Mapping the core concepts of physiology across Australian university curricula

Core concepts in physiology, designed by physiology educators to promote improved learning and teaching, have existed for over a decade. This study aimed to investigate the extent to which a set of 15 core concepts of physiology (derived by a USA team) are reflected in the Learning Outcomes (LOs) of units (subjects) comprising physiology majors in Australian universities. From publicly accessible online information, we identified 17 Australian universities that offered a physiology major for undergraduate degree students and downloaded 788 LOs from the 166 units that comprised the majors. Each LO was blindly mapped against the 15 core concepts by eight physiology educators from three Australian universities. Additionally, text matching software was employed to match keywords and phrases, (identified as descriptors of the 15 core concepts) against the LOs. The frequency of individual words and two-word phrases for each core concept was calculated and ranked. There was variability in rating LOs for the same university amongst academic mappers, nevertheless, many of the 15 core concepts did not appear to be adequately covered in the LOs. Two core concepts most matched manually were in the top three most mapped by the software. These were, from most common, Structure/function and Interdependence. Our findings suggest a lack of alignment of LOs with the current set of core concepts across Australian physiology curricula. This highlights the need for Australia-wide agreement on a set of core concepts in physiology as the first step in collaboratively improving assessment and learning and teaching practice in physiology. [Author abstract]