5 Cambises y la conquista de Egipto

As mentioned above many internationally co-ordinated projects often fail because of a poor intercultural communication between members of the project (Kidd & Robins, 2000). A 'hidden dimension' in intercultural communication is stereotyping (Shahid, 1994). Improving intercultural communication always requires reflection, that is, stepping outside one's culture in order to view one's cultural roots from 'neutral ground' (cf. Kramsch, 1993; Shahid, 2003). However, that may signify, in itself, a culturally influenced procedure.

One way to take this outside stance in order to look at one's culture can be through 'cultural therapy', introduced by Spindler and Spindler (1994) as a way to make cultural misunderstandings and conflicts visible and to reflect on them. "One's culture as well as the 'other's' culture becomes a 'third presence', removed somewhat from the person, so that one's actions can be taken as involuntary 'caused' by one's culture, rather than uniquely determined by one's personality" (Spindler, 1999, p. 466).

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Kramsch (2002, p. 283) warns for the 'universalist claims of intercultural communication' as a panacea for all conflicts in a globalised world: "To realize how much intercultural communication itself is typical of a certain Anglo-Saxon culture, discourse and worldview, proponents of intercultural communication would have to confront the inequalities among cultures, the inevitability of conflict, and the tragic dimensions of human action."

4.5 C

During the design and development of a curriculum as a plan for learning (Taba, 1962) decisions have to be taken on a number of issues. In this study the ten curriculum elements of Van den Akker (2003) have been used to analyse the curriculum as product of the design, development and implementation activities. All these aspects should be 'tuned' to each other in a state described by Biggs (2002) as 'constructive alignment'.

An important aspect of the curriculum development process is the design, development and implementation of learning environments. Because a competence-based approach implies a constructivist approach (see Section 3. 7.2), learning environments should promote self-directed and co-operative learning accompanied and guided by the teaching staff. This is perhaps best expressed by the question from the instrument to evaluate the competence-based character of a curriculum: "How are students supported in creating their own learning environment?" (see Section 3.8).

For the design and development of a competence-based curriculum various approaches/rationales/paradigms are available (see Section 4.1), of which the communicative approach leads to external consistency in the development process. This approach has been applied throughout the design, development, implementation and evaluation of the curriculum, although the designer- researcher experienced a diminishing room to manoeuvre throughout the curriculum development process.

The communicative approach implied a common understanding of the problems to be solved and the strategies to address these problems. Internal consistency in the design and development of the curriculum was aimed at by following a systematic approach, involving a logical sequence of steps, starting with a needs analysis. Via the formulation of professional profiles and graduate profiles the core competencies would then be determined that graduates of an educational programme should have developed at the end of the programme. The content and assessment would then be determined based on the domain-specific and generic competencies needed for these core competencies (backward designing).

The needs assessment served various purposes in the design and development of the new, innovative, competence-based curriculum, namely legitimisation of the educational programmes of the faculty, elaboration of professional and graduate profiles and a further contribution to a description of the curriculum structure. The literature mentions, apart from professional profiles and graduate profiles in certain contexts, several possibilities to determine what the key occupational tasks are in a profession and what the related core competencies. The expert opinion and the vision on the professional field served as another point of departure for curriculum decisions. Thus needs assessment, expert opinions and a literature review contributed to the formulation of an appropriate set of key tasks and competencies.

Curriculum implementation implies change, whether it concerns an implementation 'from scratch' or a curriculum reform. A description of the state or level of change can be given in a profile of implementation (cf. Rogan et al., 2002). In this the characteristics of the implementation process and the capacity for innovation are described in the next three chapters, based on (mainly) qualitative data.

It was recognised by the designer-researcher and co-designers that the important actors in the success of an implementation (capacity for innovation) would be the teachers/lecturers, and important factors their knowledge and skills, beliefs, and willingness to change. They were, as much as possible, provided with possibilities to learn, to try out the innovations, to develop themselves. Clear examples (exemplary materials) were not readily available in the initial stages of a change process, but resource materials were provided whenever possible. A strong and supportive leadership is required that keeps a balance between pressure and support (Fullan, 2001). This aspect is an important point of analysis in this study. Outside support and sufficient resources are also important factors in the implementation of an innovation. The role of the Dutch partner universities is, therefore, also extensively reconstructed and analysed in the next chapters.

In international projects the culture that the members of the project bring with them is an important factor in the realisation of the project. In the case of the setting up of a Faculty of Education at the UEM, the Mozambican University was supported by a Dutch funded project, involving co-operation with three Dutch universities. Although generalisations should be made with care, it is clear that the Dutch culture differs from the Mozambican culture on a number of dimensions. In terms of the four Hofstede (1994) dimensions African societies have a high power distance, are collectivist, can be characterised as feminist and have a high degree of uncertainty avoidance. Western European countries are the opposite. Intercultural

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communication requires the ability to reflect on one's own culture and analyse it as an outsider together with the partner from the other culture. The critical observations made at a seminar on African culture and management (Iguisi, 1997) prove that this reflection is not only a typical 'Western construct'.

Culture is an aspect that pervades substantive aspects of the curriculum as well as the processes of design, development and implementation. Cultural aspects will be discussed during the reconstruction and analysis of the curriculum development process when important and appropriate. This will often be the case when socio- political aspects of the curriculum development process are discussed. The reflection on culture and cultural differences between Africa and 'the West' is continued in the final chapter of this study.

CHAPTER 5

Research design

The research design of this study involves development research, mainly through a reconstructive approach. The design, development and implementation of a competence- based curriculum at the Faculty of Education of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) can be explored from various viewpoints, observed through various 'lenses' and analysed with various instruments. This triangulation in the study serves the validity of the conclusions, which, in turn, gives weight to the generalisability of the findings. Building on chapter 1, Section 5.1 introduces the purpose and significance of the study once more and repeats the two main problem statements as aims of the study. A model that is derived from evaluation research is presented as one of the viewpoints to explore the design, development and implementation process and the 'products'. This study is a case study and therefore a short section, 5.2, is devoted to characteristics of case study research. Within the case study design, development research is the main approach for this study, and 5.3.1 expands on its characteristics. The researcher was also the designer, but participated as well in the process as a staff member and member of the commission that managed the 'installation of the faculty'. The change in roles of researcher, designer and staff member during the curriculum development process has, as is explained in 5.3.2, been the reason to apply a mainly reconstructive approach in this study. Measures have been taken to compensate for possible conflicting roles and are mentioned in 5.5. The other viewpoints from where the process can be described and analysed are discussed in 5.4. Although the 'line of the story' will be reconstructive, formative research has taken place as well and is discussed in 5.5. Section 5.6 provides details about the scope of the study, that is, what period the study will cover and what aspects of the design, development and implementation of the curriculum will be analysed and reflected upon. Finally, the data collection and analysis methods are summarised in 5.7.

5.1 I

Designing, developing and implementing a competence-based curriculum in a new context, starting with nothing but ideas, was seen as a unique chance to describe as

closely as possible the process and perform an analysis and reflection on the reconstruction of products and process of the curriculum development. Therefore, an additional purpose of this study is to get an understanding of the extent to which competence-based education could be realised in a developing country like Mozambique and to describe and analyse the factors that influenced the design, development and implementation process. At the same time, use could be made of the state-of-the-art knowledge about learning, development of competencies and the 'engineering' of learning environments for such learning and development. Inherent to a 'development research' approach (see Section 5.2) is that the conclusions of this study should include 'lessons' for universities and other institutions for Higher Education in Mozambique, and in other developing countries that would wish to develop their curricula in a similar direction.

In the introductory chapter of this study (Section 1.3) the significance of this study has been summarised as the contribution to an improvement of the quality of education in Mozambique by training academic educational professionals and as a contribution to the knowledge about design, development and implementation of competence-based higher education in the context of a (Southern) African country. Chapters 1 and 2 have outlined the context of the study as the newly re-opened Faculty of Education at UEM, a Mozambican university. Based on the context analysis that will be continued in Chapter 6, two aims have been formulated for the study:

1. to determine how competence-based education and training of education professionals could contribute to improving the quality (effectiveness, efficiency and relevance) of education in Mozambique;

2. to determine what are the characteristics of an effective competence-based curriculum for the Faculty of Education at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, and how such a curriculum can be designed, developed and implemented.

The (re-)opening of the Faculty of Education and the administering of its competence-based education programmes can be seen as interventions, with the ultimate aim of improving the quality of the education system in Mozambique. Therefore, the first aim as formulated above refers to the potential impact of the interventions, or, the 'distant outcomes' (Rossi et al., 1999). Because an intervention should have acquired certain stability before the impact can be evaluated (Rossi, Freeman & Lipsey, 1999), distant outcomes cannot be assessed directly after an intervention has been implemented, but might be inferred from the immediate outcomes of the education programmes. Assessment of the immediate outcomes of the programmes implies 'programme implementation assessment', that is the

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evaluation of the activities and operations of the programme (Rossi et al., 1999) as well as assessment of programme theory, described by Rossi et al. (1999) as "…a set of assumptions and expectations of how the programme should conduct its business and attain its goals…" (p.65). The assessment of the (immediate) outcomes of the programme/intervention in relation to the characteristics of the programme and its assumed effectiveness, is addressed through the second aim, described above. This is also the case for the assessment of the outcomes in relation to the implementation of the programme.

In section 5.7 both research aims shall be 'translated' into operational questions and an overview will be given of the research methods that are employed in order to answer these questions.