Why is my design not working? The role of student factors

Abstract

This paper brings together the findings of a series of studies that explored the impact of curricular changes on students’ approaches to learning. The findings, which were initially surprising, are confirmed by the identification of similar patterns across four different medical educational programmes within Australia and Sri Lanka. The four studies reported in this paper utilised similar methods to examine how students’ approaches to learning change in response to ‘deep‐approach‐enhancing’ educational programmes. The studies used the R‐SPQ‐2F questionnaire to measure students’ approaches to learning scores before and after students had experienced ‘deep‐approach‐enhancing’ educational programmes. Students were asked to use a unique identifier, which allowed comparison of each individual student’s approach scores before and after the relevant educational programme. Cluster analysis was performed on the data, and this revealed four patterns of change of deep approach scores. The patterns were similar (although not identical) across the four studies. A significant finding was that while a proportion of students responded by changing to deeper approaches (as expected), a similar proportion of students responded by changing to more surface approaches. The finding that a significant proportion of students adopted surface approaches in response to a ‘deep‐enhancing’ context is of some concern. This paper focuses on this subgroup of students, and explores possible factors that might relate to this unexpected response. From a theoretical perspective, the findings provide a new insight into the current theory of students’ approaches to learning by demonstrating a complex pattern of student response. The findings that a subgroup of students respond in ways contrary to that suggested by current educational theory, and the identification of features that characterise this subgroup are significant contributions to the literature. From a practical perspective, the findings have significant implications for designers of educational programmes who are aiming to foster deep approaches in their students.

Keywords:

• students’ approaches to learning
• patterns of change
• paradoxical change of approaches
• cross‐over phenomenon