Epistemic justice during a global pandemic: Transforming curricula and pedagogical practices to improve student experiences of innovation studies

Abstract

Current pedagogical approaches to science and technology policy studies in southern African universities may fail to provide students with the necessary capabilities to be effective as innovation policy practitioners. This study investigated whether consideration of epistemic diversity and the situatedness of knowledge could enhance student outcomes in terms of agency and self-efficacy. A pedagogical intervention was designed and implemented for a postgraduate course in engineering economics, following which the students rated their experiences through an online questionnaire. The COVID-19 pandemic partly disrupted the intervention, but also accelerated the use of blended learning as a means of mitigating the harmful effects of the consequent lockdown. The study revealed that most respondents felt that the intervention had helped them to feel more confident, respected and included. However, blended learning could not prevent the stressful experiences due to forced sheltering at home. The results support the importance of finding innovative ways to transform curricula and teaching methods in science and technology studies. Pedagogy based on the principles of epistemic justice, essential to ensure that students from different backgrounds have equal opportunities for personal growth, is challenging under remote learning conditions.