and interpretive curricula and how they would interface, so that the eventual curriculum can achieve the intended outcomes. Ginny elaborated: So I wish that this IDeA model would have been given to us so that we would know, as we are developing the CU, as we are creating the curriculum, we are very clear actually, which parts fall into what spectrums of the philosophy or the curriculum approach. And that would be a, a very strong case to bring across to people who want to validate the curriculum that we have just developed … the WSQ framework is very regulated, it is competency-based, that’s the philosophy. And I think it [IDeA Model] gives us a point of dialogue actually, with the people who have a certain requirement of the way curriculum needs to be written. The perception of WSQ curricula being at the instrumental end of the spectrum was cited not just by the industry practitioners, but also by national regulators. For example, Ivan, who used to manage auditors, had similar comments about WSQ courses: … if you’re applying to WSQ, … very much everything would lean towards the right, instrumental rather than informative. While you apply it to say, a more academic kind of course, like social sciences or whatever, of course probably everything will lean to the left. So this model is useful if we know what we’re trying to apply it to, and it will also be complicated by what the regulator is looking at ... for example you have under WSQ competency-based, they may not be looking very much at interpretive kind of work. And if the designer actually goes into the interpretive kind of work … to the regulator it’s not acceptable, changes have to be made and so on. Likewise, Darren, a current regulator with a national body, profiled the WSQ Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) curricula as entirely instrumental (see Figure 3.4). According to Darren: WSH ATO with this organisation curriculum philosophy, they will be more to the extreme right for outcome-based, lesser transformative, maybe even lesser dynamic because [it is] very highly regulated.
Figure 3.4: Darren. Clearly participants consider WSQ curricula to be instrumental. The role of the regulator and its auditors, as indicated above, was a recurring theme. Ivan explains: So one of the issue is also how open is the regulator, even if the regulator is open, how open is the regulator’s reviewers to this, because they all come with their own 53
