A MODEL FOR CURRICULUM CHANGE BASED ON RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS.
Contributors: University of South Carolina.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 168
Subjects: Education, Curriculum and Instruction.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Between 1984 and 1987, a liberal arts based associate degree nursing program faculty conceptualized, designed, and implemented a baccalaureate nursing degree curriculum in the same setting. The associate degree program was permanently closed. The purpose of this descriptive study was to describe the curriculum implementation experience of the participants in the situation including the nursing faculty and students, the college staff and community health care agency leaders 20 months after the phenomenon occurred. The conceptual framework focuses the analysis through the organizational application of the Neuman Systems Model (1982).

The design involved the interview of 22 subjects using a semi-structured interview schedule designed to examine the similarities and differences of participant (1) preparation for curriculum change; (2) subject's understanding of the change; (3) subject's perception of the curriculum change process; (4) the meaning of change for subjects; (5) the stressors, defenses, and reactions to change experienced by the subjects; and (6) subject's concerns about the change. Retrospective analysis of the data provides a collective description of the participant's experience. Control of the participant-researcher bias is managed through use of a second data coder, collaboration with the theorist in application of the Neuman Model and piloting of the interview schedule.

The results of this study have implications for curriculum implementers and researchers. The study findings suggest that the Neuman Systems Model provides a systematic framework for assessing, planning, organizing, managing, and controlling curriculum change activities. Through the utilization of an integrated systems and management approach, the curriculum change goal and stressor prevention strategies may be developed by the participants in response to subject reaction to stressors. The researcher asserts a model for curriculum change based on Neuman's Systems Theory and the curriculum change phenomenon described and analyzed in the study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-07, Section: A, page: 1927.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1989.

School code: 0202.