Enhancing curricula and learning environments using critical realist perspectives and approaches: a case study and critique

ABSTRACT

While critical realist (CR) ontological and epistemological perspectives and research approaches are becoming more widely adopted by higher education researchers, the scope of research is relatively limited, and novice researchers in the area still struggle to create rich, in-depth, and critical accounts of these approaches ‘in action’. This article provides an account of teacher-researchers’ exploration of these perspectives in the context of an important aspect their everyday teaching practice – the design of effective curricula and learning environments. The context is research that focused on the design, evaluation, and enhancement of learning environments intended to facilitate students’ development of design thinking expertise. The article outlines the researchers’ CR paradigm positioning and implications for methodologies used to gather, analyse, and theorise data about the response of design and business students to three iterations of a design thinking learning environment. The research involved action research that integrated survey, case study, and theorising methodologies. Examples of data, analyses, and explanatory theory are provided to give insights into specific research tasks and their outcomes. Possible explanations for the findings and their implications for attempts to enhance the learning environment are considered from a CR perspective along with challenges that deploying these approaches may entail.

KEYWORDS:

• Design thinking
• critical realism
• learning environment
• action research
• explanatory theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Readers are welcome to contact the authors for more detailed information about the curriculum and other aspects of the curriculum design process which included use of a model and approach described by Haigh (2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Withell

Andrew Withell is the deputy head of the School of Art and Design, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His career has spanned design practice, and university teaching, curricula development and academic leadership across the areas of industrial/product design, digital fabrication, and design thinking. His teaching and research interests include exploring innovative and effective ways to develop, evaluate and optimise university-level design curricula to enhance student learning experiences and outcomes. His growing interest in critical realism in this context has focused on conceptualising learning phenomena, and developing a deep understanding the complex operation of entities and their mechanisms within learning environments, and their potential impact on student learning.

Neil Haigh

Neil Haigh is a higher education consultant who has had a long career in academic staff development. His wide-ranging teaching and research interests include curriculum development, the ‘mental life’ of expert practitioners and development of students’ thinking capabilities in on, and off-campus, learning environments. Underpinning these interests is a concern that the significance of paradigm positioning should be recognised when undertaking associated learning, teaching and research endeavours. This is reflected in his own exploration of the implications of a critical realist position.