Challenge and learning in honours education: a quantitative and qualitative study on students’ and teachers’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

In honours programmes, teachers face the task of designing courses in which students feel challenged and learn from accomplishing demanding assignments. The aim of this study was to investigate students’ and teachers’ perceptions of challenge and learning in an honours programme. From 2016 to 2019, students and teachers rated the learning activities during the programme and explained their ratings. The results showed that in the first two years, teachers estimated challenge and learning significantly higher than the students did. However, both students and teachers viewed the tasks as the factor with the strongest impact on challenge and learning. In the first year, students also identified group dynamics as challenging and a source for learning. Enhancing task complexity and supporting group dynamics are the main factors to adjust the level of challenge in an honours programme. Monitoring students’ and teachers’ perceptions can help to adapt the programme to improve students’ learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenge
• learning
• honours education
• students’ perceptions
• teachers’ perceptions

Acknowledgements

The ethical approval has been granted by The University of Applied Sciences of The Hague.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).