The Analysis of Higher Education Curriculum Design through Decker Walker Model

Curriculum development and curriculum design are based on many different models that can be divided into two major categories: traditional and new conceptualization. One of the perfect views in the traditional curriculum models is the Decker Walker model. In thismodel, the curriculum development process contains three stages: platform, deliberation and design. The main goal of this paper is the analysis of higher education curriculum development based on these three stages of Walker model. Naturalistic existence of the Walker model led the research method to a qualitative one. Therefore, data was collected by interviews with two categories of senior and executive managers in the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The data analysis methods were summarization, categorization and interpretation.The results showed that in Iran, field curriculum is considered as the syllabus. The curriculum planning system in higher education may be apparently compatible with the Walker model, but not in detail. The reasons for this lack of compatibility are the presence of a central and top-down system and lack of curriculum designing centers in universities. In other words, the thing that comes out of curriculum design sessions is a syllabus that is used in departments without any change or sometimes with slight changes.