Abstract
IntroductionCurriculum integration is widely discussed in medical education but remains ill defined. Although there is plenty of information on logistical aspects of curriculum integration, little attention has been paid to the contextual issues that emerge from its practice and may complicate students’ knowledge integration. Therefore, we aimed to uncover how curriculum integration is manifested through context.MethodsWe collected data from the official curriculum and interviewed ten participants (including curriculum designers, facilitators, and students) in the bachelor’s medical program at Aalborg University. We observed various learning activities focused on pre-clinical education. Inspired by grounded theory, we analyzed the information we gathered.ResultsThe following theoretical constructs emerged after the inductive analysis: 1) curriculum integration complexity is embedded in the institutional learning perspectives; 2) curriculum integration is used to harmonize conflicting learning perspectives in curriculum practice; 3) curriculum integration creates tensions that self-organize its structure; and 4) curriculum integration becomes visible in collaborative learning spaces.DiscussionThese constructs provide a framework for analyzing curriculum integration in the context in which it is meant to appear, which may assist educationalists to gain a more specific understanding of the term. This may enable effective curriculum integration since contextual issues are addressed in addition to the goals specified in the official curriculum.
Highlights
Curriculum integration is widely discussed in medical education but remains ill defined
Curriculum integration is considered of key importance for reforming medical programs across the world, yet many medical schools struggle with integrating their curricula
The meaning of curriculum integration is unclear, possibly owing to the multiple variations of it that include the following: a) Integrating basic and clinical sciences [11]; b) Integrating basic, clinical, and social sciences [12]; c) Integration based on delivering information [8]; d) Integration based on applying prior knowledge and experience [13]; e) Deliberately unifying separate areas of knowledge in the curriculum [5]; f) Interacting knowledge derived from multiple sources to foster understanding and performance of medical activities [14]; g) The ‘dynamic interconnectedness that emerges from recursive interactions at multiple levels’ [15]; h) Designing modules that have ‘an overall theme which governs the horizontal integration of all relevant disciplines’ [16]; and i) An ‘iterative revisiting of topics, subjects or themes throughout the course’ [17]
Summary
Curriculum integration is widely discussed in medical education but remains ill defined. The meaning of curriculum integration is unclear, possibly owing to the multiple variations of it that include the following: a) Integrating basic and clinical sciences [11]; b) Integrating basic, clinical, and social sciences [12]; c) Integration based on delivering information [8]; d) Integration based on applying prior knowledge and experience [13]; e) Deliberately unifying separate areas of knowledge in the curriculum [5]; f) Interacting knowledge derived from multiple sources to foster understanding and performance of medical activities [14]; g) The ‘dynamic interconnectedness that emerges from recursive interactions at multiple levels’ [15]; h) Designing modules that have ‘an overall theme which governs the horizontal integration of all relevant disciplines’ [16]; and i) An ‘iterative revisiting of topics, subjects or themes throughout the course’ [17] These multiple approaches for integrating curriculum are based on different learning theories that provide underlying organizing principles such as discipline-based learning, cognitivism, behaviourism, constructivism, complexity theory, and spiral learning [18,19,20]. We investigated how students, facilitators, and curriculum designers understand and operationalize curriculum integration in a particular setting [24]
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