Taught Master’s Students’ Curricular Engagement in the UK: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The current British taught master’s programmes are highly attractive to both home and overseas students because of their short, intensive and well-organised features. This critical review provides a conceptual framework to explore the taught master’s students’ curricular engagement in the context of UK higher education. Based on the existing literature, two key concepts - ‘higher education curriculum’ and ‘student engagement’ are systematically investigated in the philosophical and pedagogical fields, so that the new concept in my research – ‘students’ curricular engagement’ can be better clarified. The conceptual framework is an experiential inquiry-based engaging process which involves master’s students’ intellectual strategies, practical techniques and emotional applications. All three dimensions have mutual influences and the entire process is dynamically interacting with three larger educational areas: characteristics of master’s programmes, learning styles and learning spaces. Taught master’s students are expected to re-build their own academic identities through their curricular engagement. This theoretical model will be open for further revisions according to my empirical investigation into the actual students’ perceptions about their curricular engagement.