What is the importance of the hidden curriculum?
Within the written and topic specific curriculum, there are elements of skill development that weaves through these implicit topics. These layers of unwritten and unofficial lessons learners acquired implicitly are part of the hidden curriculum. To teach these elements of the hidden curriculum more formally, academic resources can be embedded in the course curriculum providing students with more formal lessons of skill development. One major problem with embedding these elements in courses is the availability of skill content and related resources. These resources can help educators embed skill development into their courses. To evaluate the need for the hidden curriculum we had to find out what is already available to educators and leaners. We wanted to determine what types of resources are currently available for skills and which other skills have no resources. In this regard, we evaluated the academic and mental health and physical well-being resources available at all institutions across Ontario. Furthermore, availability is a large concern for accessing these resources to embed in courses. We wanted to evaluate which resources are open access and which may be more difficult to find and/or are behind a paywall. Determining what resources may be missing or underrepresented can help to direct this project in what skills and domains to focus on along with what types of resources are most commonly found online for students, educators, and staff to use in post-secondary education.
Environmental Scan of resources across Ontario post-secondary institutions
Our team of seven students from institutions across Ontario, Canada, searched through all the institutions in Ontario for both academic and mental health and well-being resources in the summer of 2021. Students were instructed to find resources that they deemed would benefit their own education and experiences within their post-secondary education (PSE). All institutions were split up by region. Once students compiled all the available resources as an institution, they evaluated a series of questions for each resource. These questions included how easy this resource was to find, the accessibility in relation to AODA compliance, if the resource mentioned or related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization (EDI-D), the length and format of the resource, and which skill and domain the specific resource fell under. After all the resources were compiled, the skill domains and topics were outlined and finalized.
| Questions we asked: | What we found: |
| How many of the available resources in Ontario complied with AODA compatibility? | Most, but not all, of the available resources did meet AODA requirements using a screen reader of word/ PDF documents or contained closed captions on videos. |
| What percentage of the created resources have mentioned or have been created with and EDI-D perspective? | Many resources did not mention EDI-D or were made in an EDI-D perspective unless the topic itself was directly focusing on EDI-D. |
| How easy were these resources to find? | The evaluated resources were fairly difficult to find from the institution home page with just over 50% of these resources requiring 4 or more clicks (pages to jump though) in order to find the specific resource. |
| Which institutions had the most resources available? | Most of the resources were found primarily at the larger institutions (University of Toronto, Western University, University of Ottawa, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brock University, University of Waterloo) while smaller institutions had few resources if any. |
| To whom where the resources targeted to the most? | The resources that were evaluated were primarily targeted to students rather than educators and/or staff. |
| How many resources have a date it was last updated? | Many resources did not have a “last updated” date which make it difficult to determine the relevancy and how old/ outdated the content in the resource is. |
| Which skills have the most resources and which skills have no resources that educators and students can use in PSE? | The majority of the resources found across all institutions fell under the executive function domain. |
| How available were mental health and well-being resources to students, staff, and faculty across institutions? | Minimal mental health and well-being resources are available at academic institutions and many resources are redundant targeting the same topic. Most of the information was directing students, staff, and faculty to in-person services. |
| What variety of topics were covered in the mental health and well-being categories and were they services or resources? | Of the minimal mental health and well-being resources, very few, if any, were focusing on physical well-being. |
What is the need for the hidden curriculum in post-secondary education?
We have determined the need for our website based on the hidden curriculum to help combat the issues outlined above by:
- Providing information and resources on 54 different skill topics across 5 domains instead of a plethora of resources on 10-15 skills in one domain
- The accessibility issue is mitigated by all resources being kept in the same place with open access allowing al resources and content to be adapted and adopted
- All our resources were developed with an EDI-D perspective to ensure that our resources are accessible to all individuals
Our website has allowed for more accessible and a larger breadth of information of 54 topics that are part of the hidden curriculum. Our website is primarily targeted to educators who can take content and directly embed this information in the course content. Although the target audience is for educators, we have also created the content to be beneficial and informative to students and staff in post-secondary education. This website can promote the knowledge of the hidden curriculum to all individuals in post-secondary education. The use of academic resources and embedding them into the course curriculum can help prepare students better not only for their academic and future professional careers but for their personal and professional development.