Rational curriculum processes: revising learning outcomes is essential yet insufficient for a twenty-first century science curriculum

In a competitive higher education sector, large-scale curriculum reviews are common, and increasingly require alignment with broader graduate attributes. Outcomes-based reviews can be difficult in practice, especially in generalist degrees such as science and mathematics, where students’ future career pathways are uncertain and varied. Working with academic leads, we revised learning outcomes across majors, streams and programmes within a diverse science faculty at a large Australian research-based university. We devised a novel measure to quantify the change and developed exemplars across the Faculty to further assist academics in aligning their curriculum to the University’s graduate qualities. Following revision, the language and alignment of learning outcomes was significantly improved. Although this study provides a model for others undergoing curriculum reform, caution is required as such large-scale, time-intensive revisions – although essential – are insufficient to create the required twenty-first century Science curricula.