- Title
- Curriculum development in higher education: a study of change and the change agents in the computing discipline
- Creator
- Freeman, Homa
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2018
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Changes in Science and Technology happen rapidly and Computing has emerged as an integral element of these changes. In response to these changes, an ‘urgent’ educational change is needed at undergraduate level. This is vital to ensure that graduates are well-prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. Supporting the need for change, this study is looked at the phenomenon of curriculum change in the computing discipline by identifying the forces of change that are in play in the university sector, and the challenges posed by the pre-existing curricula models. This study has bridged the gap between the abstract knowledge attained from former research and the substantial knowledge on curriculum change in computing by providing a holistic picture of the barriers and facilitators of curriculum change as well as highlighting the role of teaching academics in curriculum change. Drawing on a mixed method approach, the issue of change is examined from a number of different perspectives, divided into three phases. In the first phase, the learning outcomes from the computing curriculum documents of 195 core courses from a range of top universities in Australia and New Zealand were scrutinised and mapped to the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in terms of the cognitive process dimensions. The results of the analysis revealed a mismatch between lower-order and higher-order cognitive skills according to the cognitive process dimensions in the revised taxonomy. This was particularly identified at the initial level (Remember) and the final level (Create). The results of this phase were contributed to provide assistance to curriculum developers in the computing discipline, and to reinforce their views about learning outcomes and curriculum infrastructures. In the second phase, the factors impacting on curriculum change were identified through a review of the literature. An online survey was used to identify what factors (external, organisational, student-related factors and factors related to the features of curriculum) exerted the most impact on curriculum change. As a result, these factors were then classified into the three groups of people involved, pedagogy and technology. The results of the analysis showed where the gaps are, and which areas need attention, revealing the critical role of universities in dealing with curriculum change. In this phase, the teaching academics’ perceived abilities to be involved in curriculum change were also examined. The results showed that teaching academics showed a high mean score, in terms of sense of connection and communality (M = 3.30, SD = 0.549), but a low mean score in sense of leadership (M = 2.85, SD = 0.767) and rewards and recognition (M = 2.70, SD = 0.691). Therefore, more investigation is needed to address the root causes and recommendations for improvement. The findings showed that demographic factors had no impact on the academics’ self-efficacy. The focus of the last phase was on how teaching academics reflected on their roles as agents of change in bringing about changes in curriculum. This was achieved by conducting interviews which drew on the academics’ own insights into their roles. The characteristics of the teaching academics as agents of change were summarised as being passionate about teaching, resilient, enthusiastic and self-aware and having critical mindset. The findings of this study showed that improving academics capacity, areas of connection and communality among academics, ownership in bringing about change in curriculum and rewards and recognition are needed more attention. This study, in overall, has provided some directions for curriculum change including linking the higher and lower order thinking skills, skilling up academics, keeping up with global technology, providing more support to implement novel pedagogies, paying more attention to students’ voice, and customising mathematical content. Moreover, this study concluded that shifting the view over teaching is required, whereas giving considerable value to research (rather than teaching) appeared to impact on academics’ self-efficacy in terms of their sense of reward and recognition.
- Subject
- higher education; curriculum development; computing; teaching academics; change agent; self-efficacy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1395474
- Identifier
- uon:33887
- Rights
- Copyright 2018 Homa Freeman
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 182 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |