User:Kevinmount/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Curriculum studies

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have decided to choose this article as I looked at different academic disciplines and then went to ones that started with education. I chose to read about curriculum studies as the other course I am taking right now is regarding curriculum. So, I thought that would be a nice connection between the two courses.

My initial impression from the introduction was that the Wikipedia article would address specifically how the curriculum is taught, why it's taught, and how it fits in the bigger contextual picture compared with the written curriculum. It alludes to the fact that curriculum studies is observing the bigger picture and takes a historical perspective on curriculum given the culture and society of that time. However, after a brief history with a few dates alluded to, with little specific detail, there are a few different types of curriculum that are stated, but by no means are they comprehensive. Nor do they necessarily add to the understanding of curriculum studies as a broader area of study. Instead, it seems to be a list of specific facts the author understands after engaging in studying about curriculum without explaining the history of curriculum studies itself.

Lead Section:
I find it quite challenging to pinpoint exactly what curriculum studies is. For instance, the article says that it investigates the relationship between curriculum theory and educational practice, but then goes on to list other types of relationships between aspects of the curriculum. The word "among" should be used instead of "between", as I was initially led to believe that it would be the study of the relationships between two things and the many listed in an awkward sentence. Instead, the ideas presented should be written in more plainly spoken English. For instance, "contours of society" could be far clearer in its meaning. The lead does not contain a brief description of the article's major sections but does not present any information that is not present in the article either. The lead is concise but could benefit from additional clarity without being described as overly detailed.

Content:

I do not feel the article's content is relevant to the topic. For instance, the article identifies some questions related to curriculum studies at the onset before it begins the different sections. However, most of the article identifies a few different types of curriculum and then provides some superfluous details about the types of curriculum, such as listing types of questions that could be included in different areas of study. However, I wonder how this is necessarily related to the guiding questions presented at the beginning of the article. The article does not seem up-to-date as the history section is quite short and gives a very brief historical perspective from 1930, 1950, and again in 1970. There is no detail in the last 50 years of its history. However, later on in describing different types of curriculum, it discusses the Common Core, which originated in the early 2010s. What cultural shift led to this movement?

Tone & Balance:

The article is neutral throughout the writing and does not provide any specific viewpoints. In this article, there could be more varied viewpoints on how or why curricular decisions throughout history and in certain contexts have been decided upon. It seems this article could have been named "A Few Types of Curriculum and Broad Assessment Types". In the emergent curriculum section, the writer describes some non-academic benefits. However, it would be helpful to also state known drawbacks to this type of curriculum so then the article can reflect on any debate that has happened in any case study or certain period of time.

Sources & References:

Many of the facts are backed up by references, and most of the references appear to be academic articles. However, in one of the sources, the word "encyclopedia" is spelled incorrectly. When clicking on one of the links, it brought up many different articles, one even from 2023 regarding curriculum studies. So, when reflecting on whether it reflects the available literature, the amount of sourcing and information in this article is very limited, even just gaining an understanding about the field from reading different titles listed on the website, Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies. When clicking on the links, I have found that they all work.

Organization & Writing Quality:

The article is not written terribly, but there are larger areas of growth, as previously discussed. The language in the lead could be far clearer and devoid of very descriptive language. It could also be more specific. For instance, the article states curriculum studies shifted "due to the belief of young activist." I had a few questions when I read this sentence. First, was this due to one activist or many activists, as the grammar is not correct here? And two, who are these activists? What were their intentions and motivations? The final word of the article is spelled incorrectly as well. And I believe the article is not well organized, as it does not break down the topics related to curriculum studies, again, as previously discussed in other sections.

Images & Media:

There are no images that aid understanding of the article. A type of visual that could have been used to enhance the understanding of this article could have been pictures of certain books that list some of the keywords such as "reconceptualization" or the adoption of Common Core State Standards in schools.

Talk Page Discussion:

There is a small amount of discussion on the talk page, but mostly from 2018. There were some edits in 2023 by a student doing a course assignment. Most of the edits were made by one person and there have been no postings of feedback to this student since they made most of the edits.

Overall Impressions:

The article's overall status seems to be the product of a student's project in an introductory college-level course. Upon reading the article names of recent research, there seems to be little understanding of what the actual field of curriculum studies is. Once the author goes into detailing curriculum and assessment. For instance, in one of the recent articles, it presents reflections regarding sustainability education. From reading the article on Wikipedia, I wouldn't have thought about sustainability education being part of curriculum studies. The strongest part of the article is the first paragraph as it does give somewhat of a definition of the field of study, but the article largely lacks detail and coherence from the start.