently discuss ideas and proposed changes with peers; thatcurriculum design and development at individual course level is essentially a solitary activity; andthat academics don’t have a coherent view of the whole degree program. These findings are inaccord with those reported in 1997 by Stark, Lowther, Sharp and Arnold 5. Furthermore, thediverse understanding of just what curriculum is caused confusion during focus group interviews.In addition to the findings noted above, participants described the goals and outcomes of acurriculum as a specification or set of requirements, and noted that the written, official or“espoused curriculum” was a complex, “designed object” whose internal relationships were hardto understand and visualize. Participants also identified the notion of “drift”, where a curriculummoves out of alignment as teaching staff, responsible for individual courses are replaced, and/orsmall but frequent change to course goals and outcomes are implemented without reference todegree outcomes.In this paper program refers to a complete, integrated course of study leading to the award of adegree qualification. Course refers to a single unit of study, sometimes called a unit, subject ormodule. Students take a number of courses each semester. A program is constructed from manycourses. Academic refers to a teacher at a higher education institution, sometimes called faculty.BackgroundThrough its ability to determine and drive outcomes, the undergraduate curriculum is key toachieving quality outcomes for all stakeholders: students, academics, higher educationinstitutions, professional bodies and society more generally. Despite this, curriculum in highereducation has not received the attention that it has at other levels of education. Professional bodiesassociated with higher education have provided guidance on appropriate content for wholeprograms of study, e.g. the ACM/IEEE “Ironman” curriculum 6 for computer science. However,the elements of a higher degree curriculum and the relationships between those elements have notbeen studied widely.For many university academics the concept of curriculum is unfamiliar 7. Many develop and teachcourses which reflect their own, frequently research-driven, interests and pay little heed to theneed for program coherence or even to identifying the aims and objectives of their course.Barnett8 argues that “curricula in higher education are to a large degree hidden curricula, beinglived by rather than being determined. They have an elusive quality about them. Their actualdimensions and elements are tacit. They take on certain patterns and relationships but thosepatterns and relationships will be hidden from all concerned, except as they are experienced bythe students” 8.What is curriculum?Descriptions of the term curriculum abound: a curriculum can be described as ‘a list of subjects’,a ‘set of courses’, the ‘entire course content’, ‘a set of planned learning experiences’, the ‘writtenplan of action’ as opposed to what is actually done in the classroom or even a ‘decision makingprocess’ for determining educational purposes and how they are to be achieved or somecombination of these concepts. The literature also provides a variety of conceptions of curriculumwhich essentially center on deciding what should be included (content or subject matter), what arethe most appropriate processes and conditions for learning (structure/organization and practice),and how to assess that learning has taken place.The literature is also unclear whether curriculum applies to programs or to courses or to both.Where it suggests curriculum applies to both programs and courses, it is unclear what therelationship between the two is. For example, Tyler 9 and Zais 10 are quite clear that they see theconcepts of curriculum as applying at both program and course level but they do not discuss therelationship between them. On the other hand, Stenhouse 11 does not give any hint to which levelhe considers curriculum belongs, though his language - singular verbs and nouns, and use ofterms such as “classroom teacher” - suggests that he is more focused at course level. Print 12 toois not clear to which level his definition applies. However, as he defines curriculum as “all theplanned learning opportunities offered to learners by the educational institution and theexperiences learners encounter when the curriculum is implemented” 12, p. 9 (my emphasis), Isuggest that Print sees curriculum as applying to a program rather than individual courses.Just how academics perceive the term curriculum and what is meant when they use it depends to alarge extent upon the context and their disciplinary area 13. Yet, despite this abundance ofmeanings and conceptions, frequently when writing about or discussing curriculum it is “with theuntested assumption that [we] are speaking a shared language” 14, p. 2.I contend that common usage and the definitions provided in the literature include multiple,widely differing concepts within the one term. I believe that Lattuca and Stark 1 are aware of theissues and confusion that has arisen from using a single term to mean multiple, different conceptswhen they propose their “academic plan”. They distinguish between a curriculum - content andsequence - and the process of curriculum development which they refer to as “the iterativeprocess of planning”. The combination of both is an “academic plan” 14, p. 15.I suggest that based on the literature and current usage curriculum can be described as: • a concept - how one thinks about a curriculum in the abstract or meta level; • an artifact - a set of documents (for implementation), e.g. the written, published, official, intended curriculum; • a body of knowledge - content (that is to be transmitted) and which may include some notion of sequence; • a process - the life cycle of curriculum or curriculum planning, i.e. an iterative process that includes inception, design, development, delivery (teaching), evaluation, change and retire; • a product - an attempt to achieve certain objectives through the structure, organization and approach to delivery; • or a combination of some or all of the above.Why is it important to understand the concepts of curriculum?I contend that how an individual perceives curriculum will affect the process of curriculum designand development in which he/she engages as well as the output of that process - the written, theofficial, intended or planned curriculum.I agree with Lattuca and Stark 1 when they say that without an common view of curriculumacademics “seldom link the elements they mention into an integrated definition of the curriculum[instead thinking] of separate educational tasks or processes, such as establishing the credit valueof courses, selecting the specific disciplines to be taught or studied, teaching their subjects,specifying objectives for student achievement, and evaluating what students know” 14, p. 2. Theyalso note that “the most common linkage faculty members address is the structural connectionbetween the set of courses offered and the related time and credit framework” 14, p. 2. AdditionallyI suggest that without an integrated definition of curriculum it is very difficult for academics tounderstand the impact changes have on course outcomes, let alone on program outcomes.I further contend that the curriculum intent - that is the aims, goals and objectives 10,12,15 - of ahigher education degree program is met by the sum of the outcomes of the courses from whichthat program is constructed, and that improved student outcomes will be achieved if all involvedat either program or course level have the same understanding of curriculum. Aligning the variouselements of a curriculum to create a coherent curriculum to is widely accepted as improvingstudent outcomes 9,7,5,16,17. A coherent curriculum is especially important at university level,because the “complex learning with which higher education institutions are concerned is bestpromoted by coherent curricula. However, curriculum coherence is not widespread” 18.Finally I contend that a common, well understood definition will enable the development ofquality curricula (both program and course) which create learning environments 3 from whichlearning is likely to “emerge” 19. Furthermore, such a definition will improve communication andovercome ongoing differentiation and disputation - the outcome of existing attempts to arrive atconsensus 12 and is vital if higher education is to accept the challenge of harnessing the potentialof information communication technology (ICT).Design / MethodAs the study is not testing a hypothesis but is attempting to discover what academics actually dowhen engaged in curriculum design and development, the researcher determined it wasappropriate to follow Charmaz’ 4 constructivist grounded theory methodology and data analysismethod 20, p. 130. Based on the researcher’s view that the development of new curricula and theupdating and innovating of existing curricula is a design 21,22,23 or problem solving activity 12 itwas decided that data should be collected from engineering, computer science and informationsystems academics only. Specialists in these fields regularly grapple with problem solving and thedesign of improvements to those problems and their training prepares them to approach designproblems in a systematic way. Despite this, engineering, computer science and informationsystems academics, many of whom have explicit training in facets of design, seldom apply theirdesign skills to curriculum development activities 8.Initially it was planned to collect data via in-depth, semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with atleast 30 engineering, computer science and information systems academics from three Australianuniversities. However, it soon became apparent that academics were not used to thinking aboutcurriculum and the processes with which they engage when designing and developing curriculum- despite engaging regularly with curriculum as they design and develop courses, and participatein program reviews and accreditation visits. To alleviate a perceived significant potential for theresearcher to influence responses when prompting individual interviewees, it was decided toconduct the remainder of the data collection via small focus group interviews. Focus groupinterviews are particularly helpful in getting participants to “explore and clarify their views” 24 ina way not readily achievable in one-to-one interviews.Each focus group lasted for one to one and a half hours and was composed of three or fourparticipants drawn from a single institution. In all but one instance, focus group participants weredrawn from more than one of the specified disciplines. The researcher moderated focus groupsessions which were a guided discussion that explored participants’ approaches to, andunderstanding of, curriculum and curriculum design at both a course and program level. Anactivity oriented question was used to break the ice and to get participants thinking about theelements of a curriculum.Using a magnetic whiteboard, colored pens and prepared labels identifying possible elements ofcurriculum, participants developed a model of curriculum. Elements were drawn from dataobtained during the one-to-one interviews and from the literature. In some instances participantscreated new elements for inclusion in their models. Discussion centered on the model, which wascontinually refined and elaborated, and the concepts and understanding of curriculum that itdocumented.Six, one-to-one interviews were conducted with engineering and computer science academicsfrom one, research-intensive Australian University and the data was analyzed using Charmaz’ 4approach to grounded theory. The themes identified in the one-to-one interviews informed thesmall focus group interviews. Thus far, five focus group interviews have taken place. These haveinvolved 16 engineering, computer science and information systems academics drawn from threeAustralian universities: two of which are first-tier, research-intensive institutions.Participants also provided a small amount of demographic data: institution, appointment level andtype (e.g. permanent, sessional); length of involvement in higher education curriculumdevelopment; involvement in curriculum development at other levels (e.g. vocational orsecondary school); and whether they have formal education qualifications (e.g. GraduateCertificate in Higher Education, Diploma of Education).Interim Findings and DiscussionAt this stage, the work is on-going. The one-to-one interviews only have been analyzed in depth.Focus group interview data has been quickly analyzed between each group so that any importantaspects of one focus group could inform subsequent focus group sessions. More substantialanalysis of this data has begun. Further data collection and completion of in-depth analysis of thefocus group data will be carried out during the remainder of 2013.Thus far, 22 engineering, computer science and information systems academics have participated.Of the 22, six are women and seven have formal educational qualifications - five hold a GraduateCertificate in Higher Education; one a Bachelor in Adult Education and another, a GraduateDiploma in Education (Secondary Mathematics). Focus groups were high energy with participantssaying they had enjoyed the opportunity to discuss and debate the curriculum in this manner. Sofar, no correlations between any of the demographic data collected have emerged but thedemographic data has helped guard against selection bias when choosing participants.Key findings from the one-to-one interviews - that academics focus their attention on course levelcurriculum rather than program level; don’t frequently discuss their ideas and proposed changeswith peers; that curriculum design and development at course level is essentially a solitaryactivity; and that they don’t have a coherent view of the program curriculum - are repeated in thefocus group interviews. These findings accord with those reported in 1997 by Stark, Lowther,Sharp and Arnold 2 from their study of 59 academics at two United States universities. In thatstudy academics were asked “about their assumptions and the influences upon them as they workwith colleagues in planning program curriculum” 5, p. 99.During the focus group interviews, the confusion caused by the lack of a commonly acceptedunderstanding of the term curriculum was apparent, which accords with Barnett’s 8,1 findings.Discussion of the elements of a curriculum was frequently interrupted by the discovery that one ormore members of the group were talking about a program while others were talking about acourse or vice versa. Also causing confusion and significant discussion were participants’different understanding of which elements formed a curriculum and which were constraints orinfluences. Interestingly, even though right from the start one Focus Group was very definiteabout the different aspects of a curriculum as they saw them - the process involved withdesigning and developing a curriculum; the output of that process, that is the course material; andthe formal, written curriculum - and would not begin discussing their concepts until they were allclear they were discussing the same thing, they discovered at one point that two of the group weretalking about curriculum in terms of a program while the other was thinking about it in terms of acourse. Participants also suggested that program and course curricula were organized in someform of hierarchy, potentially with the courses mapped from the program curriculum almost‘cookie cutter’ style.Focus group interviews have highlighted the variance in participants’ understanding of the distinctconcepts typically encompassed by the term curriculum. The concepts identified were: thewritten, official, “espoused curriculum” (Focus Group C) which is generally expressed in terms ofcontent and graduate outcomes; the process which surrounds the inception, design, development,delivery and maintenance of a curriculum; and the method of delivery and the structure andsequencing of content. Often there was robust discussion about exactly which elements formedpart of curriculum and which were influences and constraints.Participants indicated that they saw the written or formal curriculum as a specification, likeningcurriculum goals to project requirements, evoking the world of projects and design that theselected participants inhabit. Participants felt that the structure of a course - that is whether acourse was taught in a number of weekly ‘chunks’ or whether it was taught in intensive mode, andthe teaching methods and learning activities - was not part of the curriculum but instead wassimply an implementation of the curriculum, again echoing their design backgrounds andreinforcing the view of the formal curriculum as a specification. They argued that a coursecurriculum - the goals, outcomes and to a lesser extent, the content - would not change if, forexample, the method of delivery changed or the structure changed from a weekly to intensivemode.Focus group participants were generally clear that curriculum is a design problem and acurriculum itself was a “designed object” (Focus Group C). Participants saw the graduate orstudent outcomes as the guiding principles or the goals that one set out to achieve; the aims,learning outcomes and structure constituted the “thing” one designed to achieve the specifiedgoals; the content, the subject of content were some of one had to work with to design the and the of teaching were the of resources and or all design it was suggested that one would the goals and in the constraints such as resources and one to design a which would be used to the also noted 6 participants not follow any specific approach to design which they they to use design which they their experience and which participants called was as the out of alignment of a designed or for which is coherent and and was caused when the responsible for teaching individual courses changed and course outcomes. changes were frequently implemented without reference outcomes. Participants also that they implemented so as to with the more They a of two or three a of was likely to significant curriculum in a program curriculum out of especially those by which the curriculum and it coherent and saw as that it was a way of C) but that quality if it was not academics had in understanding the between the of a program and how they mapped the individual courses was identified significant problem when to program and more difficult when a course was shared programs and even more so when were in different Participants felt that some of of acurriculum and the relationships between the especially learning outcomes would individual academics when developing, their courses as well as to a program for that a program an of from the one-to-one data the term is in from discussion of the term curriculum and the on this is the focus on teaching and content delivery rather than on student theneed to / being to and that discussion was more for those whose definition of curriculum was not with either a course or program. These are not so in thefocus group data potentially the group of the & is that the knowledge through this research will of developing an in understanding curricula p. a will also a clear and of the term curriculum. these will academics with a of the elements of curriculum and the relationships between them to and curriculum A understanding of curriculum the development of higher education engineering, computer science systems curricula which can be readily to with development and The findings and understanding from this research will inform the designand of a model of as - a curriculum - as the research is to the Australian context and the disciplines of engineering, and information the findings may not be to other highereducation systems or to other disciplines within the of higher education both in and Teaching in Higher Education, in higher education in - in Higher Education, and of the and Professional A systems to Engineering Education to of Engineering Education, 3, in and Stark, Lowther, Sharp and curriculum of faculty on two different in Higher Education, and Computer and through National of Education and Australian Government and the in Higher Education, 3, of and University of and & to and and & Stark and The for for Higher Education, Lattuca and Stark, the College Academic in and and a and the to in Learning and Teaching and in the Engineering in of the In Education and a process approach to Teaching in Higher Education, 3, A on to in Education, American Society for Engineering Education, with a for and in Engineering Education, and for A For and Higher Education, 12, 4 focus

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Original Source

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2—17258