Chapter 5: Marketing education at UKZN
5.2 Discourses
5.2.3 Curriculum structure
5.2.3.2 Progression
six chapters. So you can’t just say you’re learning only the first three chapters or whatever. You have to know everything, like, co-relates somehow. You have to have knowledge about, you know,…what’s going on, you know, overall… (Kiara)
That’s one thing I’ve realized about varsity and the modules. It’s more like, “We might be testing you on section…on this section, Chapter 6 – but I want you to…I want to see you linking that to Chapter 1 and Chapter 10, linking everything to show that you do understand” (Bongani).
However, Michael pointed out that assessment practices in some modules worked against achieving this sort of „big picture‟ by testing topics as isolated segments, rather than as part of an integrated whole.
Um, the test was chapters one to eight, and the exam was chapters nine to fifteen of the textbook. So, I had a little bit of a problem with that……that you’re not looking at the subject in totality. And with [name of module that Michael taught], they said “But we did chapters one to eight for our test, does that mean we don’t have to…?” I said “No, no, chapters one to fifteen will do for the exam, thank you very much… You have to look at it holistically...” (Michael).
In addition to integration, participants spoke about progression in the undergraduate Marketing curriculum at UKZN.
Of the four „Ps‟ that are a major focus of the Marketing discipline (Yiu, 2009), only two („promotion‟ and „product‟) are developed beyond the brief introduction offered in second year.
„Promotion‟ is the focus of a dedicated module (Marketing Communications), while „product‟ is currently the primary focus of Special Topics in Marketing, a module intended to allow for contemporary developments in marketing to be represented in the curriculum. The content of this module could thus change from the current mainly „product‟ focus – depending not only on developments in marketing practice, but also on the availability, interests and expertise of staff teaching the module.
The lack of focus on the other two „Ps‟ („price‟ and „place‟) at third year may be related to an emphasis in the Marketing curriculum on aspects considered to be most relevant to the work of marketing managers. When asked to rank what knowledge areas were most important for graduates, marketing managers in New Zealand selected (in order of importance) marketing communications, consumer behaviour and product/brand management (Gray et al, 2002) – all three of which form part of the third-year curriculum at UKZN. Similarly, in the USA it was found that the knowledge areas most often required by employers included “buyer behaviour, marketing research, promotion and advertising, and global marketing” (Lincoln, 2010, p.125, citing Schlee, 2009). The first three of these are included in the undergraduate curriculum at UKZN in the third year, and the fourth is offered at Honours level.
The overlap of Marketing content with other disciplines may also be pertinent to the lack of focus on „price‟ and „place‟ at third year. Students in the Faculty of Management Studies are required to take two years of Economics, and „price‟ is an aspect included in the Economics curriculum. This requirement to take Economics does not apply to students from outside the Faculty who are majoring in Marketing, however – such as the students on the Howard College campus who are registered for Social Science degrees. „Place‟ is taught in Supply Chain Management, which has been offered as a separate discipline on the School of Management‟s Westville campus since 2007. However, while all Marketing students in the Faculty of Management Studies take a level two introductory module from the Supply Chain Management discipline (Introduction to Operations Management), not all of them select Supply Chain Management as their second major in their third year of study. In addition, Supply Chain Management is not offered as a major on the Howard College campus.
The scheduling of Marketing only from second year onwards at UKZN is characteristic of undergraduate business degrees, with Marketing courses typically being taken late in students‟
academic programmes (Kleine, 2002). Kamini felt that this was problematic and that students needed to start specialising in Marketing “from the get go”.
There’s nothing in second year that’s foundational for Marketing students……And it’s such a jump from second year to third year…so that is why there’s such a…expectation when they come……Ja. So there’s…so obviously they get a bit of a shock (Kamini) Um, I sort of think from second to third year, though, I think it’s a big jump and they expect a lot from us…er……in terms of our writing ability and what we’re supposed to know. I think, um, and I hear a lot like of our lecturers saying ‘You’re supposed to know this, you’re supposed to know that’…but if there was nothing in first and second year, if the majority of us don’t know, surely there’s a problem with the teaching. Um, ja, that’s made me a little angry… (Maxine).
Of interest is that both Kamini and Maxine in effect „write off‟ the introductory Marketing module, saying that there‟s “nothing in second year” that helps prepare students for third-year Marketing.
In fact, Maxine felt that she might as well not have done the introductory module.
I don’t think they prepare us enough…I feel sort of like…that I could have not done first and second [year]…and could have just…but that sort of big jump, like the amount that they’re expecting [in third year] (Maxine).
As previously mentioned, the breadth of the introductory module Marketing module may contribute to a superficial treatment of topics, especially as this module has only half the contact time of the third-year modules. It also leads to some topics being set as self-study instead of being covered in class and, because these topics are generally not assessed, most students simply ignore them. Add to this that students report that a pass in the introductory module can be achieved via rote learning, and that there is a gap of a semester or a year until the third-year modules are taken, and it starts to become clear why students may feel as Maxine does.
However, it might also be the nature of Marketing, as a horizontal knowledge structure, that has a role to play here, as such knowledge structures are less likely to result in cumulative learning (Maton, 2009).
Level 2 is a mere intro to the basics of [subject] not giving exclusive coverage and depth to the concept of [subject] as a whole, so although level 2 is a prerequisite module it serves more as an Intro to Marketing in general and only superficially covers [subject]
which is an aspect of marketing management. Students progression to [subject] level 3 is not highly dependent on what they’ve covered in level 2 as we undertake a study of [subject] intensively at level 3 from scratch, as it were (Nisha)
…there’s lots of new areas in [module name] at a third level... (Nisha)
…students don’t actually cover any of this at level 2 (Nisha)
…level 2 is merely a superficial intro which is repeated for the sake of clarity and built on in level 3 (Nisha)
To an extent the absolute basics are referenced from level 2 but the analysis is much more deeper and intensive at level 3…and lends itself to concepts and application not covered anywhere in the literature at level 2 (Nisha)
Still using the same things, Marketing – the first one, second year, third year. You find it’s the same thing even though there are some stuff that we do…but…more detail, ja.
But just, but just like…I’d say the thing is just the same (Sihle).
From the comments above, it appears that there is no clear progression in terms of a graded development of concepts from one year to the next. At third year, there seems to be repetition of what has been done in the second year course, the introduction of new concepts that are not related to what was done in the second year course and the application of concepts from the second year course in new situations and contexts. However, there is not much building conceptually on what was covered in second year. These descriptions are reflective of a horizontal curriculum structure, in which “a unit of study (lesson, module, year, etc) builds upon the knowledge imparted in previous units…through segmental aggregation” rather than through integration and subsumption (Maton, 2009, p.45).
This may account for why Marketing is generally scheduled later in business degrees (Kleine, 2002). It may be that it is not necessary to schedule Marketing courses any earlier because they tend not to build vertically on concepts, but to repeat them and add horizontally to them (for example, by looking at them in terms of new applications, as Nisha indicated). Kamini, however, felt that it was because Marketing was scheduled late that it was not possible to build on concepts over the years.
…don’t just bring [subject] in third year…it’s the kind of subject that you can build into, so…so that as the years go by, you get a sense of why you do [subject]. ‘Cos students still don’t know why they must do [subject]... And most of them don’t have any intention of doing postgrad (Kamini).
From what has been presented in the preceding sections, it may be safe to conclude that the Marketing curriculum is working against students gaining epistemological access to the discipline, in that it does not offer a coherent, graded development of ideas that enables students to take on and participate effectively in the disciplinary Discourse. This could in part be attributed to the strength of the „keeping apart‟ discourse. However, because learning outcomes are often complex and thus can only be developed slowly across entire programmes, not in individual modules, there are “significant implications for curriculum design and integration” (Fenton-
O‟Creevy et al, 2006, p.12), as well as for transfer (Maton, 2009). Again this shows how discourses at the level of the real impact on students‟ experiences in Marketing at UKZN, with consequences for epistemological access.