SRHE Blog

The Society for Research into Higher Education

Tag Archives: curriculum


by Leave a comment

Gaps in sustainability literacy in non-STEM higher education programmes

by Erika Kalocsányiová and Rania Hassan

Promoting sustainability literacy in higher education is crucial for deepening students’ pro-environmental behaviour and mindset (Buckler & Creech, 2014; UNESCO, 1997), while also fostering social transformation by embedding sustainability at the core of the student experience. In 2022, our group received an SRHE Scoping Award to synthesise the literature on the development, teaching, and assessment of sustainability literacy in non-STEM higher education programmes. We conducted a multilingual systematic review of post-2010 publications from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), with the results summarised in Kalocsányiová et al (2024).

Out of 6,161 articles that we identified as potentially relevant, 92 studies met the inclusion criteria and are reviewed in the report. These studies involved a total of 11,790 participants and assessed 9,992 university programmes and courses. Our results suggest a significant growth in research interest in sustainability in non-STEM fields since 2017, with 75 studies published compared to just 17 in the preceding seven years. Our analysis also showed that Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, and Austria had the highest concentration of publications, with 25 EHEA countries represented in total. The 92 reviewed studies were characterised by high methodological diversity: nearly half employed quantitative methods (47%), followed by qualitative studies (40%) and mixed methods research (13%). Curriculum assessments using quantitative content analysis of degree and course descriptors were among the most common study types, followed by surveys and intervention or pilot studies. Curriculum assessments provided a systematic way to evaluate the presence or absence of sustainability concepts within curricula at both single HE institutions and in comparative frameworks. However, they often captured only surface-level indications of sustainability integration into undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, without providing evidence on actual implementation and/or the effectiveness of different initiatives. Qualitative methods, including descriptive case studies and interviews that focused on barriers, challenges, implementation strategies, and the acceptability of new sustainability literacy initiatives, made up 40% of the current research. Mixed methods studies accounted for 13% of the reviewed articles, often applying multiple assessment tools simultaneously, including quantitative sustainability competency assessment instruments combined with open-ended interviews or learning journals.

In terms of disciplines, Economics, Business, and Administrative Studies held the largest share of reviewed studies (26%), followed by Education (23%). Multiple disciplines accounted for 22% of the reviewed publications, reflecting the interconnected nature of sustainability. Finance and Accounting contributed only 6%, indicating a need for further research. Similarly, Language and Linguistics, Mass Communication and Documentation, and Social Sciences collectively represented only 12% of the reviewed studies. Creative Arts and Design with just 2% was also a niche area. Although caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions from these results, they highlight the need for more research within the underrepresented disciplines. This in turn can help promote awareness among non-STEM students, stimulate ethical discussions on the cultural dimensions of sustainability, and encourage creative solutions through interdisciplinary dialogue.

Regarding factors and themes explored, the studies focused primarily on the acquisition of sustainability knowledge and competencies (27%), curriculum assessment (23%), challenges and barriers to sustainability integration (10%), implementation and evaluation research (10%), changes in students’ mindset (9%), key competences in sustainability literacy (5%), and active student participation in Education for Sustainable Development (5%). In terms of studies discussing acquisition processes, key focus areas included the teaching of Sustainable Development Goals, awareness of macro-sustainability trends, and knowledge of local sustainability issues. Studies on sustainability competencies focussed on systems thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, ethical awareness, interdisciplinary knowledge, global awareness and citizenship, communication skills, and action-oriented mindset. These competencies and knowledge, which are generally considered crucial for addressing the multifaceted challenges of sustainability (Wiek et al., 2011), were often introduced to non-STEM students through stand-alone lectures, workshops, or pilot studies involving new cross-disciplinary curricula.

Our review also highlighted a broad range of pedagogical approaches adopted for sustainability teaching and learning within non-STEM disciplines. These covered case and project-based learning, experiential learning methods, problem-based learning, collaborative learning, reflection groups, pedagogical dialogue, flipped classroom approaches, game-based learning, and service learning. While there is strong research interest in the documentation and implementation of these pedagogical approaches, few studies have so far attempted to assess learning outcomes, particularly regarding discipline-specific sustainability expertise and real-world problem-solving skills.

Many of the reviewed studies relied on single-method approaches, meaning valuable insights into sustainability-focused teaching and learning may have been missed. For instance, studies often failed to capture the complexities surrounding sustainability integration into non-STEM programs, either by presenting positivist results that require further contextualisation or by offering rich context limited to a single course or study group, which cannot be generalised. The assessment tools currently used also seemed to lack consistency, making it difficult to compare outcomes across programmes and institutions to promote best practices. More robust evaluation designs, such as longitudinal studies, controlled intervention studies, and mixed methods approaches (Gopalan et al, 2020; Ponce & Pagán-Maldonado, 2015), are needed to explore and demonstrate the pedagogical effectiveness of various sustainability literacy initiatives in non-STEM disciplines and their impact on student outcomes and societal change.

In summary, our review suggests good progress in integrating sustainability knowledge and competencies into some core non-STEM disciplines, while also highlighting gaps. Based on the results we have formulated some questions that may help steer future research:

  • Are there systemic barriers hindering the integration of sustainability themes, challenges and competencies into specific non-STEM fields?
  • Are certain disciplines receiving disproportionate research attention at the expense of others?
  • How do different pedagogical approaches compare in terms of effectiveness for fostering sustainability literacy in and across HE fields?
  • What new educational practices are emerging, and how can we fairly assess them and evidence their benefits for students and the environment?

We also would like to encourage other researchers to engage with knowledge produced in a variety of languages and educational contexts. The multilingual search and screening strategy implemented in our review enabled us to identify and retrieve evidence from 25 EHEA countries and 24 non-English publications. If reviews of education research remain monolingual (English-only), important findings and insights will go unnoticed hindering knowledge exchange, creativity, and innovation in HE.

Dr. Erika Kalocsányiová is a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Lifecourse Development at the University of Greenwich, with research centering on public health and sustainability communication, migration and multilingualism, refugee integration, and the implications of these areas for higher education policies.

Rania Hassan is a PhD student and a research assistant at the University of Greenwich. Her research centres on exploring enterprise development activities within emerging economies. As a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary researcher, Rania is passionate about advancing academia and promoting knowledge exchange in higher education.


by Leave a comment

Spotlight on the inclusion process in developing AI guidance and policy

by Lilian Schofield and Joanne J. Zhang

Introduction

When the discourse on ChatGPT started gaining momentum in higher education in 2022, the ‘emotions’ behind the response of educators, such as feelings of exclusion, isolation, and fear of technological change, were not initially at the forefront. Even educators’ feelings of apprehension about the introduction and usage of AI in education, which is an emotional response, were not given much attention. This feeling was highlighted by Ng et al (2023), who stated that many AI tools are new to educators, and many educators may feel overwhelmed by them due to a lack of understanding or familiarity with the technology. The big issues then were talks on banning the use of ChatGPT, ethical and privacy concerns, inclusive issues and concerns about academic misconduct (Cotton et al, 2023; Malinka et al, 2023; Rasul et al, 2023; Zhou & Schofield, 2023).

As higher education institutions started developing AI guidance in education, again the focus seemed to be geared towards students’ ethical and responsible usage of AI and little about educators’ guidance. Here we reflect on the process of developing the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London’s AI guidance through the lens of inclusion and educators’ ‘voice’. We view ‘inclusion’ as the active participation and contribution of educators in the process of co-creating the AI policy alongside multiple voices from students and staff.

Co-creating inclusive AI guidance

Triggered by the lack of clear AI guidance for students and educators, the School of Business and Management at the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) embarked on developing AI guidance for students and staff from October 2023 to March 2024.  Led by Deputy Directors of Education Dr Joanne J. Zhang and Dr Darryn Mitussis, the guidance was co-created with staff members through different modes, such as the best practice sharing sessions, staff away day, student-staff consultation, and staff consultation. These experiences helped shape the inclusive way and bottom-up approach of developing the AI guidance. The best practice sharing sessions allowed educators to contribute their expertise as well as provide a platform to voice their fears and apprehensions about adopting and using AI for teaching. The sessions acted as a space to share concerns and became a space where educators could have a sense of relief and solidarity. Staff members shared that knowing that others share similar apprehensions was reassuring and reduced the feeling of isolation. This collective space helped promote a more collaborative and supportive environment for educators to comfortably explore AI applications in their teaching.

Furthermore, the iterative process of developing this guidance has engaged different ‘voices’ within and outside the school. For instance, we discussed with the QMUL central team their approach and resources for facilitating AI usage for students and staff. We discussed Russell Group principles on AI usage and explored different universities’ AI policies and practices. The draft guideline was discussed and endorsed at the Teaching Away Day and education committee meetings. As a result, we suggested three principles for developing effective practices in teaching and learning:

  1. Explore and learn.
  2. Discuss and inform.
  3. Stress test and validate.

Key learning points from our process include having the avenue to use voice, whether in support of AI or not, and ensuring educators are active participants in the AI guidance-making process. This is also reflected in the AI guidance, which supports all staff in developing effective practices at their own pace.

Consultation with educators and students was an important avenue for inclusion in the process of developing the AI policy. Open communication and dialogue facilitated staff members’ opportunities to contribute to and shape the AI policy. This consultative approach enhanced the inclusion of educators and strengthened the AI policy.

Practical suggestions

Voice is a powerful tool (Arnot & Reay, 2007). However, educators may feel silenced and isolated without an avenue for their  voice. This ‘silence’ and isolation takes us back to the initial challenges experienced at the start of AI discourse, such as apprehension, fear, and isolation. The need to address these issues is pertinent, especially now when employers, students and higher education drive AI to be embedded in the curriculum and have AI-skilled graduates (Southworth et al, 2023). A co-creative approach to developing AI policies is crucial to enable critique and learning, promoting a sense of ownership and commitment to the successful integration of AI in education.

The process of developing an AI policy itself serves as the solution to the barriers to educators adopting AI in their practice and an enabler for inclusion. It ensures educators’ voices are heard, addresses their fears, and finds effective ways to develop a co-created AI policy. This inclusive participatory and co-creative approach helped mitigate fears associated with AI by creating a supportive environment where apprehensions can be openly discussed and addressed.

The co-creative approach of developing the policy with educators’ voices plays an important role in AI adoption. Creating avenues, such as the best practice sharing sessions where educators can discuss their experiences with AI, both positive and negative, ensures that voices are heard and concerns are acknowledged and addressed. This collective sharing builds a sense of community and support, helping to alleviate individual anxieties.

Steps that could be taken towards an inclusive approach to developing an inclusive AI guidance and policy are as follows:

  1. Set up the core group – Director for Education, chair of the exam board, and the inclusion of educators from different subject areas. Though the development of AI guidance can have a top-down approach, it is important that the group set-up is inclusive of educators’ voices and concerns.
  2. Design multiple avenues for educators ‘voices’ to be heard (best practice sharing sessions within and cross faulty, teaching away day).
  3. Communication channels are clear and open for all to contribute.
  4. Engaging all staff and students – hearing from students directly is powerful for staff, too; we learned a lot from students and included their voices in the guidance.
  5. Integrate and gain endorsements from the school management team. Promoting educators’ involvement in creating AI guidance legitimises their contributions and ensures that their insights are taken seriously. Additionally, such endorsement ensures that AI guidance is aligned with the needs and ethical considerations of those directly engaged and affected by the guidance.

Conclusion

As many higher education institutions move towards embedding AI into the curriculum and become clearer in their AI guidance, it is crucial to acknowledge and address the emotional dimensions educators face in adapting to AI technologies in education. Educators’ voices in contributing to AI policy and guidance are important in ensuring that they are clear about the guidance, embrace it and are upskilled in order for the embedding and implementation of AI in teaching and learning to be successful.

Dr. Lilian Schofield is a senior lecturer in Nonprofit Management and the Deputy Director of Student Experience at the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London. Her interests include critical management pedagogy, social change, and sustainability. Lilian is passionate about incorporating and exploring voice, silence, and inclusion into her practice and research. She is a Queen Mary Academy Fellow and has taken up the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Fellowship, where she works on student skills enhancement practice initiatives at Queen Mary University of London.

Dr Joanne J. Zhang is Reader in Entrepreneurship, Deputy Director of Education at the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, and a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge. She is the ‘Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year’, Triple E European Award 2022. Joanne is also the founding director of the Entrepreneurship Hub , and the QM Social Venture Fund  - the first student-led social venture fund investing in ‘startups for good’ in the UK.  Joanne’s research and teaching interests are entrepreneurship, strategy and entrepreneurship education. She has led and engaged in large-scale research and scholarship projects totalling over GBP£7m.  Email: Joanne.zhang@qmul.ac.uk


by 2 Comments

Offering a curriculum change evaluation tool

by Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury

This blog offers an overview of a curriculum evaluation tool, part of a recently published article ‘Curriculum change as transformational learning’, in Teaching in Higher Education.

A decade ago, one of us led a strand of work exploring global best practice in whole-institution curriculum change, as part of a wider Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) project. The resulting book, Strategic Curriculum Change, identified that while huge amounts of time and money were spent doing large-scale curriculum change, as well as vast costs on the subsequent marketing of it, next to nothing was invested in evaluating it.

One of the main challenges is that while a curriculum change initiative starts off as a separate project, it eventually becomes business as usual. Such change efforts often come at a high political cost as well, with senior leaders often moving on and leaving the implementation to others. Many efforts never really get off the ground, instead lingering and taking on board new ideas, blending the old and the new. These may water down the original vision and drive for change, further hindering evaluation.

Evaluating change

We have recently had the opportunity to remedy this gap, through evaluating a whole-institution curriculum review project, part of a comprehensive nine-year investment plan to reposition teaching and learning within an institution. While it is easy to check the administrative side of a change effort (were boxes ticked, forms filled out), analysing the whether the ethos, purpose and guiding principles were adopted requires a much more nuanced approach.

We designed a multi-stage evaluation plan to explore to what extent were the principles of a Learning and Teaching Strategy embedded within new curriculum structures, as well as the impact on personal and disciplinary culture.

This output provides insight into the first stage of curriculum change – taking new ideas and pedagogical approaches and building them into the bricks and mortar of the educational experience and into the minds and practices of those delivering the curriculum. This approach allows for evaluating to what extent a change effort is just words on a slick new webpage, or whether there has been a transformation of the curriculum.

The review in context

The review is based in a highly devolved, mid-size urban research-intensive institution in the UK. The institutional change programme is based on four pillars:

1) Assessment Reform: A review of curricula with the objective of reducing over-assessment

2) Active Learning: An evidence-based transformation of pedagogy, to make teaching more discovery-based

3) Diversity and Inclusion: The fostering of an inclusive and diverse culture and sense of belonging

4) Digital and Technology Enhanced Learning: The development of online and digital tools to enhance curricula, pedagogy and community

We evaluated the degree of departmental engagement with the institution-wide curriculum review policy through a discourse analysis of three sources: 1) a public Learning and Teaching Strategy; 2) internal Curriculum Redesign Forms, the quality assurance process stating changes, rationale and engagement; and 3) external Programme Specifications, detailing the educational offer for prospective students.

The evaluation tool

We designed an evaluation rubric, and in the paper we cover two aspects of it. The first explores engagement with the four pillars of the Strategy in the Curriculum Redesign Forms, through the adoption of language, intent and application, resulting in 12 indicators. This allowed us to evaluate the degree to which words and meaning of the Strategy were embedded within the new curriculum structures of the departments.

We also explored the alignment of the Curriculum Redesign Forms and the Programme Specification, focusing on the sections on Programme Overview, the Learning Outcomes, the Learning and Teaching Approach and the Assessment Strategy. This led to another 16 indicators. This offered insight into the extent the internal changes had made it into the public ‘offering’ of the course.

These 28 indicators were judged on a scale of Absent, Vague, Implicit, Present, Explicit. Scores were assigned and each department in the institution was reviewed by the researchers. We found varying engagement across the pillars of the Strategy and the challenge of applying principles in practice. We identified three different patterns of engagement across departments, with ‘active’ departments integrating the aims of the Strategy with disciplinary knowledge and pedagogy, ‘engaged’ departments adopting much of intent of the strategy, and group of ‘passive’ departments with minimal engagement and a focus on structural changes.

We hope this research and evaluation tool help others conduct evaluation of curriculum change. We found this approach uncovered both structural and cultural change. This is just the start of our research on curriculum change, and we hope it kickstarts other curriculum change research and evaluation, whether at the institution, faculty or departmental level.

SRHE member Dr Camille Kandiko Howson is Associate Professor of Education in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship at Imperial College London. Follow Camille on Twitter @cbkandiko

SRHE member Professor Martyn Kingsbury is Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship at Imperial College London.


by Leave a comment

Making knowledge more explicit in the English for Academic Purposes classroom

by Mark Brooke

This post is part of a series tied to a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education published in March 2019. This special issue aimed to spark a re-evaluation of what higher education needs to do to respond to the post-truth world, especially from the perspective of individual educators. The twelve papers, nine of which are accompanied by posts here on the SRHE blog, take different perspectives to explore the ways in which higher education is being challenged and the responses that it might make in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and professional practice.

In 2000, Moore (2000: 33) wrote that the ‘curriculum of the future should be the curriculum of knowledge’. He argued that knowledge should be accessible to all members of society and, in this way, education should promote social and educational justice. However, we find that the educational climate for such an objective is not wholly welcoming. In many university settings, academic language courses tend to be devoid of a theoretical approach to education that places the teacher in the role of linguistic expert. Indeed, courses prominently feature notions such as grammatical accuracy instruction based on isolated clauses at the lexico-grammatical level or independent self-directed learning and study habits. Unfortunately, in these cases, the focus of instruction may first be decontextualised as extracts, which oversimplifies the meanings in the texts; and second, a theory of language or knowledge may play a backseat role or even be entirely absent. As many researchers have pointed out, focusing on common errors in a de-contextualised way is probably not effective. Additionally, independent learning, although a useful process, is often given too much focus. This detracts from the time spent with a qualified tutor as knowledge provider, taking the onus away from what the teacher does. In the case of independent learning instruction, what is being foregrounded is ‘the social circumstances of knowers’ (Maton, 2014: 5), not knowledge.

In contrast, the main goal of our research is to provide knowledge to students in the form of analytical lenses to enable them to deconstruct and judge information effectively. What we strive to do is move away from educational ‘knowledge blindness’ (Maton, 2014). Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) as a sociological framework has guided our educational practices to do this. The basic premise of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is that knowledge is power. LCT is a toolkit for analysing socio-cultural practices and uncovering what constitutes the ‘rules of the game’ that provide the means to that power. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a gaze or ‘a mode of thinking, acting and being’ (Dong et al, 2015: 8) through the explanatory power of the codes. In this research we seek to develop our students’ critical gaze. We achieve this by applying the dimensions of specialisation (including cosmologies) and semantics.

Specialisation determines principles of privilege in fields of practice. Practices that emphasise epistemic relation and downplay actors’ dispositions view specialised knowledge as the basis of achievement (ER+). We believe a curriculum should primarily be built on ER+. Practices that emphasise social relations, and downplay epistemic relations, are represented by the knower codes (SR+). Independent learning is an example of this, which has often been given too much focus in our field. Knower codes can be explored in greater depth through the use of the concept of ‘axiological cosmologies’. Maton (2013) defines cosmologies as ‘constitutive features of social fields that underlie the way social actors and practices are differentially characterised and valued’ (p 152). In identifying how clusters are formed, we can help students to understand the means by which experts and authors attempt to persuade the reader to align with a position on a particular issue. ‘Semantics’ is a dimension from LCT that ‘conceives social fields of practice as semantic structures whose organizing principles are conceptualized as semantic codes’ (Maton, 2014: 2). Using Semantics, it is possible to explore the relations that exist between knowledge structures and, in particular for this purpose, how to apply a critical lens to a social phenomenon or text to analyse it. 

We conducted research between 2015 and 2017 at the Centre for English Language Communication at the National University of Singapore. Our findings, from three parallel case studies within the broad framework of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), provide results from classroom-based action research working with semantics, specialisation and axiological cosmologies from Legitimation Code Theory. Each case study is outlined, explaining how these LCT dimensions have guided practice in the teaching of English for academic writing. Specifically, LCT has been applied in the development of our students’ critical dispositions by teaching them how to apply critical lenses to analyse texts and to make informed judgements. The first case study explores semantics as a strategy for teaching how to use lenses for the theoretical framework section of an IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Research and Discussion) research paper in the social sciences. The second is set in a standalone EAP module and describes the use of a systemic-functional linguistics-informed pedagogical tool as a lens to analyse academic discourse so learners can better understand the meanings including the assumptions, unsupported claims, or biases in texts. The third regards the embedding of LCT approaches for students engaged in writing hortatory blogs in a unit entitled Public Writing and Communication. Students are taught to explore ‘axiological cosmologies’ to understand how evaluative meanings form patterns of clusters that enable the writer to create a persuasive expository text.

References

Dong, A, Maton, K and Carvalho L, (2015) The structuring of design knowledge The Routledge Companion to Design Research, pp38-49 London: Routledge.

Maton, K (2008) ‘Knowledge-building: how can we create powerful and influential ideas?’ Paper presented at Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Language: An International Symposium Sydney: University of Sydney

Maton, K (2013) Knowledge and knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education Routledge: London

Maton, K (2014) ‘Building powerful knowledge: the significance of semantic waves’ in Barrett, B and Rata, E (eds) (2014) Knowledge and the future of the curriculum, pp181–197 London: Palgrave Macmillan, Palgrave Studies in Excellence and Equity in Global Education.

Moore, R (2000) ‘For knowledge: tradition, progressivism and progress in education – reconstructing the curriculum debate’ Cambridge Journal of Education 30(1): 17–36

Mark Brooke is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication at the National University of Singapore. He specialises in research and teaching in two fields: English for Academic Purposes and the Sociology of Sport. He can be found on Google Scholar, Facebook and LinkedIn.The full article by Mark Brooke, Laetitia Monbec and Namala Tilakaratna (all National University of Singapore), ‘The analytical lens: developing undergraduate students’ critical dispositions in undergraduate EAP writing courses’, is in Teaching in Higher Education 24(3): 428-443

Ian Kinchin


by Leave a comment

Research-teaching links: what do students think?

By Ian Kinchin

Looking at university web sites, it is clear that many institutions are offering “unique” student experiences for identical reasons. In particular a research-informed teaching and learning environment. The convergence on this particular selling point is quite striking despite the lack of clarity on what this means or what the evidence is for this being the best way forward. It seems that universities are all heading along the same road without questioning whether there are alternative perspectives.

I find the comments made nearly 50 years ago by West (1966: 767) particularly interesting in this regard, suggesting an alternative model for university teaching. He states:

“Most teachers understand the importance of developing the students’ capacity for critical thinking and self-education, but most of us are too busy telling them what we know to get around to showing them how we learn. Possibly they would gain more from watching us learn than from watching us teach.”

Imagine a university without a “teaching curriculum”, but a “learning curriculum” in which the students study the activities of particular researchers in order to piece together the nature of their chosen subject. Continue reading →