رویکردهای مطالعه، مفاهیم یادگیری و سبک های یادگیری در آموزش عالی

چکیده

سبک های یادگیری به طرق مختلفی تفسیر شده است، اما از لحاظ سنتی، نسبتاً پایدار در نظر گرفته شده است. درمقابل، رویکرد شیوه های دانشجویان برای یادگیری فرض می کند که رویکردهای مطالعه زمینه مدار می باشد. این مقاله، این گونه استدلال می کند که بین دو سنت روابط حسنه ای وجود دارد. اولاً، مدارک بدست آمده مبنی براینکه ادراکات دانشجویان از زمینه ها، رویکردهای مطالعه شان را تعیین می نماید، برای تفاسیر دیگر باز می باشد. ثانیاً، رویکردهای مطالعه دانشجویان عمدتاً به ادراکات آنها از یادگیری و عوامل زمینه ای بستگی دارد. ثالثاً، ادراکات دانشجویان از یادگیری حتی در کل برنامه یک پایه نسبتاً پایدار است. این مسئله حاکی از آن است که ادراکات آنها ازیادگیری با فرض سنتی سبک های یادگیری برازش دارد. تحقیق آتی باید روابط مفهومی و تجربی بین سبک های یادگیری دانشجویان و ادراکات آنها از یادگیری را کشف نماید.

واژگان کلیدی: رویکردهای مطالعه، ادراکات از یادگیری، سبک های یادگیری، مدلهای ذهنی یادگیری، ادراکات از زمینه های علمی و دانشگاهی

According to Entwistle and Peterson (2004), “Learning styles are relatively consistent preferences for adopting learning processes,

irrespective of the task or problem presented” (p. 537). This is probably accurate as an account of the traditional core of the concept

of learning styles, but the term has always been used in a wide variety of ways to describe differences in the way that people learn. More

than 25 years ago, Curry (1983) tried to make sense of these various interpretations by grouping them under three headings: learning

style as instructional preference, learning style as informationprocessing style and learning style as cognitive personality style.

The different notions were assumed to vary in terms of the extent to which they could be directly observed and modified as a result of

environmental influences, and as a metaphor to capture this, Curry likened them to progressively deeper layers of an onion. A recent

survey of learning style researchers confirmed that they continue to employ a number of different definitions that vary (among other

things) in whether learning styles are regarded as being relatively malleable or relatively stable (Peterson, Rayner, & Armstrong, 2009).

Over the same period, this research has been conducted in relative isolation froma different tradition that focuses on the quality of learning

in higher education. This originated in the results of interview-based research that students seem to adopt different approaches to studying

depending on the content, the context and the demands of particular learning tasks: a deep approach aimed at understanding the meaning of the learning materials and a surface approach aimed at being able to reproduce those materials for the purposes of assessment (Laurillard,

1979; Marton, 1976; for a review, see Richardson, 2000). Various questionnaires have been developed tomeasure approaches to studying

in larger numbers of students (e.g., Biggs, 1987; Entwistle & Ramsden,1983). This view has been described as the “student approaches to

learning” (SAL) perspective (Biggs, 1987). Its proponents insist that an approach to studying is “a context- and content-specificway of carrying out academic tasks” (Entwistle & Peterson, 2004, p. 537) and that their instruments are measures of how students approach learning in particular situations, not of learning style (see also Biggs, 2001). In this article, I argue that there is a need for a rapprochement between classroom-based research fromthe SAL perspective and laboratory-based investigations of learning styles. The argument has three parts. First, there are several problems with the position that students’ perceptions of their learning context determine the approaches to studying that they adopt in that context. Second, students’ approaches to studying seemto depend as

much on their conceptions of learning as on contextual factors. Third, students’ conceptions of learning seem to be remarkably stable, even

across an entire degree programme. Indeed, they provide a different interpretation of the traditional notion of learning styles as “relatively

consistent preferences for adopting learning processes.” I conclude by outlining the implications of this rapprochement for future research on conceptions and styles of learning in higher education.