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4.0  The State of Undergraduate Development Studies Programs

4.1 Coordinators' Survey
4.2 Instructors of Development Studies
4.3 Students of Development Studies
4.4 Common Patterns Among Coordinators, Instructors & Students
4.5 Development Studies — 1984 and 1994

In this section, we present a summary of our findings from our surveys of Development Studies coordinators, instructors and students. There are eleven undergraduate degree programs in Development Studies in Canada. This first section is based on responses from all eleven coordinators.

4.1  Coordinators' Survey     (top of page)
Eleven program coordinators were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their program demographics (Table 1), resources and administrative structure. They were also asked about their perceptions of the field.

In general, the programs are relatively new, with four of the eleven having been founded in the last six years. As suggested by Polanyi-Levitt and Trak some ten years earlier, it is the ‘younger' universities that have successfully launched these interdisciplinary programs.

Program Profile:

All eleven Development Studies programs across Canada offer different variations of the degree within their programs. Generally, there are three main categories: major, honours or a minor in undergraduate Development Studies.

Program Content and Requirements:
The eleven programs clearly share similarities and differences in their curricular approaches to development. Experiential options for students are available in at least half of the universities in the form of internships or study-abroad programs. The emphasis on development theory and economic and political relations are widely shared and the rest of a student's course work is distributed among a variety of other disciplines, primarily in the social sciences.

Administrative Structure:
Coordinators described their programs as primarily interdisciplinary, housed in Faculties of Arts or Arts and Sciences. They are generally administered by a program coordinator, usually with a Steering Committee with representatives from various departments.

Clearly, resources remain an issue for these programs, with the majority operating with faculty from other disciplines and with limited program funding. Only four of the eleven have a special program funding base and only three have full-time faculty teaching in the programs (Table 5).

Program Perceptions:
Eight in eleven coordinators say the program serves as a strong base for preparation for professional work in developing areas. Perceived success for students appears to lie with the student's acquisition of experience and skills such as being in a co-op program, acquiring a second language, pursuit of a second major or minor in a traditional discipline.

Coordinators see their programs as preparing students well academically for understanding global issues and for doing further graduate work. On the other hand, they see their programs as doing a fair job of preparing students for job opportunities. (Table 6) Teaching resources appear to be problematic for a number of the programs. Six rated their library resources fair or poor and three gave a similar rating for audio-visual resources. Ten rated their information technology resources and teaching personnel as "good." (Table 7)

Overall Program Evaluation:
Coordinators said the following would strengthen their programs (Table 8):

• an internship or practicum component
• more faculty research on development
• more or better teaching resources.

Problems of Development Studies programs were seen to be poor resources and administrative difficulties related to course assignments and scheduling (primarily because these courses are dispersed over a large number of departments).

Perceived program strengths included the following:

• an interdisciplinary approach
• specific program emphases (e.g., mix of theory and practice; specialty area such as agriculture or agriculture economics)
• an experience abroad component
• ethnic background of faculty.

Other comments related to the need for more resources or better allocation of resources. Problems with dependence on other faculties for teaching resources were mentioned as well.

When asked what would strengthen their programs, coordinators invariably mentioned strengthened teaching resources (both by way of more instructional resources or broader experiences for faculty on development issues) and greater experiential opportunities for students.

What would their ideal Development Studies program incorporate if they had modest additional resources? Not surprisingly, coordinators mentioned the same factors that would strengthen their programs: improved teaching resources and expanded experiential opportunities for their students. For enhancing their teaching base, coordinators mentioned such elements as strengthening teaching in their core courses in particular and developing working groups in specialized topic areas in development. Student opportunities could be strengthened with an expanded range of work and educational experiences.

In general, all eleven programs reflect a mix of innovative approaches from a small core, usually consisting of an introductory and a seminar course in "Development Studies." The extensions from this core demonstrate influences primarily from the social sciences as well as unique institutional features. The Guelph program, for example, draws heavily from the institutional strengths in agriculture and agriculture economics while the Trent program strongly reflects the interdisciplinary character of the university as a whole.

This mix of interdisciplinary approaches and the general development of majors in at least nine universities is symbolic of both the operational success of these small programs as they at the same time face significant challenges in maintaining and sustaining themselves with minimal resources.

Some of the problems unique to Development Studies Programs were identified:

Other comments on what were considered unique strengths of each program
were:

4.2  Instructors of Development Studies    (top of page)

Our findings in this section are based on responses from 179 instructors from 44 universities. The questionnaire was sent out to 450 instructors (response rate is 40 %) whose names were obtained from an initial survey of department chairs.

Instructor Profile. The instructors of courses in and related to Development Studies have a variety of backgrounds and come from a variety of disciplines. The primary home faculty for most instructors appears to be the Arts and Sciences (specifically, the Social Sciences). For the most part, Development Studies instructors have disciplinary bases and these commonly tend to be political science, geography and economics. Other common disciplines include sociology and anthropology. Only five percent of these instructors come from "interdisciplinary" programs (Table 9).

The great majority of instructors — about eight in ten — has visited a developing country in the last three years. Over half said they have visited at least two countries in the last three years. These visits tend to be short in duration (under two months) for at least half of the instructors. The principal purpose of the visits for instructors — about four in ten — is research and field work while three in ten travel to attend conferences (Table 10).

A small minority of instructors has also carried out contract work with a number of international agencies in the last five years. CIDA projects appear to be the most common type of experience. About half are active in research, indicating they have had research grants in recent years. The most common sources for research grants were SSHRC and their own universities (Table 11). Over six in ten indicated they had published an article in the last three years; about a quarter said they had published a book in the same period.

Development Studies Course Content. The three most common areas of principal interest in their courses are:

Asked about experiential elements in their courses, three quarters said they had "no experiential components" in their courses. Fewer than half utilized government publications and resource materials, specifically CIDA and IDRC materials. Fewer than five percent used such materials as UN Reports, World Bank reports, IBRD world tables, and ICOD documents. Most of the instructors — about eight in ten — said they use case studies of other regions in their Development Studies courses. The popular regions used as examples are Africa and Latin America. The majority of instructors — six in ten — do not use Canadian examples in their courses. One in ten said the Atlantic region was used to illustrate development issues.

Instructors were optimistic about the utility of their courses as career preparation for students. About 47 percent said their courses were "very useful" for NGO work and a similar number said they were useful for preparation for secondary and post-secondary teaching. Another 37 percent said they were very useful for government placement while about a third said their courses were also very useful as preparation for international work.

Instructor Perceptions of State of Development Studies
Perceptions of the State of Development Studies. The field of Development Studies was seen by instructors to have become "more important" in the last few years; 43% indicated this perception while about 31 percent said there was no change. Only 17 percent said it was less important. Given that most Development Studies programs were within disciplines or departments, about half of the instructors (49%) suggested this was a limitation (Table 13).

What do they see as the attributes of their ideal Development Studies program in the year 2000? Three themes were evident in the responses from instructors: the first was an emphasis on the importance of some fieldwork or practical component to the program for students, including some study-abroad experience. The second was an emphasis oninterdisciplinarity and the need to make greater linkages across departments/ disciplines. The third had to do with instructional resources for the classroom: these include some mechanism for bringing in speakers/guest lecturers, and the need for teaching resources. Among the latter mentioned were case study materials, audio-visual aids, and simulation games.

4.3 Survey Of Students in Development Studies (top of page)

A sample of 25 students each from Dalhousie and Guelph participated in the student survey along with the population of 32 students from Calgary. Students in Development Studies programs, as represented by those responding are predominantly: female, young (21 years of age and under), inexperienced in the workforce (Table 14).

Program Selection. Development studies was the primary choice as a field of study for the majority of students — seven in ten. Many (43%) were motivated by a personal interest in development issues. For a fifth, some travel experience in a developing country was a primary motivator while another fifth was interested in working specifically for international agencies (Table 15).

Program Perceptions. In general, students seem to be satisfied with their programs. However, there is a strong desire to see more of the following:

While students were satisfied with teaching resources, it was clear that these were limited to use of videos. The majority had no experience with the range of information technologies available.

Close to three quarters (73%) said their perceptions of "development" had changed as a result of their educational experiences in the program.

Some sample comments from the students:

Career Plans. About three quarters of the students said they planned to work with an international agency overseas or with an organization in Canada with interests in development issues. Six in ten had participated in or planned to participate in a study abroad program. Almost 90 percent indicated they were going to study (or had studied) a foreign language (Table 16).

Ideal Program. Asked about their ideal undergraduate Development Studies program by the year 2000 (given modest additional resources), four in ten students suggested more student services. These included such things as introduction of a practicum component, co-op or a study abroad experience in the program, and more "experiential" components within courses that includes better learning resources (Table 17).

Some additional comments from the students:

4.4  Common Patterns (and Some Differences)
Among Coordinators, Instructors and Students    (top of page)

There is general agreement that Development Studies programs ought to have a practical component that can provide two elements: a job preparation component and an international experience component. These have been achieved by a few programs via such mechanisms as co-op experiences and exchange or study abroad programs. While instructors maintain their courses do a good job of preparing students for international work or work with NGO's, coordinators and students suggest there is room for improvement in career preparation.

There is general satisfaction about the quality of instruction and the provision of a good overview of development issues. While instructors and coordinators put significantly greater emphasis on theoretical ideas, students are more likely to focus on the utility of their training for careers in the international development field. All groups emphasize the importance of linkages between theory and practice.

There is some disagreement about adequacy of teaching resources. Students tend to think these resources are adequate while coordinators suggest they are "poor." It is clear that other approaches that bring a "change of pace" to the traditional classroom formats are welcomed by all groups. Students have appreciated the use of visiting lecturers and the occasional use of videos; instructors and coordinators similarly agree that guest lecturers (particularly those who bring in perspectives from the field) enrich the classroom experience.

While there is interest in broadening the base of teaching resources, students' exposure to the wider range of information technologies has remained limited. Videos appear to be the primary — and in many cases, the only — teaching technology in use.

Most coordinators emphasize the need for more, and better, teaching resources — both in terms of personnel and teaching materials. All groups — coordinators, instructors and students — agree that student services (e.g., co-op programs, study abroad, career counselling) should also be strengthened.

Development Studies courses are found all over the university but primarily in the social sciences. While the majority of programs are coordinated from specific disciplines or departments, a few have started to develop interdisciplinary approaches. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages to this situation, perhaps not atypical of interdisciplinary programs. These include lack of resources and continuing instability of the resource base. Coordinators, for instance, are continually dependent on other departments for personnel.

4.5 Development Studies — 1984 and 1994    (top of page)
Because some of the areas explored in this study grew out of the Polanyi-Levitt and Trak (1984) study, it is instructive to examine how the picture of Development Studies might have changed in ten years.

The increasing academic interest in the field, exemplified by the growth in the
numbers of major and minor programs in universities across the country is particularly striking, with the introduction of five major and two minor programs within this ten-year period. The establishment of programs west of Ontario is particularly significant, given the Polanyi-Levitt and Trak observation ten years earlier that there was minimal to non-existent interest in these areas in the West. This change is most likely a confluence of a number of factors including larger numbers of academics with international backgrounds and interests,
growing international trade and economic activities in western provinces, and universities increasingly attuned to globalization interests.

While supportive of the need for interdisciplinarity within Development Studies, the 1984 study also seemed pessimistic in the face of intractable and impermeable disciplinary boundaries. This is clearly changing in the 1990's, a change dictated in part by declining resources, by the interdisciplinary nature of some of the more significant development issues such as sustainable environments, and changing attitudes within academe toward these kinds of programs.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind the contrasting contexts for the 1983-1984 and 1993-1995 studies. Where 1983-1984 was a period where the post-war growth of industrial economies was slowing down and conservative governments were in power, ten years later, fiscal concerns over debts and deficits were primary if not overriding concerns, regardless of political affiliations. Debt and deficit reduction efforts cut a wide swath across health,
education, and international assistance programs, with significant impacts on universities. Thus, at a time when recognition of the importance of efforts to internationalize their outlooks and globalize their curricula is increasing among post-secondary institutions, resource constraints are, at the same time, forcing significant retrenchments within the academy.