Gender and motivational differences in approaches to learning by a cohort of open learning students

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between gender, motivational differences and students' approaches to learning—using a revised version of Biggs' (1987) study process questionnaire. Responses from 246 business students studying via open learning Australia provide data to develop a structural equation model. The model was subsequently examined for differences across gender groups. In the primary analysis, results suggest the same model is applicable to male and female students, however, there are significant differences both in the strengths of relationships and in the measurement models. Further investigation of differences within the models indicated there may be different learning strategies for male and female business students. Findings presented in this paper also challenge accepted wisdom with regard to questionnaire development, as researchers need to be sensitive to gender issues, both in the manner in which the questions are phrased and in the way the constructs are measured.

Keywords:

• students' approaches to learning
• student motivation
• deep and surface learning
• gender
• structural equation modelling

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the guest editors of this special issue—Rosina Mladenovic and Ursula Lucas—and the two anonymous reviewers, for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Notes

It should be noted that not all researchers use the terms deep, surface and achieving students' approaches to learning. Other researchers use other terms. However these labels were popularised by Biggs, 1978, 1987. For a thorough discussion of students' approaches to learning and related sub-theories see Biggs et al., 2001.

It should be noted that many studies continue to adopt qualitative methods in the quest to more fully understand students' approaches to learning (e.g., Cliff, 2000; Lucas, 2000, 2001; Sharma, 1997).

Open learning is an Australian Federal government initiative designed to provide university access to the Australian population at large. It was intended to appeal to a broad constituency by utilising flexible delivery, open access and low fee structure for higher education. A more comprehensive description of open learning is included within the Method section of this paper.

The 3P model has been developed by Biggs and others over the last 15 years. For detailed discussion of the 3P model see Biggs et al., 2001.

Beattie et al. (1997:3) identify the four main groups as: (1) the Lancaster group, led by Entwistle; (2) the Australian group, led by Biggs; (3) the Swedish group, led by Marton; and (4) the Richmond group, led by Pask.

The study process questionnaire developed by Biggs produced a measure he labelled ‘achieving’ approach, which is used to describe students who organise their learning approach to gain the highest possible grade. Although the achieving approach is discussed in the literature, there are doubts as to its validity and, as such, is not used in this study (Davidson, 2002).

Prior studies have generally used academic outcome as the dependent variable and this is most often measured by the change in academic grade or GPA (Duff et al., 2003; Kember, 1995; Koh and Koh, 1999).

A recent study by Lucas and Meyer (2003) sought student conceptions of learning in an accounting unit (N = 1200). They reported a number of interesting observations in their study which indicated female accounting students are more likely to display deep-level processing.

Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) is a means by which students enrolled for Higher Education are able to defer the payment of course fees until such time as they are deemed able to afford payment. Effectively, the HECS scheme is a student loan scheme funded by the Australian Federal Government.

Severiens and ten Dam (1998) compare Vermunt's learning conceptions (1996) and Baxter Magolda's ways of knowing and patterns of reasoning (1992).