Demystifying Student Module Choice

1. Beyond the Description:
Demystifying Student Module Choice
Yuki Kikuchi
BSc Business and Management
University of Sussex Business School

2. Outline
 Module choice
 Literature
 Modularisation
 Student partnership
 Method
 Challenges
 Implementation
 Future developments

3. Module choice
 Many module choices, little description.
 A lot of requests to change optional modules.
 Perspectives on modules are different from
students and academics
 Students’ priority may be on types of
assessments rather than the actual contents
(Elton, 1988).

4. Literature on Modularisation
 Modular course structures are generally accepted
to provide significant flexibility in content and choice
for students (Cornford, 1997).
 Modular course designs have been claimed to
address problems encountered in more traditional
structure i.e. by maximising opportunities for
negotiating the curriculum to improve student
satisfaction, and by introducing new forms of
assessment (Bell, G.H. and Wade, W., 1993).
 Advantages in terms of scheduling, choice of
modules to satisfy the training needs of individuals,
and review of courses to ensure technological
currency (Cornford, 1997).
 The range of choice is often bewildering for
students who are reliant on the limited descriptions
of each module (Harvey and Burrows, 1992).

5. Literature on Student Partnership
 The project adopts a course level student
partnership with a student from a different course
acting as project lead, undertaking the fieldwork to
gather student perspectives on module choice
(Healey, Flint & Harrington 2014).
 It enhances motivation and learning; it improves
teaching and the classroom experience, which
prompts a learning community; and it improves
learning in relation to employability skills and
graduate attribute (Curran, 2017).
 However, challenge of how we can change power
relation between students and staff still remains
when we are working in a dominant ‘students as
consumers’ environment (Delpish et al., 2009;
Hutchings, Bartholomew, & Reilly, 2013; Levy et al.,
2011).

6. Method
 Choosing a specific course to focus on as a pilot project
(BSc Marketing & Management)
 Inviting students to a meeting to explain the project and
let them think about their decision-making procedures on
their optional modules
 Interviews/ survey to some students
 Thinking of which platform is the best way to present the
data I collected
 Creating a platform

7. Method
 Sending out information to the students before
they chose their options
 Asking for feedback/ creating future
suggestions

8. Challenges Along the Way
 Students not responding to email invites
 Students not wanting to be in a video (hence
having collective video footage didn’t work)
 Sometimes it was hard to maintain contact
with so many students
 Low response rate on the survey
 Hard to capture more voices on the survey
 Which platform to use to present the work in
the most helpful way for the students

9. Implementation
 An interactive image for all the
Marketing & Management
students
 Reflecting current students voice
 Each module includes: a module
description; types of
assessments; and student voice
 A link to a video of a student
talking about their experience on
one of the modules.
 https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1168
593335548379138

10. Implementation

11. Future Developments
Plan in Advance
Replicate
Scale-Up

12. Any Questions?