Abstract:

The volume and intensity of knowledge building is currently posing profound challenges to universities. In this context, effectiveness of traditional university systems for creating and updating their degrees is increasingly under public scrutiny.

From that perspective, this article investigates what themes and issues are involved in the dynamics of curriculum design and development at the undergraduate level. To that end, 70 academic articles were selected and analyzed as part of a systematic literature review. The result of this process showed a set of key factors frequently present within the practices and their bond to a proposed theoretical framework.

The revision of the literature presented in this work indicates that the practices of curriculum design and development within undergraduate programs have a lack of theoretical foundation. Moreover, regularly they do not share conceptual frameworks, methodologies or instruments, except the ones provided by public administration, professional associations or other institutions. As a consequence It becomes clear that there is a shortage of theory on curriculum design and development in the field of higher education.

Current university programs are increasingly experiencing renewal requests from its recipients and society in general. The article describes predominant curricular themes of the literature putting them into the context and dynamics of undergraduate program creation and revision: discipline developments, state-sponsored debates, market demands and academic interests. This paper shows that partial and isolated initiatives are not capable of answering these demands. The quest for a more comprehensive response has to be done at the system level; partial reforms of components or circumstances are clearly insufficient to provide significant changes of an undergraduate program.

In that sense, the results of this study are relevant to those responsible for the design and operation of a university program, whether they are managers or professors. Indeed, good practices from the reviewed literature clearly point out in one direction: a significant part of the answers to these challenges often comes from collaborative practices and multidisciplinary approaches.

Keywords:

Curriculum design and development, Higher education, Undergraduate education.