Curriculum Design for (Non-)Psychology Programs – a Reflection on General and Specific Issues,and Approaches on How to Address Them: Comment on Dutke et al.,2019

The target article (Dutke et al., 2019) attracts attention to a highly relevant, but extremely challenging task of psychology departments: the design of psychology curricula for professional target groups outside the core professional fields covered by psychology majors. It firstly presents quantitative and qualitative arguments in order to clarify why the design of psychology curricula for non-psychology target groups deserves more attention (i.e. students studying psychology as a minor outnumber psychology majors, and interdisciplinary cooperation including psychology majors would benefit from an adequate picture of psychology as an academic discipline and professional field). Secondly, it outlines challenges that curriculum designers in this field are confronted with (i.e. the number and complexity of professional fields psychologists can contribute scientific input, the transfer and transformation of psychological concepts, methods, and findings to external fields, and the progress of the state of the art). Finally, it suggests five criteria that should guide the curriculum design (relevance, need, and process orientation – limited in breadth – while maintaining depth and multi-perspectivity).

Before I share my thoughts and comments, I would like to point to my multi-disciplinary academic and professional background (academic degrees from a teacher education and a psychology program, and a Ph.D. and habilitation in psychology). Since 1994, I have taught educational psychology in both psychology major programs and in teacher education programs. In preparing the Bologna reform at the Technische Universität Dresden, I have been involved in the curriculum design of the psychology major and the teacher education programs.

In my commentary, I will use my experiences and lessons learned regarding the design of curricula for both psychology majors and psychology minors to emphasize issues and challenges of curriculum design that have to be addressed be it for a major or a minor program. Then I will reflect on the specific issues for non-major programs and point to important resources that may inform curriculum design. Finally, I will outline how the trade-off between breadth vs. depth and the multi-disciplinary view has been addressed in the psychology curriculum of the teacher education program at TU Dresden.

General Issues and Challenges of Curriculum Design

The systematic design of curricula for study programs includes (a) identifying the purpose and rationale of the curriculum, (b) selecting and organizing the content (epistemological issue), (c) selecting the teaching and learning strategies (instructional design issue), and (d) organizing and implementing curriculum delivery as well as assessment and evaluation processes.

Curriculum design is a challenging task in all academic domains for several reasons: Firstly, curriculum designers have to align the goals and affordances of the academic discipline with those of the diverse professional fields in which the graduates of this discipline will work. Secondly, they have to align the goals and affordances of the curriculum with the goals and resources of the local settings. Thirdly, they have to align the goals and affordances of the curriculum with the goals and capabilities of the target students. Finally, these alignment issues have to be addressed taking into account that the body of knowledge reflecting the current state of art in an academic domain is constantly progressing; professional domains are not stable but changing depending on societal and/or technical developments, and students’ goals and capabilities are diverse and also changing. Hence, current epistemic and professional needs might lose their relevance in the future.

To conclude, all curriculum designers for tertiary education programs are faced with the question of “How can we offer students access to scientific concepts, methods, and empirical evidence they can use to develop their professional knowledge and competences in order to empower them as efficient problem solvers and lifelong learners for their future professional work and life?”

Specific Issues and Possible Approaches for Non-Major Programs

Designing curricula for psychology non-major programs requires tackling the alignment issues for a program that is smaller and provided with fewer resources than a major program. Thus, the challenges related to the selection of the curriculum content and to the organization and implementation of the curriculum delivery are far more pronounced. This holds true in particular for the trade-off between breadth vs. depth and multi-perspectivity. Moreover, as stated in the target article, psychology scholars have mostly limited expertise in professional fields outside the core psychology fields, and thus the challenge of aligning the psychology curriculum to the affordances of the external professional field is very high.

Collaborating with the non-psychology experts in order to tackle this challenge is one possible approach to work on this issue. Another approach would be to use existent general and specific resources for curriculum design. For example, the European Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (EQF – for a comprehensive description see Bologna Working Group, 2005) provides general guidance with regard to the overarching question mentioned above by distinguishing five core qualification goals for Higher Education. Furthermore, (inter)national standards and competency frameworks, as well as handbooks on teaching in the respective domain, may serve as valuable resources for analyzing epistemic and practical needs of a professional domain. Finally, existent curricula may serve as a starting point. Thus, I will briefly outline how the trade-off between breadth and depth has been addressed in the psychology curriculum of the teacher education program at TU Dresden: The curriculum consists of two mandatory modules that can be complemented by optional courses and a scientific thesis (Staatsexamensarbeit) under the guidance of a psychology scholar teaching in the teacher education program. The first mandatory module offers an overview of the core scientific concepts, methods, and empirical evidence considered as highly relevant for the professional field through three main lectures. The second provides a set of problem-oriented seminars covering school-relevant psychology topics from which the students have to select two different courses in order to deepen their psychological knowledge and competences in at least two different psychology fields. As emphasized by the EFPA authors, the curriculum does not include any therapeutic topics but focuses on topics relating to teachers’ professional tasks. Our experiences with this curriculum reveal that it contributes to both an overview and a deeper understanding of core psychology concepts, methods, and empirical evidence. Interestingly, the more practical teaching experiences students report, the more they value this psychology curriculum.

To conclude, I want to emphasize that the EQF-descriptors, the German national standards for teacher education (KMK, 2004), and the concrete recommendations for psychology programs concerning their minimal size and core contents for Teacher Education Programs provided by the German Association of Psychology (DGPs, 2008) were a great support when negotiating about the curriculum and the necessary resources. From my perspective, the rather generic criteria provided by the target article are thus an important beginning, yet they should also open the discussion on more concrete recommendations. The foundation of the European Society of Psychology Learning and Teaching (ESPLAT), initiated at the European Conference on Psychology Learning and Teaching (EuroPLAT) in 2017, will provide one forum for engaging in this discussion. Hence, I will end my comment by inviting researchers and teachers of psychology to join ESPLAT, and contribute their expertise and views on more concrete recommendations (for more information including the 2019 ESPLAT conference, see https://esplatorg.weebly.com).