Coherence making in large-scale curriculum reform : How do educational stakeholders perceive curriculum coherence and why does it matter?

This dissertation presents an exploration of the anatomy and function of curriculum coherence as perceived by educational stakeholders in national core curriculum reform in basic education. It presents analysis of how educational stakeholders from three levels of the educational system experienced the core curriculum’s coherence, and whether there were differences within and between the levels. In addition, the study included an examination of whether curriculum coherence is connected to the impact of the reform process on school-level development. The dissertation is comprised of three independent part studies. The study was conducted with quantitative methods, combining variable-centered and person-centered analyses. Survey data were collected from three cohorts: statelevel stakeholders involved in core curriculum development (N = 116), districtlevel stakeholders involved in local curriculum development (N = 550) and comprehensive school teachers at two time points in the early stages of implementing the curriculum in schools (N = 901). The results showed that perceived curriculum coherence consisted of: 1) consistency of the intended direction, 2) an integrative approach to teaching and learning, and 3) alignment between objectives, content and assessment (study I). Overall, the state-level stakeholders seemed to have the highest perceptions of the core curriculum’s coherence and teachers the lowest. While all participant cohorts perceived the core curriculum to be rather coherent, the consistency of the curriculum’s intended direction was seen as the least successful element of coherence. The person-centered analyses provided more detailed information about the variation in perceived curriculum coherence within and between the levels of the educational system. Two distinctive profiles were identified among stateand district-level stakeholders in study II. Stakeholders in the high coherence and impact profile (83%) experienced the core curriculum to be coherent in terms of all three elements and expected the reform process to have positive impact on school-level development work. In turn, stakeholders in the lower consistency of the intended direction and impact profile (17%) perceived the consistency of the intended direction to be lower, combined with less positive expectations of the school-level impact. State-level stakeholders had higher odds of belonging to the high coherence and impact profile compared to the district-level stakeholders. In study III, five profiles were identified based on teachers’ perceived curriculum coherence at two time points during the early stage of curriculum implementation. Teachers in the largest profiles, high (21%) and high-moderate coherence (48%), experienced the core curriculum to be coherent, however their perceived coherence slightly decreased during the one-year follow-up. In turn, teachers in the low-moderate (20%) and low coherence (3%) profiles perceived the core curriculum to be less coherent at first but their perceptions slightly increased after the first year of implementation. Finally, the decreasing coherence (9%) profile had rather low initial perceived coherence and showed a large drop during the follow-up. The results also showed that district-level stakeholders’ perceptions of the core curriculum’s coherence were strongly connected to their expectations of the reform’s impact on functional school development (study I). Moreover, teachers’ curriculum coherence profiles differed in terms of their perceptions of the school impact: the more coherent teachers perceived the core curriculum, the more positive they considered the impact of the reform to be on school-level development work (study III). The dissertation contributes to the research on curriculum reform by a) exploring the anatomy of curriculum coherence as perceived by educational stakeholders, b) showing that curriculum coherence is connected to the potential of the reform to support locally functional school development, c) providing a systemic inquiry of perceived curriculum coherence at various levels of the educational system in the context of large-scale curriculum reform, and d) utilizing both variable-centered and person-centered analytical approaches to gain more detailed information on perceived curriculum coherence throughout the system.