Are we all on course? - A curriculum mapping comparison of three Australian university open-access enabling programs

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mimi

Examines how enabling curricula are designed and enacted across three large Australian university open-access enabling programs. Using a rigorous curriculum-mapping exercise, the research team develops a mapping tool to identify principles that can guide enabling curriculum design, while highlighting a gap in academic literature on enabling curriculum and design. Findings emphasize the need for clarity between intended and enacted curricula, particularly in unit learning outcomes and program attributes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Are we all on course?

Introduction

What is enabling curriculum?

Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 59, Number 1, April 2019 Are we all on course? A curriculum mapping comparison of three Australian university open-access enabling programs. Dr John Andrew O'Rourke Edith Cowan University Dr Bronwyn Relf University of Newcastle Dr Nicole Crawford University of Tasmania Sue Sharp Edith Cowan University The curricula in higher education not only provides guidance and direction for students, but aligns with industry standards to safeguard quality offerings in specific programs. While there has been increasing focus on the importance of the curriculum particularly for first year university students, very little is known about the curriculum and design principles that exist in open-access enabling programs in Australia. In the following paper, a comprehensive examination of the curriculum of three large open-access enabling programs is presented. The research team explored the curriculum design via a rigorous 8 John Andrew O'Rourke, Bronwyn Relf, Nicole Crawford and Sue Sharp mapping exercise to establish potential principles to guide enabling curriculum design. In developing the curriculum-mapping tool for this research project, it became apparent that limited attention has been given to enabling curriculum design in the academic literature. Given increasing attention towards Australian enabling education, the findings ofthis study emphasise the importance of clarity between the intended and the enacted curriculum, such as in unit learning outcomesand program attributes. Keywords: enabling education, open access, curriculum mapping, higher education, intended curriculum, enacted curriculum Introduction University enabling programs have provided an important pathway to higher education (HE) for ‘second-chance’ students and those from disadvantaged and equity backgrounds since their inception in the early 1970s (Hodges, Bedford, Hartley, Klinger, Murray, O’Rourke, & Schofield, 2013). In doing so they address the widening participation agenda of the Bradley Review (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent, & Scales, 2008; Lomax-Smith, Watson, & Webster, 2011). Enabling programs have increasingly found their place in the HE landscape of Australia (48 enabling programs in 27 universities [Devlin, 2015]) and the recent Demand Driven Funding System review emphasised continued growth in this area – reporting that an additional 3000 students enrolled in enabling programs in 2012 compared to 2009 (Kemp, & Norton, 2014). Quite often enabling program development has occurred within the framework of universities, but not always under the guidance of specific faculties (Baker, & Irwin, 2015), thus criticism exists that these programs can be seen as outliers (Shah, & Whannell, 2017) within the increasingly benchmarked curricular landscape of HE (Pitman, Trinidad, Devlin, Harvey, Brett, & McKay, 2016) . Despite this criticism, Kemp and Norton (2014, p. 61) suggested that given the success of enabling students in undergraduate courses (Department of Education, 2014), there would be ‘more risks and fewer benefits’ from the inclusion of enabling programs into the demand driven system and any associated scrutiny by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Are we all on course? A curriculum mapping comparison of three open-access enabling programs 9 (TEQSA). Any such move towards standardised auditing of enabling programs has been difficult, firstly by the large number and great diversity of programs on offer (Hodges et al., 2013; Kemp, & Norton, 2014) and secondly by a lack of research into what enabling curricula is and should be (Kift, 2016) . Although recent research has explored the benefits of enabling programs and how success can be measured (Bennett, Hodges, Fagan, Hartley, Kavanagh, & Schofield, 2013 Hodges et al., 2013), there is limited research that examines the curriculum design of enabling programs (with the exception of Baker & Irwin’s [2016] thorough exploration of t

FAQs

What is the main focus of the study?

The study compares curriculum mapping across three Australian university open-access enabling programs and examines curriculum design and enactment.

How was the curriculum design investigated?

A rigorous curriculum-mapping exercise was used to explore curriculum design and to establish potential principles for enabling curriculum design.

What key issue do the findings emphasize?

The findings stress the importance of clarity between the intended curriculum and the enacted curriculum, including unit learning outcomes and program attributes.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mimi