Determined learning approach: Implications of heutagogy society based learning

Abstract

Recently, within the higher education system in the United Kingdom, there has been close examination of the way institutions teach and assess students. This scrutiny has been intensified by central government with the proposed introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The anticipated TEF demands that higher education institutions evaluate their teaching and learning practices and think of new ways to develop excellent student experience. Self-determined learning has resurfaced as a popular approach in the higher education sector. At the centre of self-determined learning is the concept of heutagogy. This approach enables the student to apply what they have learned in an education setting and relate it to the workplace. The aim of this paper is to critically explore the theoretical framework behind the self-determined learning approach. The authors of this paper argue that, from a social science perspective, a determined learning approach is in the best place to provide a contemporary, exciting teaching and learning experience in a competitive higher education market.

Keywords:

• teaching
• learning
• heutagogy
• higher education
• self-determined learning
• student experience
• teaching excellence framework (TEF)

Public Interest Statement

Universities play a crucial role in society by educating students and with academic research. Teaching and learning strategies have become an integral part of an education institution’s ethos’. In recent years there has been an increased focus on devising new ways of improving teaching and learning for students at university. The new key focus in the higher education sector is creating excellence in student experience. This spotlight on creating excellence in student experience has developed through different levels of scrutiny within the public and private sectors. For a long time now these sectors and students have questioned the value of obtaining a university education. Moreover, this is further evident in the current UK Government higher education policy, namely the “Teaching Excellence Framework” (TEF), which aims to provide a structure to measure and examine the quality of England’s universities. Hence, this article, which is written from a social science perspective, presents a case for a determined learning approach as this style provides a stimulating teaching and learning experience for the learner.

1. Introduction

The proposals to improve teaching quality and open up the higher education sector will need to be supported by a higher education system which embeds principles of diversity, choice and quality. The system also needs to reflect the reality of today’s higher education sector, where the majority of funding for course costs flows through students. The current higher education architecture was designed in a very different era. We propose to transform the regulatory landscape to put students at its heart and create a simpler and more effective higher education system. (Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, 2015, p. 14)

The above quote is taken from the higher education green paper, which was published in November 2015. In many ways, this green paper has been perceived as a game changer in the higher education sector (Raban & Cairns, 2015). The aim of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is to measure the quality of teaching and learning at an institutional level. In the past, universities have been primarily measured on their research quality; higher education institutions have been judged by the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The first set of research results emerged occurred in 1986 and was labeled the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise). After 1986, there were another five RAE exercises in 1989, 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2008. Following the 2008 results the exercise was renamed the REF and the next set of results was published in December 2014. In the green paper, it was acknowledged that in the past there was too much emphasis on the quality of research and that the value of teaching tended to be ignored. As it states in the green paper:

Significant funding is allocated through the Research Excellence Framework (REF) to universities who deliver high quality research. There is no mechanism in place to reward teaching, resulting in a lack of focus on providing a high quality student experience. Some rebalancing of the pull between teaching and research is undoubtedly required: this should not be at the expense of research, but through additional incentives to drive up teaching quality. (Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, 2015, p. 14)

The other measurement that has been taken seriously over recent years has been the National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS annual survey, which was started in 2005 aimed at all UK final year undergraduate students, is constructed to assess students’ opinions of the quality of their degree course. The survey results, which are published annually in the summer, give an overall satisfaction mark for each subject area. Interestingly, Halsall and Snowden (in press) have also noted that other forms of student satisfaction are highlighted in other ways, for example national newspapers (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian), that use different data sets, and now there is even a website called “Rate Your Lecturer”, which asks the student to rate their university tutors. Hence, this narrative account has placed new pressures on institutions to develop a reputation for providing an excellent student experience. The term student experience is the new buzzword in the higher education sector, as the aim of the student experience is to improve life for the learner’. In a recent Higher Education Academy (HEA) report, the student experience is interpreted as the “totality of a student’s interaction with the institution” (Temple, Callender, Grove, & Kersh, 2014, p. 3). As the report argues:

The idea of the student experience, as a distinct set of linked activities to be managed institutionally, is a relatively recent one. The term has multiple meanings, and the list of what it might include is almost endless. It is important to acknowledge that each student’s set of experiences will be unique to that person: there is a risk that references to “the student experience” will suggest a degree of uniformity that cannot exist in practice.” (Temple et al., 2014, p. 8)

From a sociological perspective, this paper will analytically investigate a different way of teaching and learning within the higher education context. The paper will firstly examine the discipline of sociology of community and how the subject has changed over time. Then secondly, the paper will examine the concept of community based learning. Finally, the paper will provide a school of thought on self-determined learning and how this approach can blend into the social science discipline.

2. Sociology of community

Throughout time, sociology has contributed to other social science disciplines. In many ways sociology can be seen to be interdisciplinary, as the subject area contributes to other disciplines namely: humanities, law, psychology, criminology, politics, social work, and social policy. There are various themes that make up the subject of sociology, but the key elements that drive the subject are from a cultural, social, economic and political context. The QAA (2007, p. 1) subject benchmark statement has argued that “the driving principles of sociology” are divided into seven areas, which are:

(1)	The relationship between individuals and groups
(2)	Social action and social structure
(3)	Biography and history
(4)	Social institutions and culture
(5)	The underpinnings of social order
(6)	Social inequality and conflict
(7)	Diverse cultural practices, and the causes and consequences of social change.

(The QAA, 2007, p. 1)

The underpinning, driving principle of sociology is the conceptual framework of society. As Johnson observes, “a society is a particular kind of social system that, like all social systems, is distinguished by its cultural, structural, and population/ecological characteristics” (1995, p. 268); therefore, a key aspect of society is the locality of community. In sociology, it is known as the sociology of community. The sociology of community is a key element in the undergraduate curriculum. The ethos of sociology of community relates to an array of social phenomena. At the core of the theoretical framework of sociology of community is the concept of community. Gusfield (1978 in Goe & Noonan, 2007) has argued that there are two practices of community. As Goe and Noonan (2007), “first, the concept is used to refer to a physical territory, or geographic area, where human beings reside and/or work. Second, community is used to refer to the quality or character of human relationships that bind persons to each other to form a social group” (2007, p. 455). According to Goe and Noonan (2007), various sociological studies of community focus on one of these interpretations. However, Cohen (1985, p. 11) has argued that “the theory of community has been very contentious.”

In society today, governments have become fascinated with the concept of community. Politicians and social commentators appreciate that communities can be the key to the success of solving a particular problem in society. For example, social scientist scholars, such as Bauman (2001), have observed that the term “community” creates a sense of positivity, and Tuan has stated that: “Community is considered good because its members cooperate; they help one another” (2002, p. 307). Hence, in recent years the sociology of community has become an imperative part of the sociology curriculum. Key scholars such as Colin Bell, Steven Cohen, Gerald Delanty, Joseph Gusfield, Howard Newby and Margaret Stacey have had a profound effect on how students learn about community from a sociological perspective (see Bell and Newby, 1972; Delanty, 2003; Gusfield, 1978; Stacey, 1987). Halsall has argued that teaching the subject of community studies is well established and has become more prevalent over recent times (2014, p. 92). Moreover, this part of the curriculum also has an influence in other social science discipline areas, namely: community development, human geography and youth and community studies. Students who learn and assess the sociology of community examine the debates on theoretical frameworks of community and examine case study examples. When examining the work of Somerville (2011), the key theoretical themes of understanding the concept of community are divided into nine areas (see Figure 1). Somerville (2011, p. 1) perceives community as a phenomenon that:

(1)	Can be expressed through networks of sociability
(2)	Interpellates individuals as members of the same collectivity
(3)	Involves the possibility of mutual recognition of such membership.

Figure 1. The key themes of community.

Source: Adapted from: Somerville, 2011, p. v.

When comparing the work of Mooney and Neal (2009), they interpret the theoretical approaches to community into four key areas: (1) “locality and belonging; (2) identity and culture; (3) boundaries and conflict; and (4) citizenship and governance.” Mooney and Neal have noted that “community may mean very different things to different people” (2009, p. 3) and that each community is different from each other. This is evident in how a community is shaped by social, economic, political and cultural processes.

It is now common practice in the higher education sector that community studies will follow the national federation for community development learning. As Figure 2 shows, the key concepts that are involved with community development are in five core areas. From a social policy context, the key to the success of community relies upon institutions from the statutory and the voluntary sectors. Powell has notes that in the UK politicians from different perspectives are supportive of these organisations (2012, p. 3) and as Powell further notes:

Today a strong cross-party political consensus exists to support the role of the voluntary sector in the delivery of many aspects of public welfare. This contrasts markedly from post-war era dependency on strong (local) state involvement in public services that eventually came under critique from both ends of the political spectrum as a deficient form of welfare provision. One issue for reflection is that community, voluntary and faith based organisations are essentially contested concepts as they encompass wide range of organisations such as charities and social enterprises.

Figure 2. Key standards for community development.

Source: Adapted from: Federation for Community Development Learning, 2015.

This section of the paper has examined the curriculum of the sociology of community with reference to the undergraduate programme of social sciences. Moving on from this, the paper examines the concept of community based learning.

3. Community based learning

Community Based Learning (CBL) is a pedagogical approach that is based on the premise that the most profound learning often comes from experience that is supported by guidance, context-providing, foundational knowledge, and intellectual analysis (Wenger, 1998). The opportunity for students to bring thoughtful knowledge and ideas based on personal observation and social interaction to a course’s themes and scholarly arguments brings depth to the learning experience for individuals and to the content of the course. The communities of which we are a part can benefit from the resources of our faculty and students, while the courses can be educationally and socially transformative in powerful ways.

Community-based learning is also classroom-based work with meaningful community involvement and experiences. Within the context of equitable partnership, community organisations and students mutually benefit from the CBL experience both by meeting course objectives and by addressing community-identified goals. Students may engage with groups including, but not limited to: non-profits, government agencies, grassroots collectives, and other educational institutions.

As an alternative to the traditional educational paradigm, there is a greater endeavour in recent years to courses as communities of learning in which participants shift among the roles of learner, designer, and active contributor (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). The predominant mode of learning in this environment is peer-to-peer, with the teacher acting as a “guide on the side” rather than as a “sage on the stage”. Courses or modules are reconceptualised as seeds that are jointly evolved by all participants rather than as finished products delivered by teachers. Furthermore, with close cooperation between universities and regional industries, networks of practice (NoPs) are established to enable mutual learning. University students can join employers’ practices to gain industrial apprenticeship (Wenger, 1998).

Universities play an important role in the knowledge society (Brown & Duguid, 2001); beyond their traditional role in research and education, they have the potential to exploit local knowledge in (regional) innovations and to provide opportunities for students to become lifelong learners. To realise these potentials, universities—specifically in the fields of applied sciences and engineering—will have to reinvent their conception of education by taking the importance of industrial and knowledge exchange practice and social networks into account.

We believe that socio-cultural theories of learning (Bruner, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) hold considerable promise as a theoretical base for the repositioning of universities in the knowledge society. Learning is understood as a collective process that is linked to a specific context of action. In socio-cultural theories of learning, learning and innovation takes place within social aggregates that share a common practice. Knowledge emerges by discursive assignment of meaning and social identification (May & Powell, 2008). Instead, community-based learning is used here as a concept to describe processes of collective and collaborative learning, which are based on socio-cultural learning concepts and focus on the role of group membership or community participation for (collective and individual) learning.

3.1. Communities of practice: contested and important domains

Communities are social structures that enable groups of people to share knowledge and resources in support of collaborative action. Different communities grow around different types of practice. Each community is unique. CoPs (Wenger, 1998) consist of practitioners who work as a community in a certain domain undertaking similar or at least intra-related work. Learning within a CoP takes the form of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991), which is a type of apprenticeship model in which newcomers enter the community from the periphery and move toward the core as they become more and more knowledgeable. A CoP has many possible paths and many roles (identities) within it (e.g. leader).

Brown and Duguid (2001) starting from a differentiation between an individualistic notion and a social concept of learning in communities, the authors argue for an analytical perspective focused on the intermediate level of small groups of individuals within larger communities. Brown and Duguid (2001) reflect on individual and social psychological concepts of cognition/group cognition and mediation (of cognitive processes) by social context the individual or the group might be situated in, as well as by technological media. With regard to their own experiences on knowledge building in collaborative working and learning settings, Brown and Duguid (2001) draw the conclusion that “small groups are the engines of knowledge building”, creating the basis for individual internalization and collective externalization of knowledge in cultural artefacts and procedures of social communities.

Swan (2001) focuses on the concept of “pedagogical praxis” as a fundamentally different approach to describe and investigate communities of practice in educational settings. Basedon the understanding that different professional practices can be characterized by distinct and coherent “epistemical frames”, Swan (2001) amplifies that for design of learning environments a pedagogical praxis of professional trainers that takes a learning practices perspective might be of higher importance than the real-world practice of the activities of professional experts. What experts do in their every day practice should not be basis for practice-based teaching, but instead focusing on what learners do to become experts for a specific professional practice. This means that pedagogical praxis, as a means to create comprehensive learning environments, is not striving for ‘real’ practice situations, but for ‘thickly authentic’ ones.

The community of practice is starting point of Wenger’s (1998) deliberations on “Communities of Practice”. Wenger (1998) makes the controversial point that other than in disciplines like engineers, biology and physics, most social science disciplines do not have an established, well-defined professional practice outside university, despite placements with organisations increasing in recent years in social sciences. Therefore, Wenger (1998) states that scholars, lecturers, and students engaged in CoP face methodological difficulties building communities of practice with experts outside of their educational setting, collaborating on real-world tasks and learning from these experiences. With regard to this lack of a well-structured, real-world practice, Wenger et al. (2002) calls these communities of scientists “communities of reflection-practice” and discusses how modern socio-cultural and constructivist learning theories and approaches could be made fruitful for educational environments in these research areas. They also impinge on social capital and the relationship to health and well being in particular locales.

3.2. Community learning: social capital, health and well-being

Community-based learning builds social capital. A 2012 UK study found that the greatest value of community-based learning programs was found in “better social relationships” (57%) while a further 13 per cent of the monetary value could be attributed to “improvements in health”. The same survey found that 19 per cent related to “greater likelihood of finding/staying in a job” and 11 per cent to “a greater likelihood that people will volunteer on a regular basis” (Fujiwara, 2012, p. 12).

Community-based learning activities provide what sociologist Robert Putnam calls “bridging social capital”. Putnam makes a distinction between “bonding social capital”; that is, social interaction within families, social and cultural groups, and “bridging social capital”; that is, social interaction with people who are socially, culturally and economically unlike you (Putnam, 2007). In an increasingly culturally diverse, globalised economy and society, bridging social capital is important in order to have social stability, support networks and trust in public institutions (May & Powell, 2008).

There is strong research evidence to support the contention that participation in learning reduces social isolation, therefore leading to better health. Social isolation has been shown repeatedly to predict mortality and serious morbidity, with the size of the risk of social isolation compared by some researchers with that of cigarette smoking (House, 2001). The 2008 Foresight Report from the UK found that learning is one of five ways to wellbeing. Hammond and Feinstein (2006) found that participation in adult learning has positive effects in terms of smoking cessation, taking exercise and improvements in self-rated health and wellbeing. Learning activities for older people in care homes have been found to increase quality of life, as well as reduce health and social care costs (Aldridge, 2009).

4. Self determined approach

The higher education environment stimulates learning through various systems and structures and these determine, when, how and what is learned; these systems can either promote or inhibit the choice of what is learned and what skills are developed (Barnett, 2012; Snowden & Halsall, 2014). Rogers (1951) suggests that learning is an innate process and the desire to learn is an internal process controlled by the learners themselves, thus creating a personal ontological space. Consequently, within this personal ontological space, we learn from within ourselves and the teacher is viewed as a facilitator of learning. When something new is learned, our “being”, that is the notion of who we are is changed, as a new space, anew mode of being is created, and a new space of learning is entered, (Barnett, 2012). New learning possibilities are created, and the student, if encouraged, is enabled to develop as an architect of learning, where learning is arranged around their activities and their real world experience rather than driven by pre-determined syllabi or curricula content, thus enabling what is to be learned, to be context specific, facilitating an authentic approach to learning (Swan, 2001; May & Powell, 2008). The student then becomes a designer of learning, subsequently building an individual pattern of learning spaces and opportunities, drawing upon their own context related technological, community, societal, subject, and discipline knowledge and skills. The learner creates their own pattern of ideas and experiences relevant to their own mind, being and learning, embracing a holistic, authentic approach to learning. Key to this self-determined or heutagogical process of learning is the place of the learner—who is at the heart of the learning—and the learner drives what it is to be learned rather than the constraints of a prescribed syllabus or curriculum that works in partnership with the academic tutor/lecturer who acts as a facilitator of learning.

Heautogogy provides a framework for learning that harnesses and manages this dynamic and complex notion of learning, providing a curriculum approach that offers a twentieth first century approach to learning and teaching congruent with the demands of contemporary society. Heautogogy, as described by Hase and Kenyon (2013) is a pedagogy that facilitates self determined learning, where participants are encouraged to research their learning and practice interests and base their learning on these interests and their aspirations. In this approach to learning the learner and their place in community and society becomes the fulcrum of learning. Distinctly, there is a philosophical shift away from and ragogy; traditionally the learner in the learning process was often a passive recipient in the development of knowledge, where the lecturer/teacher adopted the role of knowledge expert who simply converted their knowledge, determining what was learned and how it was to be learned.

The origins of heautogogy (Hase & Kenyon, 2013) are in the pedagogy that lies complexity theory and capability development, and it expands upon the notion of life-wide and life-long learning in presenting an approach that harnesses self-determined learning. Capability, Hase and Kenyon (2013) imply, is the utilisation of self-efficacy competence that responds to complexity theory. Complexity theory Hase and Kenyon (2007) suggest that there is an ever increasing interdependency of events, and that the ability to predict future events and authentic learning is becoming increasingly challenging. Subsequently, learning is becoming much more emergent as a process, and develops a more natural, adaptive and realist phenomena where predictability and outcome becomes much less certain. This, coupled with the notion of capability described by Stephenson and Yorke (1998) is the process of acquiring not only skills and knowledge, but the ethics and judgement required to solve unfamiliar problems in unfamiliar contexts. A capable individual, as opposed to a competent person who performs effectively in the present, is someone who is also forward thinking and concerned with potential realisation, imagining the future and making it happen (Stephenson & Yorke, 1998), ascribing to the qualities demanded of a graduate in today’s society (Mann, 2013).

We live in world that is constantly changing; advances are rapid, aided and facilitated by the fast use of and developments in technology. Promoting authentic learning opportunities is demanding. Information to support the development of knowledge is readily and easily accessible. Discipline based knowledge is no longer appropriate for living in today’s complex society, communities and work places. Learning is increasingly concerned with what we do, and the development of those key skills and abilities appropriate for this changing, dynamic and contested work place, as emphasised by Barnet, “the twentieth first century is calling for human beings who are themselves flexible, able to respond purposively to new situations and ideas” (Barnett, 2014, p. 9). Capable people are more likely to be, respond and lead effectively within the dynamic environment characterised by contemporary global society and those skills and qualities required by the modern day graduate. The current white paper “Success as a Knowledge Economy” (Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, 2016) emphasises the importance of high-level graduate skills, preparedness for the work place, flexibility, and innovation that is fit for the twentieth first century. Globalisation and all its facets have created a multitude of different workplaces, communities and contexts where graduates are required to offer more than competence in order to ensure progression. Those curricula that develop graduates who are “inflexible, unable to respond to strangeness—to the challenges and new experiences that the world presents—[is] short-changing its students” (Barnett, 2014, p. 62) and the communities that they serve.

Heutagogy draws upon the key perspectives offered by Argyryris and Schon (1974), Carr and Kemmis (1986), Knowles (1983), Lave and Wenger (1991) and Stephenson and Yorke (1998) in an attempt to develop an holistic approach to learning, and developing new skills and knowledge in developing independent capability and the capacity to question self, values and assumptions (Canning & Callan, 2010). Heutagogy is prospective in approach, in that it looks to the future in which knowing how to learn is a fundamental skill.

Heutagogy, hediegerian in perspective, asserts that people make sense of the world around them and generalise from these perceptions, conceptualise and perceive in variances. People consequently have the potential to learn continuously and in real time by interacting with their environment they learn throughout their life span leading to ideas rather than the force-fed knowledge of others they enhance creativity and learn how to learn. Rogers (1951) suggests that people have a strong desire to learn and have a natural inclination to do so, and Stephenson and Yorke (1998) suggest that capable people are those that know how to learn and have a high degree of self-efficacy, and who have a higher degree of competence- capability when working in new and unfamiliar situations.

Heutagogy is an approach that accepts that intuition is an integral part of the learning process, drawing upon reflective and double loop learning—it includes aspects of action and reflective learning, (Schon, 1987) valuing experience and interaction but importantly it draws heavily upon community based and societal based learning. This is an approach that responds to the challenge of enabling the development of people who can cope with a rapidly changing world, (Snowden & Halsall, 2014). Heutagogical approaches to education place great emphasis upon holism, self, capability, community, needs of society and a focus upon learning as opposed to teaching.

This approach to learning is not without challenge. There is a tendency for lecturers to inhibit the development of space, with educators determining what is to be learned, and how it is learned within a very confined and structured curriculum; the inclination to satisfy student desires in terms of the NSS satisfaction data may have a negative impact on occasion to student development. Satisfaction as illustrated by Snowden and Halsall (2014) and the fear of poor NSS returns is often the driver behind curriculum delivery. We suggest that, on occasion, lecturers may be hostages to the NSS rather than taking risks in promoting creativity and challenge; the driver should, we suggest, be that of challenge and not mere satisfaction.

Barnett (2007) suggests that there are risks for adopting this approach. These can be associated with “epistemological risk”; by following their interests, learning what they want to learn and creating their own curriculum, students may end up with a “warped perspective or a skewed understanding of a field” (Barnett, 2007, p. 143). There is also a “practical risk”; the students may not have the practical skills to respond effectively to this learning approach, failing to develop and progress new skills. The pedagogical risk is concerned with developing a “space-for-being” where the risk is “ontological” shaping the learner’s “being” and subsequently their personal identity. Nonetheless, Barnett (2014) does encourage educators to take risks with pedagogy, to be creative in their approaches to teaching and learning, ensuring that the needs of graduates are met and prepared effectively to fulfil the demands and needs of communities and society.

Canning (2010, p. 70) provides a valuable insight into how heautalogical principles have been adopted within an early years foundation degree, demonstrating that students quite early in their programme acknowledged “gaps in their knowledge and seek out ways in which they can use the learning community that they have engaged with to support them in developing that knowledge” and by embracing a culture of openness students will become their own regulators of reflective learning (Canning, 2010). However, key to successful learning is adopting a spirit of openness by all parties involved in the learning process.

Bhoyrub, Hurley, Neilson, Ramsay, and Smith (2010) examining the notion of heutagogy and its relevance to nurse education assert that health care training and education becomes increasing complex due to the multi-faceted nature of health care management and delivery, heutagogy provides “a potential packed approach to clinical learning that provides an alternative lens from which to both view and construct practice based educational components” of courses (Bhoyrub et al., 2010, p. 326).

Snowden and Halsall (2014) suggest that there are two key collaborative strategies that support heutagogy: solution focussed approach to teaching and learning, and mentor assisted learning. Solution focussed teaching and learning is a transformative learning and teaching experience, activating learners to become committed, engaged citizens, and to recognise that development requires change to take place at individual, societal and cultural levels. Solution focussed approaches are concerned with constructing solutions, an approach that looks forwards, towards solutions, rather than backwards, by studying problems. It is based upon the discovery of challenging beliefs, values and solutions, introducing the learner to concepts such as social injustice, oppression, inequality, and domination. The approach develops critical consciousness, collective identity, and solution orientated strategies for change. Above all, it adopts a real world approach to pedagogy; it encourages teaching and learning that focuses upon strengths, abilities, hopes, and distinctly, encourages thinking in terms of possibilities (Snowden & Halsall, 2014) and responds to the challenge set by Barnett (2014) for educators to be creative in their pedagogy, encouraging learners to utilise their learning spaces to negotiate how, what and when they learn. There are a multitude of definitions associated with the mentor and mentor assisted learning. For the purpose of mentoring within a heutagogical framework, it is possible to draw upon Anderson and Shannon (1995) definition, who emphasise the place of nurture in mentoring suggesting that a mentor should be able to provide guidance and support to the mentee by adopting strategies to allay anxieties, encourage and motivate, and promote familiarisation of university life and support structures. Engagement with the process of mentoring within the context of learning, suggest Snowden and Hardy (2012), provides the student with the opportunity to rapidly inhabit and navigate the systems and structures, ensuring access to the experience and inside knowledge that the mentor has developed. The mentor translates reality, and helps the mentee inhabit their own internalised patterns of reasoning. This enables the student to construct, as an architect, their learning landscape.

5. Conclusion

Community-based learning approaches in university education provide learning opportunities for academics and employers. While enculturation into the employer’s communities of practice is seen as the main mechanism for student learning, students often mediate between university and employment practice. Because the students are mentored by their advisors during their experience in placements or in community organisations, students carry ideas back and forth between the communities of practice within employment and academia. Employers get glimpses of innovative ideas from academia, and researchers get feedback on the applicability of their concepts.

This paper has placed due emphasis upon the case for heutagogical principles, for promoting engagement with community learning, the importance of professional and vocational skills alongside academic skills that promote a realist approach to learning, and finally, to emphasise the importance of the role educators who can develop a challenging pedagogical environment that embraces the, epistemological, ontological and skill development required by society of the contemporary graduate. A shift in thinking and practice, we assert, will enable the learner to develop and inhabit space in order to construct their learning, and enable the learner to understand their role in making knowledge, inspiring professional and social change.

We conclude that a self-determined learning approach, a paradigm shift towards self determined learning, heutagogy will enhance the learning experience for students, contribute to skill development and the qualities demanded of a graduate in today’s society. Adoption of self-determined approaches to learning and teaching provides a transformative curriculum that will enhance the capability of graduates.

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to Ms. Stefanie El Madawi, who was our proofreader.

Additional information

Funding

Funding. The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Jamie P. Halsall

Jamie P. Halsall is a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences in the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, UK. His research interests lie in the field of sociology of community. In 2015 he co-published a book with Professors Ian G. Cook and Paresh Wankhade on Sociability, Social Capital and Community Development: A Public Health Perspective (Springer).

Jason L. Powell

Jason L. Powell is a Professor in Social Gerontology and Sociology at University of Chester. He has published extensively on public policy, aging, governmentality and populational politics. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Illness, Crisis & Loss for Sage and an Associate Editor of The Canadian Journal of Sociology.

Michael Snowden

Michael Snowden is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling and mentoring Community Studies in the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. His research interests lie in the field of pedagogy, mentorship, curriculum enhancement and learning.