Joyce Vreuls, Marcel van der Klink, Mieke Koeslag-Kreunen, Slavi Stoyanov, Henny Boshuizen, Loek Nieuwenhuis
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACTTo meet society’s changing demands, the responsive development of curricula is vital, and curriculum developers need to increasingly foresee and incorporate changes into their curricula in a timely manner. However, responsive curriculum development is a complex problem for curriculum developers in vocational and (higher) professional education, and comprehensive research on this theme is scarce. This study focused on responsive curriculum development processes in a Dutch higher professional education institution (N = 77 experts). A group concept mapping study into the supportive factors of this process revealed six factors: (1) a vision of education and learning, (2) a continuous and iterative development process, (3) teamwork, (4) involving stakeholders, (5) a conducive environment and conditions, and (6) agency. Participating experts highlighted the importance of ensuring that equal attention is devoted to each of these factors. However, the results also reveal the challenges that curriculum developers face. To deal with these, a framework of factors is suggested to facilitate curriculum conversations in which developers can negotiate – and give meaning to – the desired change in the curriculum context.KEYWORDS: Responsive curriculum developmentvocational educationprofessional educationgroup concept mapping Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Ethics statementThis study was approved by the Open Universiteit Ethical Committee (cETO): U/2020/01656/MQF.Notes1. Hereafter, ‘vocational and (higher) professional education’ will be abbreviated as ‘vocational education’.2. ‘Wicked problems’ are unstructured, complex problems. These problems have innumerable causes, are divergent and emergent, continuously evolving and associated with multiple social environments and actors, and have no single solution path. Wicked problems also have unpredictable side effects, which are, in turn, influenced by many dynamic social, cultural, and political factors. A characteristic of these problems is that they seem unsolvable (Hawick, Cleland, and Kitto Citation2017).Additional informationFundingThe author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Vocational Education and Training is a peer-reviewed international journal which welcomes submissions involving a critical discussion of policy and practice, as well as contributions to conceptual and theoretical developments in the field. It includes articles based on empirical research and analysis (quantitative, qualitative and mixed method) and welcomes papers from a wide range of disciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives. The journal embraces the broad range of settings and ways in which vocational and professional learning takes place and, hence, is not restricted by institutional boundaries or structures in relation to national systems of education and training. It is interested in the study of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, as well as economic, cultural and political aspects related to the role of vocational and professional education and training in society. When submitting papers for consideration, the journal encourages authors to consider and engage with debates concerning issues relevant to the focus of their work that have been previously published in the journal. The journal hosts a biennial international conference to provide a forum for researchers to debate and gain feedback on their work, and to encourage comparative analysis and international collaboration. From the first issue of Volume 48, 1996, the journal changed its title from The Vocational Aspect of Education to Journal of Vocational Education and Training.