Alternative approaches to learning 39

Investigations into the presence of alternative approaches to learning other than that of deep or surface began after the verification of Marton & Saljo’s findings with Biggs (1979), Ramsden (1981) and Ramsden & Entwistle (1981) all identifying an alternative approach to learning which they labelled “strategic” or “achieving”. According to these studies a strategic learner will adopt either a deep or a surface approach to their learning depending on which they perceive will help them to achieve high grades. Their interest in content is driven by assessment demands and they use whatever learning strategy will maximise their chances of academic success (Entwistle & Ramsden 1983, Watkins 2000). Strategic learners, in regards to his/her learning outcomes, exhibit a similar strategy to deep approaches but the focus is on short term performance and the intention to understand completely is usually missing from the student.

It has been argued that the strategic approach manifests in students as a result of the ‘hidden curriculum’ (Snyder 1971) which is where a student familiarises themselves with what the tutor expects from their students and sets about approaching the course in that manner. Biggs (1985) appears to agree with this in his description of the strategy behind the strategic approach to learning, stating the approach is to “follow up all suggested readings, schedule time, behave as ‘model student’”. According to Kember et al. (1999) the motive behind the strategic approach is based on competition and ego-enhancement: obtain highest grades, whether or not material is interesting. I chose Eley (1992) for a definition of the strategic approach to learning. He describes the strategic approach as consisting of:

“the intent to maximise performance and grades, allocating study time and effort in systematic and deliberate fashion, and adopting deep and surface strategies according to what is judged optimal and efficient for obtaining grades” (p. 231- 232)”

As can be seen from the above quote the emphasis in motivation for the strategic approach is on obtaining high grades but also one of the most significant elements of this approach is that the students choose between deep and surface. According to Richardson (1993) the following describes a student who adopts a strategic approach to their learning:

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 intention to obtain highest possible grades;

 organise time and distribute effort to greatest effect;  ensure conditions and materials for studying appropriate;  use previous examination papers to predict questions;  be alert to cues about marking schemes.

In the area of approaches to learning, a fourth less popular approach in the research has been put forward by Entwistle & Ramsden (1983) which they named ‘non academic orientation’. It is a description of students who exhibit low levels of motivation which results in negative attitudes and disorganised study methods. Entwistle later renamed it “study pathologies” (Entwistle 1991).

A study by Ellis et al. (2007) was based in a similar context to that described in this thesis and which also used a phenomenographic approach as its research methodology (for further detail see Chapter 3). In that study, they investigated the approaches to learning of pharmacy students in a problem-based learning environment. They used both an open ended questionnaire and interviews to develop their outcome space of approaches to learning within the problem-based learning environment which contained five separate categories which are illustrated in Table 2.6 below.

Table 2.6 Approaches to learning within the problem based learning environment of a pharmacy course source taken from Ellis et al. (2007, p. 684)

Category Label Deep/Achieving/Surface Description

A

Resolving problems face-to-face using professional methodologies

and judgement

Deep

Emphasises a need to use professional methodologies and judgement in order to

fully understand the problem scenarios

B

Resolving problems face-to-face by contextually narrowing symptoms of patient in order to

perform well

Achieving

Emphasises a deep strategy to understand the context of a patients situation with the main intention of performing well in the

assessment of the case C Gathering information related to

the problems face-to-face Surface Emphasises gathering information

DM: Engaging in routine work face-to-

face to solve problems Surface Emphasises routine work

E Engaging face-to-face to develop

generic skills Surface

Emphasises a main purpose of gathering routine skills without being aware of their particular relevance to Pharmacy contexts.

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The study’s aim was to consider what the students think about problem-based learning (their conceptions), how they approach their learning in class (face-to-face) and how these are related to the marks they received (their academic performance). The study concluded that students who fell into category A performed at higher levels than the students in the rest of the categories. The researchers also concluded “that students who reported experiencing PBL as a way of rehearsing being a pharmacist, by gathering information from others and using database to find answers, tended to perform at relatively lower levels” (Ellis et al. 2007 p. 689). They also found no correlation between students falling into the achieving category and high performance. The study did not go into detail in regards to how they assessed performance outcome and merely indicated that students adopting a deep approach had performed consistently higher if only by a small percentage than surface students. Another study that examined approaches to study in a problem-based learning environment (Duke et al. 1998) in a nursing degree and found:

Approach A: Using One Resource only with Intention to Reproduce. Responses in this category provided examples of surface learning where students aimed to reproduce content to meet subject requirements. Their approach was characterised by the use of only one information resource, ie. technology or human. Students identified some people such as peers, facilitators and/or clinical teachers whom they saw as having answers and canvassed them for information which would assist with reproduction of content.

Approach B: Using All Resources with an Intention to Reproduce. Approach B responses also displayed a surface approach to learning but students indicated that they used both technical and human resources in order to assist with reproduction of information.

Approach C: Using All Resources Interactively with an Intention to Understand. In approach C students used similar learning strategies to approach B. However, their method was interactive, that is, they discussed

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answers and exchanged information with peers in order to review or revise conceptions and gain understanding. The students accepted that there was likely to be more than one answer and were able to tolerate this added dimension. Responses in this category seemed to reflect a deeper approach to learning than those of approach A and B in that students were using a wider variety of resources with the intention of broadening their understanding.

Approach D: Using All Resources Interactively Leading to Application with an Intention to Understand. These responses demonstrated that these students were also using a deep approach to learning albeit at a more sophisticated level. Students employed the same strategies as approach C but recognised the applicability of information to other situations, in particular the practice setting.

The first two approaches indicated are surface approaches with the emphasis on reproduction and no intention to understand while the C and D approaches seem to be two different levels of deep approaches both with the intention to understand. Approaches A and B differ only in the resources used to obtain the information to be reproduced. Interestingly approaches C and D show a progression in the position on Perry’s scheme of cognitive development (section 2.3.10) as students adopting the approach move away from the belief that there is a single definitive answer from one source and see that there may be multiple answers. Moving away from problem-based learning environments and into a study of approaches to learning in a physics course. Prosser et al. (1996) examined first year physics students approaches to learning physics and found the following approaches:

 Category 1 – explanation based upon attendance and/or reviewing notes and/or learning formulas and/or doing exercise;

 Category 2 – response based upon seeking understanding – seeing how principles work, discussing with other students;

 Category 3 – response based upon relating to real world experiences, reading around the subject etc.

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They concluded that in essence category 1 is a surface approach and categories 2 and 3 represented deep approaches. The differences between the two deep approaches would seem to be in the strategy they take to gain an understanding. Category 2 want to see how principles work which could possibly be interpreted as they wanted to understand how to apply understanding. While category 3 also intend to understand the material but through a relationship with real world experiences. Again the categories show similarities to the traditional approaches to learning but also differences with two levels of deep approach.

Another study that found unique approaches to learning was that of Case & Gunstone (2002) which was carried out in a chemistry context and which used a coding process. They found three qualitatively different and distinct approaches to learning:

 A conceptual approach where the intention is to understand the concepts;  An algorithmic approach where the intention is to remember calculation

methods for solving problems;

 An information based approach, where the intention is to remember information that can be supplied in response to assessment questions.

This time, the approaches to learning found for this environment could be construed to include two different levels of surface approaches. The intention of both the algorithmic and information approaches is to remember, in order to do well on assessment. Marshall (1995) using a combination of the Approaches to Study Inventory, ASI (see section 2.4.8) and interviews in an engineering foundation course also found distinctively different approaches to learning:

 Surface approach, in which students do not seek to establish relationships between material, learn by repetition and memorisation of formulae and simple algorithms with the intention to repeat these formula and algorithms in exams;

 Procedural deep approach, in which students relate formulas and algorithms to each other with the intention of gaining some

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understanding at some future point through familiarity with applications of knowledge and problem solving procedures;

 Conceptual deep approach, in which students relate learning tasks to their underlying concepts or theories with the intention of gaining understanding.

Again, though the approaches above do seem to correlate in essence with the traditional approaches to learning, there are different levels of the deep approach. The majority of alternative approaches to learning research have frequently found approaches that are similar to the traditional deep and surface approaches but display different levels of the deep or surface approach. This is not always the case, Booth (1992) carried out research which examined students as they attempted to write a computer program and identified four different approaches to learning:

 Expedient approach, in which a previous program was identified which would suit the purposes of the given task;

 Constructional approach, where elements from previously written programs were combined to obtain a solution;

 Operational approach, which focused on what the programs were going to have to do;

 Structural approach, which focused initially on the problem rather than the program specifications.

In both the cases of the Case and Gunstone and the Marshall research studies, similarities can be seen between the approaches and the classic surface and deep approaches with slight differences because of contextual differences. Whereas Booth’s study is much more functional in nature, in a learning environment where the main task is the construction of a computer program, it may not be possible to have anything but a surface approach. Although an argument could be made that, in terms of approaches to learning, ‘expedient’ could be related to surface and ‘constructional’ and ‘operational’ to strategic and finally ‘structural’ to deep the question arises of whether these relationships should be constructed

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or should they stand alone as they relate to their particular context. The above research projects show that deep and surface approaches may be fundamentally present across different subject areas, although not necessarily always, but in the application to a particular subject such as physics through problem-based learning the approaches may manifest in different ways or indeed other approaches may be present.