Conceptions of Learning Inventory

There are numerous instruments which measure students’ conceptions of knowledge and learning, learning orientations, study behaviour, approaches to learning, and regulation and processing strategies and students’ perceptions of, and preferences for, different kinds of learning environments (see Chapter 2, section 2.2 for a detailed discussion). For the purpose of this research the focus was on how students conceive learning, although this is closely related to how they approach learning. Given the cultural diversity of the participants in this research, it was important to the researcher that the chosen instrument had high validity and reliability scores across national boundaries and had been used with culturally diverse populations. Following a thorough review of available instruments, the Conceptions of Learning Inventory (COLI) (Purdie & Hattie, 2002) was one of the few tools measuring learning

conceptions that has been used in culturally diverse classrooms and has been used to explore learning conceptions across cultures.

In earlier work, Purdie et al. (1996) identified nine conceptions of learning which were utilised as the basis for the development of the COLI (2002). They constructed a six- point scale, 112-item, inventory which was completed by 250 high school children in Australia, factor analysed, and then reduced to a 45-item inventory. This was then completed by another 331 high school students, the factor analysis was repeated, further reducing it to a 32-item inventory. Examination of various combinations of the bank of 45 items found that their original nine-factor model did not statistically fit the data well. The model that could be clearly interpreted theoretically and was considered a best fit was the 32-item inventory, which was used in this research. Six learning conceptions: gaining information; remembering, using and understanding information; learning as a sense of duty; learning as a personal change; process not bound by time or place; and learning as the development of social competence, were identified from their 32-item

COLI. Purdie and Hattie (2002) unsuccessfully attempted to extract surface and deep learning as two higher-order factors, but the inter-correlations between the factors were high, indicating one higher-order factor, which they considered to be ‘learning’. Using the COLI, the authors went on to explore learning conceptions across cultures (for a detailed discussion see Chapter 2, section 2.3)

The COLI is open and available online and has been used in several research studies over the last fifteen years, in a variety of cultures. It is a suitable length, taking about 15 minutes to complete, making it manageable and efficient. The COLI was, therefore, deemed the most appropriate tool for this research. As with all Likert (1932) scale questionnaires, acquiescent response style, particularly the tendency to systematically agree rather than to disagree with the items, is a concern. The COLI does not include a combination of positively and negatively coded items, a strategy often adopted to prevent acquiescent response style. There is some evidence which suggests that the level of acquiescence is different on positively and negatively coded items therefore the downward bias on negative items does not outweigh the upward bias on positive items (McClendon, 1991). As a number of participants in this research did not have English as a first language, a combination of positively and negatively coded items could have been confusing. Acquiescent response style is further addressed in chapter 4, section 4.5.At the outset of this research the researcher considered including studying habits and preferences for teaching as additional variables to compare across cultural clusters and to investigate the relationship with learning conceptions. These additional data were not incorporated into this thesis but will be used for future publication. The questionnaire also asked for the following demographic details: student matriculation identifier number, programme of study, nationality, age, and previous education (see Appendix VI).

3.5.2 Academic Achievement

Accessing academic achievement or academic performance data from a large cohort of students is often a challenge for researchers in UK due to data protection concerns. Often researchers use self-assessment of achievement but this can be problematic for a number of reasons, for example, authors rarely report at which stage of the course students are self-assessing their achievement (for a detailed discussion see section 5.3.1). It has been argued that there is a correlation between students’ predicted

performance and their actual academic achievement (Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012). To explore this relationship and to enrich the data for the second research question in this study, when completing the COLI, students were asked to predict how they will perform in their first trimester. To ensure they were familiar with the grading process, they were provided with the University’s standard post-graduate marking criteria (see questionnaire, Appendix VI) and asked to provide a numerical value as a prediction of the average of the final marks of the three courses they undertook in their first trimester.

The researcher had access to student records and, with ethical approval granted, and participants’ agreement, students’ course records could be added to the dataset. Some consideration was given to what should be included in categorising academic

achievement. In optimum conditions, students’ performance at the end of their master’s programme should be considered as their actual academic achievement but, due to time constraints, this was not possible. Taking academic performance for one individual course was not considered appropriate as often students who generally do well will fail one course. It was then decided that is was most appropriate to use the mean for the three courses that the students took in their first trimester. Following completion of the first trimester, these data were added to the dataset and matched by the students’

matriculation numbers, which they provided when they completed the COLI.