Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens
Background: Over the last 50 years, education researchers have sought to relate students’ 'approaches to learning' with the depth of understanding that results, leading to the characterization of individual students as deep learners or surface learners. Treating approaches as an individual...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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VT Publishing
2020-11-01
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| Series: | Studies in Engineering Education |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.seejournal.org/articles/3 |
| _version_ | 1811211123316228096 |
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| author | Edward Michor Milo Koretsky |
| author_facet | Edward Michor Milo Koretsky |
| author_sort | Edward Michor |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background: Over the last 50 years, education researchers have sought to relate students’ 'approaches to learning' with the depth of understanding that results, leading to the characterization of individual students as deep learners or surface learners. Treating approaches as an individual characteristic places blame on students labeled as surface learners and leads to missed opportunities by instructors to change the way those students orient towards learning. Purpose: Alternatively, we characterize students’ tacit operations that may be oriented towards rote learning or conceptual learning in terms of the collective activity of learning in school as produced by an object-oriented, tool-mediated activity system. Design/Method: Using a thematic analysis, we investigated the situated written self-reflections of 180 junior-level engineering students. We identified themes and categories of the experiences in the activity system they described that influence their rote and conceptual learning operations. Results: The types of assignments and assessments students complete are the most frequent element cited in prompting them to activate either rote or conceptual learning operations, and must be considered in conjunction with student-centered classroom practices in order for the latter to be effective at encouraging conceptual operations. Elements of the educational system, including the importance of grades and time constraints, formed a more interconnected network than those in the conceptual learning network and encouraged rote learning operations. While these responses were less numerous, students used strong language associated with despair and inevitability. Conclusions: Instructors and administrators should consider holistically their program’s activity system in order to encourage students’ adoption of conceptual learning operations rather than focusing on changing isolated elements of the system. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T05:07:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c7621a9698244eb4a4386a84cc2c6194 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2690-5450 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T05:07:22Z |
| publishDate | 2020-11-01 |
| publisher | VT Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Studies in Engineering Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-c7621a9698244eb4a4386a84cc2c61942022-12-22T03:46:51ZengVT PublishingStudies in Engineering Education2690-54502020-11-011110.21061/see.33Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative LensEdward Michor0Milo Koretsky1Oregon State UniversityOregon State UniversityBackground: Over the last 50 years, education researchers have sought to relate students’ 'approaches to learning' with the depth of understanding that results, leading to the characterization of individual students as deep learners or surface learners. Treating approaches as an individual characteristic places blame on students labeled as surface learners and leads to missed opportunities by instructors to change the way those students orient towards learning. Purpose: Alternatively, we characterize students’ tacit operations that may be oriented towards rote learning or conceptual learning in terms of the collective activity of learning in school as produced by an object-oriented, tool-mediated activity system. Design/Method: Using a thematic analysis, we investigated the situated written self-reflections of 180 junior-level engineering students. We identified themes and categories of the experiences in the activity system they described that influence their rote and conceptual learning operations. Results: The types of assignments and assessments students complete are the most frequent element cited in prompting them to activate either rote or conceptual learning operations, and must be considered in conjunction with student-centered classroom practices in order for the latter to be effective at encouraging conceptual operations. Elements of the educational system, including the importance of grades and time constraints, formed a more interconnected network than those in the conceptual learning network and encouraged rote learning operations. While these responses were less numerous, students used strong language associated with despair and inevitability. Conclusions: Instructors and administrators should consider holistically their program’s activity system in order to encourage students’ adoption of conceptual learning operations rather than focusing on changing isolated elements of the system.https://www.seejournal.org/articles/3activity theorychemical engineeringconceptual learningmixed methods |
| spellingShingle | Edward Michor Milo Koretsky Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens Studies in Engineering Education activity theory chemical engineering conceptual learning mixed methods |
| title | Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens |
| title_full | Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens |
| title_fullStr | Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens |
| title_full_unstemmed | Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens |
| title_short | Students’ Approaches to Studying through a Situative Lens |
| title_sort | students approaches to studying through a situative lens |
| topic | activity theory chemical engineering conceptual learning mixed methods |
| url | https://www.seejournal.org/articles/3 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT edwardmichor studentsapproachestostudyingthroughasituativelens AT milokoretsky studentsapproachestostudyingthroughasituativelens |