Abstract:
This paper presents a framework for evaluating curriculum changes undertaken
in the University of Sydney's Faculty of Health Sciences. In a climate of shrinking
resources for higher education in Australia and an international move away from
'mono-disciplinary' educational practices, the Faculty of Health Sciences has undertaken
curriculum reform to decrease the staff time associated with preparing and
delivering many versions of similar units of study and increase the opportunities for
disciplinary mingling at an undergraduate level. Twenty-nine cross-disciplinary units of
study in which students from a range of disciplines will work together have been
introduced to replace 100 units of study unique to individual disciplines. It is expected
that the curriculum changes will create savings in terms of staff time that can be diverted
to other activities, such as research, reduce the workload demands of assessment on staff
and students and improve students' learning experiences, particularly with regard to
working in teams, multidisciplinary teaching and learning environments and overall
course satisfaction. The paper presents a framework of cost-consequence analysis for
evaluating the curriculum changes and presents some preliminary comparative data.
