Students' perceptions and approaches to studying: a colloquium
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
Topic: Seminars
So, I went to a colloquium yesterday which was led by John in the Wilson building which is a part of the Higher Education Policy and Practice Research Group (HEPPRG) - of course we had two of the big names there: Keith Trigwell and Noel Entwistle. So, cool to meet these people! Never got that at UWI.

Anyway, I just want to make some summaries/ comments of their presentations etc here. Whilst Keith and Noel did two presentations, John did two, because his first one was just on the background of students' perceptions basically deep, surface and strategic approach. John mentioned a Biggs who in 1993 used a systems approach for learning. John actually was setting up this presentation for his next presentation by presenting a series of possible causal hypothesis between approaches to studying and perceptions of academic context. John also explained that Trigwell and Prosser (1997) saw that the perceptions of academic context and approaches to studying were actually all in one framework, and these two things taken together are a view of the students' reality that is they were not related causally but exist side by side.

For Noel's presentation underlined that approaches to studying was not inherent to a student and may change depending on the context, and thus states that it may be part habit and part the influence of the course. He seems to be doing most of his research in electronic engineering and when looking at the teaching-learning environment for electronic engineering they were concerned with ways of thinking and practising (WTP). He also mentioned a new questionnaire that they were developing called the Experiences of teaching and learning (ELTQ) which contained the ALSI (have no clue what this is!) and items on experiences of teaching. I am not quite certain who this questionnaire target i.e. teachers or students. But given that his past research has been on mostly students, I'm going to guess students. Noel mentions also Meyer work. Noel explains the ASI asked for typical study situations, Meyer work looked at contextual situations, and from this Meyer was able to develop some terms for the way of studying, which Meyer called orchestration (just like a choir!). Meyer has two types of orchestration: harmonious and dissonance (or was it discordant?).