Understanding how students learn, with the aim of promoting more useful approaches to learning, has been the focus of research spanning several decades (Busato, Prins, Elshout & Hamaker, 2000; Dahlgren & Marton, 1978; Denton, 2011;
Drago-Severson et al., 2001; Felder, 1988; Felder, 1996; Martin, Prosser, Trigwell, Ramsden & Benjamin, 2000; Prosser, Ramsden, Trigwell & Martin, 2003; Reid, Evans & Duvall, 2012). In discussing “approaches to learning”, a comparison with a closely related concept, “learning style”, will be made.
Furnham (2011:589) makes a distinction between “approach to learning” and “style of learning” as follows:
…an approach to learning is mainly about motivation while style of learning (thinking) is about preference.... Both learning approach and style seem to be a function of many things, including a person’s ability, personality, and values;
how learning is evaluated; and the subject being studied….According to the presage-process-product model, certain characteristics of the student (including their prior educational experiences, their personality, and their ability) as well as their learning context (how they are taught and assessed) influence their perceptions of that context (clarity of goals, satisfaction with teaching).
A learning style refers to the many ways in which students learn and Felder (1988:849) observes that:
….while the neurological processes involved in learning may be essentially the same for everyone, there are widely varying styles of implementing them.
People preferentially perceive different types of information; tend to operate on perceived information in different ways.
From Felder’s observation, a “learning style” is a cognitivist description of how students learn while an “approach to learning” is a description of how students learn as influenced by the environment and motivation (Furnham, 2011). It seems that learning style may influence approach to learning, therefore the two are interrelated but not conflated. “Learning style” is more cognitivist while “approach to learning” is more phenomenographic as it describes a learning experience in a non-dualist perspective (Trigwell & Prosser, 1997).
Understanding one’s learning style and the dynamics of motivation can have a positive effect on a learner’s resilience (Hall & Moseley, 2005). In a study on the styles of learning of engineering students, Felder and Silverman (1988) observed that, in general, the teaching presented did not match the learning styles of the students as follows:
More than half of engineering students were sensors but the education favours intuitors.
Most students tend to be visual while most instruction is predominantly auditory.
More than half of the students consider themselves to be inductive learners while almost every course is taught deductively.
Many students are active or reflective learners but most classroom instruction does little for either one but sit passively.
Following their study on engineering students, Felder and Silverman (1988:674) proposed learning styles in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Dimensions of learning and teaching style
Preferred Learning Style Corresponding Teaching Style
sensory
The problem that student diversity brings into education is real and seems to need more urgent attention now. Chapman and Calhoun (2006) suggest that taking student learning styles into account improves student motivation and to learn. As observed at the researcher’s academic institution, there is an increase of students from disadvantaged backgrounds making their way into educational institutions where the curricula, including the environment, were designed to cater for the
In the days when university classes contained highly selected students, at university by choice, the traditional lecture followed by tutorial seemed to work well enough. Today, when the student population is quite diversified, many students seem not to be coping, while teachers feel they are being unfairly put upon. Some believe that these students should not be at university at all.
Biggs (1999) compares two students, one who goes about learning in an “academic”
way and the other “non-academic”. The “academic” student:
…comes to the lecture with relevant background knowledge and a question she wants answered. In the lecture, she finds an answer to that question; it forms the keystone for a particular arch of knowledge she is constructing (p.57).
The “non-academic” student probably has no driving curiosity because he is there to obtain a qualification for a job so he may not even be studying in the area of his first choice. He has a less-developed background of relevant knowledge and he:
…comes to the lecture with no questions to ask. He wants only to put in sufficient effort to pass. He sits in the same lecture as the academic student but he doesn’t see a keystone, just another brick to be recorded in his lecture notes.
He believes that if he can record enough of these bricks, and can remember them on cue, he’ll keep out of trouble come exam time (p.57).
Prosser, Trigwell, Hazel and Waterhouse (2000) and Crossman (2007) suggest that background knowledge can affect the quality of students’ learning and influences the way students perceive their teaching and learning situation and approach to their studies.
Marton and Säljö (1976) contend that learning has to be described in terms of its content considering differences in what is learned rather than how much is learned.
In their study on qualitative differences in learning they contrast “deep learning” with
“surface learning” as differences in students’ approaches to processing learning.
“Deep learning” is described as occurring when the learner is paying attention to gaining an understanding of the underlying meaning of the message, rather than to just knowing what the message is, which surface learning is. Deep learners pause and reflect on what they have read, and how it relates to previous learning (Marton
& Booth, 1997:166). Prosser and Trigwell (1997a; 1997b) and Prosser, Martin, Trigwell, Ramsden and Leuckenhausen (2005) found a close link between teachers’
conceptions of teaching and learning and how their approaches to teaching influence how their students approach their learning.
Trigwell and Prosser (1997:243), on student learning, report that:
…students who conceive of learning in a topic as a quantitative increase in knowledge, or memorising, are unlikely to be those who adopt a deep approach to the learning of that topic.
From the scenario by Biggs (1999) discussed above, it is evident that the academic student adopts a deep approach to learning while the non-academic student adopts a surface approach. This second student may have a weak attitude to schooling as Dirkx (2006:15) observed that:
Affective issues influence why adults show up for educational programs, their interest in the subject matter, and the processes by which they engage the material, their experiences, the teacher, and one another.
Biggs (1999) proceeds to demonstrate that passive learning activities with a low level engagement of the student do not augur well for non-academic students. Such students need encouragement to use higher cognitive structures through active learning strategies like problem-based learning.
Good teaching is getting most students to use the higher cognitive level processes that the more academic students use spontaneously (p.58).
These assertions by Biggs were supported by Prosser (2004) on researching on student learning with implications for problem-based learning. The findings in this study showed that the way students are experiencing learning in problem-based learning programmes is substantially different from the way students experience learning in traditional medical programmes. Groves, O’Rourke and Alexander (2003) and Norman (2006) have reported that use of higher cognitive processes happens as a high degree of mental flexibility and adaptability in clinical reasoning and this distinguishes experts from novices.
It would seem that studying plays an important role in cognitive science and Piagetian epistemology of how knowledge is acquired (Piaget, 1977; Biggs & Tang, 2007; Dennick, 2012; Kaufman, 2003). Students need time for assimilation and
the mental structures that were formed previously and reconstructing those structures to form new ones based on the new understanding. Students need to process the new information in order to make it useable and most of this cognitive activity is done during studying. However, the adoption of mind maps as an effective study strategy has been linked to the motivation to use them (Farrand, Hussain &
Hennessy, 2002).
Learning is reported to be most durable when study is distributed over much greater periods of time (Rohrer & Pashler, 2010). The same authors allude to several other research reports which have recommended “spacing” of content and “interleaving”
the learning of knowledge and skills. Spacing and interleaving enhance the learning of cognitive skills (Kornell, Castel, Eich & Bjork, 2010). Rohrer and Pashler (2010) suggest that interleaving can be achieved through rearranging content so that material from previous sections overlaps. This is supported by Lonka and Lindblom-Ylanne (1996) who intimate that their conception is to build up a knowledge base.
Although the importance of studying is recognised, due to the workload in the course, surface approaches to studying are sometimes adopted (Azer et al., 2013;
Bowden & Marton, 1998; Hendricson & Kleffner, 2002; Prosser & Millar, 1989; West
& Sadoski, 2011; Wilhelmsson, Dahlgren, Hult & Josephson, 2011).
Being influenced by Entwistle’s findings, Felder and Brent (2005:58) re-iterate that:
A goal of instruction should be to induce students to adopt a deep approach to subjects that are important for their professional or personal development….At the highest developmental level normally seen in college students (but not in many of them) individuals display thinking patterns resembling those of expert scientists and engineers. A goal of instruction should be to advance students to that level by the time they graduate.
Some study strategies have been linked to academic performance and teaching students to manage their time effectively has been recommended. West and Sadoski (2011), in their research on study strategies, report that time management and self-testing were related to academic performance in an integrated medical curriculum. While there is little information available about successful strategies for dealing with academic failure, it is logical that students who do not plan their time effectively set themselves up for failure in a programme as demanding as the medical degree (Sayer, Chaput De Saintonge, Evans & Wood, 2002).
For deep understanding of content students adopt varying approaches to studying – such as reference to others who are more experienced – an example of social learning theory. Observing and modelling behaviours of more expert performers is common in student learning (Bandura, 1971). The role of peers has also been demonstrated in studies on students’ learning (Barber, 2012; Harlen & Crick, 2003).
In line with social interdependence theory, other previous studies affirm that learning in cooperation with others is more effective than learning alone (Johnson, Johnson
& Smith, 2007).
Halpern and Hakel (2003) intimate that information that is frequently retrieved becomes more retrievable and any information that is recalled grows stronger with each retrieval. Learning takes place through repetition that is embarked upon to create experiences of variation (Linder & Marshall, 2003; Marton, Wen & Wong, 2005; West & Sadoski, 2011).
Wilhelmsson et al. (2011:161) conducted a phenomenographic study on the features of understanding the subject of Anatomy in a medical education context and:
When the students discussed their understanding, it was necessary for them to define an opposite of understanding, which they termed ‘rote learning’ or
‘memorization’... Two aspects of meaningfulness in learning anatomy can be distinguished in the interviews; one giving the learner a sense of relevance for the future profession and another giving the learner a sense of understanding.
The two can be regarded as employing different kinds of logical reasoning.
Providing a causal reason for anatomy, connecting areas like physiology, can render the anatomical knowledge meaningful through linking it with more general functions of the human body (causal logic).
The students in the study above experienced Anatomy as a subject linked to an accumulation of facts, memorisation and rote learning. Meaningfulness of the subject could be enhanced by linking it horizontally with other subjects.
From the above discussion it is apparent that there are differences in students’
processing of information. Some students adopt surface approaches while others adopt deep approaches to learning. However, deep approaches to learning and studying enable integration of learning.