Curricular network analysis

Academics usually have a good overview of their discipline which allows them to rapidly integrate new knowledge into a general context. Students often lack this overview and need to develop an own picture of their discipline and the connections between different subjects and courses. For an analysis of the bachelor program in chemical engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), lecturers wanted to know how their students perceive the cross-links between different lectures. Therefore, a method was developed to analyse students' perceptions of the links between lectures, called curricular network analysis. Attending a lecture, students take structured notes on topics, formulas or facts if they either recognise them as parts of other lectures or if the lecturer points out the connections. All notes are added to a database which is subsequently analysed with regard to the connecting topics and the frequency of their occurrence. Graphical illustrations of the results give a vivid impression of connections between single lectures and of the network of contents that characterise the whole study program. The visualisation can rapidly spark a discussion between lecturers because it allows them to compare their own concepts with the perceptions of the students. Since it facilitates identifying redundant repetitions and missing references between courses, it enables a learner-orientated restructuring of the study program. This paper describes the method in detail, presents results of an investigation with a group of students and shows how the obtained data were used for restructuring the bachelor program in (bio-)chemical engineering at TUHH.

Subjects

Chemical engineering

Curriculum analysis

Curriculum development

Network visualisation

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Curricular network analysis