7 Summary and Key Recommendations
6. Conclusion and Implications
Students as consumers of the education product, and skilled graduate employees Students are represented in the texts in many different forms. Various words refer to the students, - ''students'', ''graduates''. and in some cases students are constructed as potential consumer of the business school's product, ''enrolments'', ''course demand'. Often this is implied, rather than stated, with proxies used to denote this meaning. Students are referred to as the object of education, ''provide graduates with a broad knowledge of the business disciplines and their interconnectedness'', and with the technical skills required for their chosen profession.'' Employability was a dominant discourse:
Academics noted that income for the whole program was important, and within the reports of the consultancy/review processes, academics and academic leaders responded with input on the financial implications for the school's various discipline groups, and possible impacts on staffing and research endeavours. A senior manager summed up these dual
considerations supporting the finding that business school curriculum in this case is as much about the organization as it is about the student experience: ''this is about what will be best for the students and for the business school as a whole.''
5. Where is the student with two, or two billion, brains, the bionic
My study demonstrates that in this case higher education curriculum renewal is indeed a ''extraordinarily complicated conversation'' and that ''human agency and the volitional character of human action'' (Pinar, 1999) are critical considerations in Higher Education.
This study also demonstrates the layered nature of the discursive practices at many managerial and operation levels of the institution, and that the discursive connections
between the layers, may sometimes be obvious, and sometimes non-obvious. Importantly, in this case the practices appeared to influence the social spaces in which the academics worked, and created a discursive practice where ''practical reactions'' of the staff involved contributed to a successful curriculum renewal process. When presented with the difficult and we could even say ''wicked'' problem of curriculum innovation, smart people, when provided with the necessary resources and required spaces in time and space to explore - will innovate.
6.2 The process of researching curriculum practice matters…
Clearly, both the concept of higher education curriculum, and the practice of higher education curriculum are laden with complexities. This study, and the work of others, suggests that these complexities are worthy of further exploration from both the research and practice perspective. My own analysis, and reflection on my own practice, has enabled me to contribute more effectively to curriculum change in my everyday academic practice, to challenge orthodoxies and to feel confident to introduce new discourses into the process, - for example new conceptions of young learners, as ''bionic''. The process of curriculum renewal tends to generate significant documentation which may lend itself to discourse analysis approaches. Various theories of practice such as those of Gherardi and Bourdieu may be useful starting points.
While PhD study is a special case, and imposes requirements for approaches which are both feasible and ethical for an individual researcher, the often collaborative nature of curriculum renewal creates many opportunities for collaborative, and possibly more extensive research with larger datasets. As curriculum renewal practice is imbued with contestation and tensions between various discursive practices, I suggest that the possibility of researching the practice is best raised at the outset of the project with the project team, participant review processes agreed, and ethics approval obtained. The data that is
produced through the process is likely to provide insights, which would not be evident from an evaluative analysis undertaken after the project.
Acknowledgement:
I would like to thank my PhD supervisor, Professor Lesley Farrell who has offered valuable insights.
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