holistic curriculum

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The holistic curriculumof capability: whose holism?ROBYN LINES, RMIT UNIVERSITYPETER MUIR, RMIT UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT:Emphasis in the now prominent capability based approach to curriculum is on

a holistic design leading to capable performance that equips students to act effectively

within rapidly changing socio-economic contexts. Consensus amongst the teaching team is

required as they must collectively agree upon the discipline relevant capabilities to be devel-

oped and the learning experiences, assessment and feedback strategies that must be linked

in an explicit, coherent and meaningful way (Bowden et al 2000, p.10) if the capability

is to be achieved. Implicit in such descriptions is what constitutes a meaningful way; what

values shape the coherence within the curriculum. Whilst there are multiple variations on

the concept of capability, two themes dominate and occupy ends of a continuum of positions

on capability. Thefirst emphasises student centredness and the humanist values of values

of inclusive participation, access and individual development for work and full participa-

tion in civic life. The major alternate position emphasises meeting industry requirements for

capable employees able to contribute effectively and immediately to wealth generation.

The focus on generic capabilities is seen to provide a means of closing the employability

gap (BHERT, 2003). Through the review of the capability profiles generated forfive

different programs at RMIT University and discussion with participants, this paper

describes the concepts of capability that have prevailed in practice.

KEYWORDS:Capability, curriculum renewal, holistic outcomes

INTRODUCTION

A capability based approach to tertiary education has become dominant within the Australian higher education sector

in recent years. The push for a focus on what graduates should be capable of when they leave universities has been driv-

en by a combination of government, employer, academic and student interests. The convergence of thinking around the

relevance of capability development within the higher education sector has coincided with a period of radical change in

the governance of universities. The impact of these changes has seen the institutions interpret the concept of capability

in widely divergent ways (BHERT, 2003).

RMIT University has been part of this movement and has recognised that capable graduates should be the outcome

of a university education. To this end it has made the renewal of all its curricula to a capability based approach a key

teaching and learning strategy. The authors have been involved with a variety of program teams in the renewal of their

curricula and through this experience have become aware of the different ways in which this task is approached and

interpreted. The first part of this paper briefly outlines the features of a capability based approach that are central to

our investigation and the approaches we have used in our analysis. The second part presents the analysis offive

different programs renewed to a capability base over the last two years.


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CAPABILITY AS A HOLISTIC APPROACH

TO CURRICULUM

A key feature of this approach to curriculum is that

capability is understood as holistic the essential inte-

gration of personal qualities, skills and specialist knowl-

edge which enables students to be effective (Stephenson

& Weil, 1992, p.3). For Stephenson & Weil (1992) theholistic curriculum integrates personal, social and work

dimensions of capability development. Before a teaching

team can design a curriculum that will support the devel-

opment of this holistic capability they must arrive at some

consensus as to what constitutes the desirable capability

graduates should possess.

According to a DETYA funded study, the achievement

of the agreed capability then requires that the learning

experiences, assessment and feedback strategies within

the course of study be linked in an explicit, coherent

and meaningful way (Bowden et al 2000, p.10) so thatit may be achieved. The development of a capability based

curriculum, therefore, focuses attention upon the differ-

ent views within the design team of what being effective

might mean and their different understandings of what

might constitute a coherent and meaningful view of the

world. The differing positions concerning these questions

contain different views about who, in addition to the

design team, is able to determine what concepts of

effectiveness are legitimate.

A second feature of the capability approach is that it sits

within a traditional understanding of the purpose of edu-cation as the creation of modernitys self-motivated, self-

directing, rational subject, capable of exercising individual

agency (Usher & Edwards, 1994, p.2). Resistance to the

approach has been maily concerned with the precise de-

termination of the desirable qualities the self-motivated,

autonomous students are expected to develop and with

whom the responsibility for defining this rests. Whilst

there are critiques of the capability approach from critical

and postmodern perspectives that do, in fact, question

the modernist purposes of education these are not

addressed in this paper.

VARIATIONS IN THE DEFINITION OF HOLISM

Even within the mainstream debates about capability

from a modernist perspective there is a wide variety

of interpretations which privilege different concepts

of effectiveness and the authority of different people

to determine this.

At one end are concepts of capability that emphasise

student centredness and humanist values of inclusive

participation, access and individual development for

work and full participation in civic life. Stephensonand Weils definition of capability, for example

explicitly identifies capability as relevant for personal,

social and working lives and emphasises that in devel-

oping capability students are required to explore and

explain its relevance to their own development and to the

wider community (p.xv). In the attainment of capability

students are required to accept a significant role by taking

greater responsibility for their own learning by negotiat-ing their learning experiences, through active participa-

tion in peer managed collaborative work and structured

reflection. Proponents of such models of capability gener-

ally emphasise the recognition of non academic learning

and the potential of the approach to enhance equity by

better meeting the needs of non-traditional students.

At the other end of the continuum of positions on

capability are those that emphasise concepts offitness

for employment as central to what constitutes effective-

ness. These approaches are further differentiated by the

conception of work that informs them. Fairly traditionalviews of the professional as expert, compete with con-

ceptions of the newflexible worker necessary for the

emerging global enterprise economy and the team based,

innovative workplace. These elaborations of capability

usually make a passing reference to the social and civic

purposes of education but concentrate on the acquisition

of attitudes, skills and competencies perceived as func-

tional to the needs of the socio-economic order (Usher

& Edwards, 1994, p.48). In the determination of what

constitutes capable practice in these models great weight

is given to the views of professional bodies or employer

and industry groups.

A TOOL FOR ANALYSING VARIATION IN

CONCEPTIONS OF CAPABILITY

The adoption of a capability based approach to curricu-

lum has been driven quite significantly at the institutional

level pushed by the Commonwealth governments require-

ment that each university provide a statement of the ge-

neric attributes graduates may expect to develop through

study with them. The ways institutions have responded to

the capability agenda have been profoundly shaped by the

broader policy reforms introduced by the Commonwealth

government since the 1980s.

The Dawkins reforms (Commonwealth of Australia,

1987, 1988) were the first and introduced many of the

principles and practices adopted by private sector corpo-

rations. Terms such as strategic planning, best practice,

quality management, etc became entrenched within uni-

versity discourse. The reforms following the West Report

(Commonwealth of Australia, 1998) introduced market

logic to the sector with the insistence on competition

and consumer choice as the route to effectiveness and

efficiency in the development and distribution of educa-

tional products.


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In characterising the diversity and evolution of these dis-

courses within universities, McNay (1995) identified four

distinct organisational models that differ on the basis of

the level of policy specification and control over implemen-

tation. He named these the collegium, the bureaucracy, the

corporation and the enterprise (Refer to Figure 1). McNay

argues that each model will be simultaneously present inany organisation but one of them will dominate. The col-

legium represents the form of university organisation that

existed prior to the Government reforms introduced in the

1980s and is characterised by a loose policy framework

and loose control over implementation. In this model the

specification of the curriculum and processes for imple-

mentation and evaluation resides primarily with academic

staff at the local level. The bureaucracy focuses on inter-

nal efficiency and the regulation of behaviours through

mechanisms such as standard operating procedures. In this

model there is considerable scope to conceptualise the cur-

riculum in a variety of ways but greater central control is

exercised over the operational aspects of curriculum devel-

opment, implementation and evaluation. The corporation

is the organisational form that emerged from the first wave

Dawkins reforms. The corporate model saw responsibilityfor the curriculum shift from the academic at the local level

(bottom-up) to the manager at the central or corporate

level (top-down). The model of the enterprise university re-

tains the top down specification of the curriculum through

institutional policy. This model reflects the second wave

of University reform where high levels offlexibility and

responsiveness at the local level are required to meet the

needs demands of customer and markets.

Policy definition

Control of

Implementation

loose

collegium bureaucracy

loose tight

enterprise corporation

tight

Figure 1: Models of universities as organisations (McNay, 1995)


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In a similar vein, Hough (2001, p.3) has argued there

are four paradigms or logics-of-action simultaneously

present within the university. He has elaborated these log-

ics-of-action as ideal types but notes that in practice they

are mixed in ways which may well be internally contradic-

tory (See Figure 2).

We have used this delineation of the differing paradigms

as a tool to explore different approaches to developing

capability based curricula in five programs at RMIT.

Through review of capability profiles developed and

interviews with program leaders and some staff, we have

sought to identify how the beneficiary is defined, how the

nature of service or practice has been understood, how

the staff role is defined and to whom accountability is

first directed. Our purpose is to discover what and how

conceptions of capability are being developed in practice.

THE RMIT APPROACH

The approach adopted at RMIT draws upon a report un-

dertaken by the Australian Technology Network (ATN) for

DETYA (Bowden et al, 2000) which itself utilises work by

Bowden and Marton (1998). The approach requires that

students take considerable responsibility for the develop-

ment of their capabilities, however, this is firmly placed

within a managed curriculum model where the determi-

nation of the capability to be developed and the orches-

tration of learning experiences rests with the university

community. (Bowden et al, p. iii).

Three arguments are put forward for this approach. First,

part of the role of a university is to provide citizens who

can operate as agents of social good in the community

(Ibid, p.4). Second, because students frequently work in

Managerial Professional Market Cmmunity

Beneficiary Consumer Student (client) Customer Student (citizen)

Nature of service Product Service Commodity Participation

Staff role Manager of learning

experiences

Teacher/ researcher/

scholar

Broker of educational

opportunities

Enabler, facilitator,

scholar

Accountability &

policy direction

Better management

Clearer planning and

specification

Professional bodies

Codes of practice

Staff development

and educational

support

Support for

scholarship

Customer choice

Supply and demand

Facilitation

Building belong-

ing and collective

identity

Socialisation

areas that are removed from their original educational

focus and because knowledge is rapidly developing, stu-

dents need to develop their capabilities to deal with situ-

ations that they have not encountered before (Ibid, p.5).

Finally, there is a need to respond to employer concerns

about the adequacy of graduate abilities beyond mastery

of discipline knowledge.

Whilst the approach acknowledges the role of universi-

ties in the development of citizenship this is passed over

rapidly as the reports primary concern is with a subset

of the attributes institutions have adopted, specifically

those concerned with the transition to the workplace

(Ibid, p.4). The world of work envisaged within the

ATN report is modelled upon a fairly traditional view of

professional practice. This is evident in the following de-

scription of knowledge capability provided in the report

which adopts a linear and individualised problem solving

approach as a key to professional practice.

The development of knowledge capability goes beyond

the accumulation and understanding of technical content

and enables a graduate to:

- Work out what are the key aspects to be dealt with

in each new situation encountered

- Relate those aspects to knowledge already acquired

and/or to knowledge the graduate knows how to

access


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- Determine what the underlying task or problem in

that situation actually is

- Design a process or solution to deal with the situa-

tion, and them

- Have the ability to follow through and complete

the task or solve the problem, either alone or with

a team. (Ibid, p.19)

The result of this focus is the positioning of the RMIT

approach in the professional paradigm where the concept

of professional practice is of an expert who brings his or

her expertise to bear upon consequential problems. The

accountability will therefore be oriented towards profes-

sional bodies who exercise considerable influence in de-

termining the accepted frameworks for such professional

practice.

The approach developed at RMIT requires that a specific

capability profile be developed for any program and that

the ways in which it is developed and assessed in indi-

vidual courses be mapped, documented and visible for

staff, students and the university community. The form of

the profile developed through this practice is illustrated

schematically below.

VARIATIONS IN PRACTICE CONCEPTIONS

OF CAPABILITY IN FIVE PROGRAMS

The programs that were reviewed in this study were: the

Master of Applied Science (Clinical Chiropractic), the

Bachelor of Engineering (Civil and Infrastructure), the

Bachelor of Applied Science (Disability Studies), the

Master of Applied Science (Chinese Herbal Medicine)

and a suite of four Bachelor of Applied Science degrees

in the area of Property, Valuation, Project and Construc-

tion Management.

As might be expected, there is no simple one to one

relationship between a particular paradigm as described

by Hough and the approach taken in any one curriculum

development. Rather, the programs investigated reveal a

much more complex and interleaved relationship between

the four paradigms that is enacted in very different ways

and with different balances within each.

Using Houghs differentiating aspects, our interviews

revealed that each of the programs has a dominant con-

nection to the professional paradigm in that each accepts

a high level of accountability to professional bodies and

directions for curriculum and teaching practice are sig-

nificantly influenced by their concerns. The accountability

to the profession appears to be much stronger than any

accountability to the universitys managerial agenda or

indeed to the market or community paradigms

Each development has been situated in a Universitycontext of managerially inspired demands for detailed

documentation and complete visibility of a rational and

sequential curriculum that has been designed at the

outset. These demands are reflected in the outcomes

which are comprehensively designed and documented

specifications for programs of study. These demands were

generally found to be onerous and a burden. They were

described as diffi

cult, wasteful and with the potential torestrict creativity.

In one instance the Universitys documentation require-

ments were used as a lever to generate staff engagement

with the concept of capability. Rather than an endorse-

ment of the managerial requirements, this constituted an

opportunistic use of its demand to achieve local purposes.

This fits with the McNays bureaucratic requirement of

standardised presentation of approval documentation that

to varying degrees does not fit with the programs desire to

meet external demands of the profession.

Whilst located within the professional paradigm, it isimportant to note that it is not a simple case of academics

responding to directives or meeting criteria or standards

set by professional or accrediting bodies. Rather this is a

complex relationship involving dialogue, leadership from

both academic and professional groups, moments of con-

vergence and of divergence.

These relationships and the impacts they have on the

development of a capability based curriculum seem to

be influenced significantly by the various histories and

stages of professionalisation of the specific professions. It

is these factors, themselves the result of previous dialogueand development over time, that seem to most profoundly

influence the capability profile developed. Within this

context, the development of a capability based curriculum

represents a further contribution to a continuing dialogue

about the nature of professional practice. This dialogue is

both amongst the staff teaching the program and between

them and the professional bodies. The capability profile

is more a contribution to continued discussion than the

documentation of an already achieved consensus.

The following brief summary of the approaches taken

in the five programs reviewed is set out using the fouraspects used by Hough to delineate the different features

of the four paradigms.

THE BENEFICIARY / STAFF ROLE

In all of the cases examined, the beneficiary of the educa-

tional process is conceived primarily as a student rather

than as a customer or consumer. Where students were

discussed in the interviews in relation to capability or the

curriculum it was using terms associated with profes-

sional education. Such matters as readiness for study, of

diversity within cohorts, of streams of specialisation or the

building and assessing of professional skills were raised.


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There was, in all cases a taken for granted role for staff in

determining the nature of the program of study and the

limits of student choice within it, that is, a program of

study created and controlled by the already professional

for those who aspire to be so. Similarly there was an ori-

entation to providing diverse ways to meet diverse student

needs and a desire to accommodate student interest butwithin the prescribed and managed course of study. In no

cases was there a primary focus on extending or enabling

wide student choice in the creation of a program of study

outside of staff determined program rules.

When students were spoken about outside of their engage-

ment in learning, however, the influence of the market

discourse could be seen. One of the advantages of the

capability approach described was the possibility of clear

and effective marketing of the educational outcomes to be

achieved in a particular program to prospective students

thus introducing the notion of students as discriminatingpotential customers of educational products.

NATURE OF THE SERVICE / ACCOUNTABILITY

AND POLICY DIRECTION

For all programs, education was understood as service

rather than as a product or a commodity and in this broad

sense it once again relates to Houghs professional para-

digm. The primary role of the service was for those already

expert in a form of professional practice to equip students

for capable professional practice. How this was under-

stood for each program differed profoundly and in somecases this brought alternative paradigms into play.

The Disability program, for example, has been involved

over an extended period of time in a broad based com-

munity, professional and academic debate concerning the

nature of its service. This has been conducted in terms of

the discourses of rights, of the marginalised and of the

the other that have also affected areas like gender studies

and been revealed in feminist work. This discourse about

practice has come out of practice and provides a particular

environment for thinking about capability that privileges

the community paradigm identifi

ed by Hough. The profes-sional concerns of this program are with the relationships

that mediate the development of individual capacity and

of social capacity. Its professional accountability is at one

and the same time a community accountability to build-

ing belonging, collective identity and socialisation.

This way of theorising their practice focuses learning on

the relationships between the two dominant, alternatives

(disability as a social construct and disability as something

wrong with the individual) that provided the poles of this

debate. The capability profile for this program includes

the ability to engage in dialogue with a diverse range of

clients, to maintain tolerance and respect for individuals

and groups from diverse background and holding diverse

values and to build networks of collaborative partner-

ships with clients, colleagues, other professionals and the

community.

The Chinese Medicine program locates capability very dif-

ferently. This is a profession in the very early stages of es-

tablishing its credentials within Australia. Whilst the cur-riculum needed to incorporate professional criteria set by

an accrediting body the development of a capability based

approach was taken as a way of accelerating dialogue con-

cerning the nature of Chinese herbal medicine practice in

Australia with a view to developing a more sophisticated

consensus. The professional bodies were seen as failing

to provide leadership concerning the long term future of

Chinese medicine. The resulting curriculum both responds

to and pushes the profession to think differently about

its role and purpose. Its capability profile emphasises the

abilities needed for the integration of Chinese medicineand Chinese medical practitioners into the Western health

care system and culture by integrating Western medi-

cal diagnosis and terminology with traditional Chinese

medicine. In this a focus on evidence based practice and

research is strong. Whilst the program is clearly located

within the professional paradigm, its concerns are with the

redevelopment of current conceptions of practice which

stress the western concept of professional practice as

grounded in a body of science. In this the capability based

program becomes a laboratory for the discovery, through

practice of what such a new conception might be.

Engineering too was engaged in a process of redefining

the nature of professional practice in a dialogue with their

professional bodies, which have adopted capabilities as

their operating framework. The movement is away from

a conception of engineering as advanced mathematical

modelling requiring the application of scientific knowl-

edge to instrumental problems towards one of engineer-

ing as consulting, a conception that requires attention to

human interactions and values in decision making. A key

to this approach was the redefinition of problem solving

which in engineering contexts is often interpreted in a nar-

row, instrumental way to one of decision making which

gives greater emphasis to the role of values. As part of the

dialogue around capability, the professional bodies have

made a move towards acknowledging issues of cultural

difference and the need for cultural awareness. What this

might mean is as yet unclear as the profession has not,

in fact, developed a discourse of engineering practice by

articulating for itself the diverse ways of understanding

engineering or what it might mean to work with people

with diverse values. By identifying this area, the capability

approach is setting an agenda for future scholarly work

and the continued rethinking of what it means to be anengineer.


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The suite of Applied Science programs that embrace

Property, Valuation, Project Management and Construc-

tion Management also originate within the professional

paradigm but reflect the impacts of the market paradigm

and weave within them aspects of a community approach.

The fact that these are a suite of programs is a response to

the market driven logic of standardised and exchangeablecomponent courses that are combined to meet multiple

purposes in program designs with common core courses

and specialised streams that may be added and deleted

as the market requires. These are professions where the

nature of the economy and the workings of the market are

core to the practice. The programs have been developed

within this framework to reflect the changing nature of

the market for graduates where blurring between previ-

ously more distinct domains is increasing and high levels

of graduate mobility are evident after the early years of

practice. The capability focus seeks to build these abilities

for adaptation to deal with changing circumstances by

integrating strategic and operational thinking and action

while simultaneously addressing specific professional

skills. The program emphasises the community respon-

sibilities of graduates as part of professional teams that

produce spaces that shape the communitys possibilities of

interaction.

These brief examples show the complex relationships

between different discourses that impact upon the ways

capability is conceptualised. The market and community

discourses will enter the equation in relation to the nature

and development of the profession and as the results of

initiatives from within the university to drive flexibility,

student choice or managed and aligned curriculum. These

initiatives will, themselves, be interpreted and attended to

in significantly different ways in each professional context.

Variations within the concept of the profession reflect a di-

versity of impacts and the capability profile represents the

documentation of a moment within a continuing dialogue.

THE QUESTION OF CONSENSUS WHOSE HOLISM?

It was noted previously that the capability based approach

makes an assumption of consensus within the staff team

concerning the nature of practice and of appropriate edu-

cation for it.

These examples show that different understandings about

the nature of professional practice are specific to each

profession, historically situated and affected by pres-

sures from various constituencies that reflect different

discursive positions. Each program needs to find a way of

addressing this diversity within a curriculum model that

requires consensus. Rather than choosing and insisting

upon a particular view of professional practice, the pro-

grams within this review appear to have sought a way of

theorising practice that brings the different conceptions of

professional practice into a relationship and to centre the

curriculum design upon this relationship.

For Disability this is the relationship between concep-

tions that focus on individual capacity and those that

emphasise building social capacities. For the suite of built

environment programs it is the relationship betweenspace producers and space users that situates capability.

For the Chinese medicine practitioners it is the relation-

ship between Western definitions of professional practice

based on the application of science and traditional Chinese

systems of knowledge development and validation. For

Engineering it is the relationship between traditional con-

ceptions of professional practice as the application of sci-

ence and technique to instrumental problems to a broader

conception concerned with problem identification, messy

problems and the understanding that values inform all

decision making.In the Chiropractic program the consensus is still to be

finalised despite the existence of a capability profile that

ostensibly represents it. There are divergent positions

within the practice spanning those that only recognise

clinical experience to those that privilege evidence based

inquiry grounded in scientific research. These are reflected

in some ways within the staff group. Using the capabil-

ity curriculum project, the opportunity has been taken

to take a stand on where the program locates itself in

relation to the different views of practice. The capability

profi

le is being used as a tool or springboard to gener-ate and focus the necessary internal debates to see what

consensus might be found. There are indications that the

resolution in this case might follow the patterns of the oth-

ers by privileging defensible individual practice within a

definition of evidence based practice as the combination of

best research, clinical experience and patient preferences

in decision making.

Such ways of structuring consensus can accommodate a

wide range of staff views. The extent to which the relation-

ships between different conceptions of practice become an

explicit focus of the curriculum will determine, however,the extent to which graduates develop the ability to posi-

tion themselves within these differing conceptions of

practice. Making the nature of professional practice, the

impossibility of synthesis of differing positions and the

necessity of continued dialogue an explicit focus of the

curriculum requires more of academics. They must not

only teach professional knowledge and develop skills but

make their own positioning within the adopted schema of

practice clear as they do so.


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