AFI Fellow data includes accounts of schools where Fellows did not perceive that they had to adopt an advocate role to promote the adoption of a learning outcomes paradigm within their schools. Accounts from such Fellows interpret this this within the context of their programmes’ and in some cases schools’ connection with external professional accreditation bodies. Some of these bodies had adopted an outcomes based paradigm within their own accreditation processes. Writing learning outcomes and completing alignment were interpreted to be consistent with practice in these schools by Fellows (ASSOCIATE05, 2009 , ASSOCIATE18, 2009). The context of the majority of departmental accounts, however, account that the canonical practices of AFI were interpreted to be at odds with the context of practice within the schools. There was also a perception that there was an inherent disciplinary associated context which restricted the application of this practice within other disciplinary based teaching and learning practices.
The purchase of the Module system, as previously outlined in the first theme of these findings, provided a repository to store all module learning outcomes. The functionality of the system allowed for the design of a module description which held wider module data beyond learning outcomes. For some Fellows until this time, a module descriptor was interpreted as providing a skeletal overview of a module, it was also described as being used as part of the once off accreditation process that programmes during their establishment underwent. Within these AFI Fellow accounts module descriptors where interpreted as brief summaries, whilst the in- depth outline of modules etc. were held in other local documents called course outlines. These documents were described as holding core information of a module (week to week topics, reading lists etc.), and were updated regularly and annually by academics (ASSOCIATE01, 2009 , ASSOCIATE13, 2009 , ASSOCIATE14, 2009). A perceived disconnect between the context of practice on the ground and those leading AFI and academics engaged in teaching was also outlined in accounts:
I just thought that this is ridiculous, if they don't know that that document exists we are actually not speaking the same language. I found that very frustrating, I don't know if they, if they fully understood the way we work, when they set out on this and that's something that could of easily been sorted out.
(ASSOCIATE14, 2009)
The espoused objective of the alignment process as a canonical practice was that a review of the alignment would demonstrate any gaps that needed to be filled. Programme boards would identify these and address them accordingly. The alignment matrix was viewed by AFI Executive for as the tool which would support this and it would introduce and formalise programmatic review (AFIMGT04, 2009). This was one of the stated objectives of the original AFI proposals (DCU, 2007b). There was a perception though that there was an inherent disciplinary associated context which restricted the application of this practice within other disciplinary
based teaching and learning practices. The following account illustrates this perception. The programme chair interprets the new canonical practice of alignment, as being specifically devised for technical subjects and that this approach was not consistent with teaching and learning in his disciplinary area (represented by X in the following account):
No, I think the problem is I suspect that this alignment process was thought up by people who were thinking of very technical subjects. So for instance if I need to teach a student how to design and build with structural engineering a new building with welding and x-ray scanning of joints and very precise skills or maybe a medical education where very precise things have got to be swept in, I can see that maybe this has a function but the problem is that in the many parts of the broad areas of X, it simply is a bad fit, its simply trying to box things into tiny categories that just don’t fit at all so what it produces in staff is a kind of a cynicism making up, its fiction, its nonsense but we have to do it so we turn it into a bit of a, we try to have a bit of fun with it, we make up stuff. But if you’re asking me is this scientifically constructed? I would have to say not at all, its fictional. Especially these alignments, completely fictional and random.
(PTL01, 2010)
Another Programme Chair from the same school, however, interpreted resistance to the process as being based around the context of the culture of the school (PTL07, 2010). Programme chairs from other schools within the same Faculty also provided accounts of the process being at odds with practice within their own locales:
…it leaves very little space I think for you know innovation or just different ways of doing things you know. And then that kind of template format and this box ticking runs the whole way through so right from people’s individual learning outcomes from their modules all the way up to this whole issue of these matrices and...That made no sense to me whatsoever in an academic setting. I don't think it is possible to box in all this stuff. You know to tick boxes and to somehow represent you know either individual modules or indeed whole programmes.
Other departmental participants’ accounts include resource contexts to account for how “gap analysis” or the composition of programmes is decided:
If you went up and down the corridors here most people wouldn’t have a notion, they were asked to do something and they just filled it out and that was it and they don’t care and the idea was that the process should be used as an opportunity for the programme team to reflect on how things, nobody’s interested in doing that, nobody cares and I can’t say really that it affected, our structures next year are based on whether we’ll have people to teach certain things and how many modules people are going to teach and AFI is a distant, distant part of that. It’s not going to feed into it at all.
(PTL03, 2010)
Complexity is not only associated with internal contexts, external contexts were also viewed within accounts to view the implementation environment. This member of FTLC accounts references both an external context and an internal one which influenced implementation:
…the people that own the programmes or who teach the programmes, they’re acutely aware of the short comings in programmes, there’s nothing that can be done about these short comings and in an environment where salaries are being reduced, where staffing is being reduced, where communication in certain schools is diabolical, absolutely diabolical…
(FACULTY_TL04, 2010)
A further finding relating to the context of the practice of teaching and learning though was interpreted to account to how the canonical practice of writing learning outcomes and the process of module approval developed within the Faculty was at odds with teaching and learning practice for some academics:
And then there is also a thing where you know if I had a eureka moment and I wanted to go down to students and talk to them about it, and share it with them strictly speaking I can't really do that for twelve months until I put the module descriptor through the Module System process and get it approved at all the different levels along the way you know. Like if something comes up today even though we are eight weeks before the beginning of the next semester, we can't incorporate it into the teaching and learning structures for next year formally because the deadlines have passed. But there’s kind of a feeling of that this system impinging on the natural process of teaching and learning that I kind of suppose partly fundamentally believes in…
Another finding though questioned the capacity of the policy texts i.e. the module templates etc. to capture, codify and reduce the complexity of teaching and learning activities into a template form (PTL02, 2010 , PTL03, 2010 , PTL04, 2010 , PTL05, 2010 , PTL08, 2009).
…it was very frustrating; it’s very boring and senseless in lots of ways it seems when you’re doing it, ticking boxes…I just started ticking and at a certain point I just went look, every X module should give the same so I just started mechanically okay there’s 3 ticks there so I have 3 ticks on the next one so doing it that way and by not taking it tremendously seriously, I got it done relatively quickly…So I was going well this makes it kind of meaningless because unless people are doing it with a specific focus, people have totally different interpretations of what this means, of what they’re contributing and so on…I viewed it as a box ticking exercise that needed to get done and get off my desk.
(PTL03, 2010)
Indeed, many academic participants at departmental level within their accounts include disciplinary contexts and reference points, to interpret why the canonical practices as set out within the process, were not suitable to codify their teaching and learning practices.