Her studies aim to investigate an approach of participatory curricula development including a bottom-up learning and teaching approach using organic agriculture as the thematic focus. In September 2021 she published a research paper together with colleagues in the international journal “Social Sciences”, as one of the outcomes of the project BOAA.
The paper traces the evolution of the participatory curriculum development process of the Organic Agriculture Master’s program at the Armenian National Agrarian University. It highlights the need for stakeholder participation in higher education curricula development in Armenia. The paper urges the change in outdated curricula development processes, as they usually do not meet students’ needs and do not fit the labour market’s demand.
The results focus on the whole process of participatory action research; present lessons learned from the process—shaping them around significant theories for participatory action research—and underline the possibilities of the Organic Agriculture Master’s development process as a model program at ANAU and perhaps elsewhere.
Hovakimyan, Hasmik, Milena Klimek, Bernhard Freyer, and Stefan Vogel. 2021. "Participation in Higher Education Curricula Development in Armenia and Possible Effects for the Labour Market—The Case of an “Organic Agriculture” Master’s Program" Social Sciences 10, no. 9: 331. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10090331
Hasmik Hovakimyan is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU). The paper is part of her PhD project conducted within the APPEAR project BOAA that has been created to help deliver the need for an increase in organic agriculture professionals skilled for research and practice in the Armenian context.