Personality,approaches to learning and achievement

The present study investigated the relationships between the five‐factor model of personality, approaches to learning and academic achievement. Based on the previous research, we expected approaches to have a mediating effect between personality and academic achievement. Six hundred and eighty‐seven business students participated in a survey; 56% were female and 44% were male. Their average age was 24.8 years. The results showed that conscientiousness and openness were mediated by the strategic and the deep approach, respectively, in relation to achievement. Additionally, neuroticism had both a direct and an indirect effect on achievement through the surface approach. We also found that the three approaches to learning explained variance in achievement beyond personality when using hierarchical regression analysis. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.     

Relations between teachers' approaches to teaching and students' approaches to learning

This paper reports on an empirical study which shows that qualitatively different approaches to teaching are associated with qualitatively different approaches to learning. More specifically, the results indicate that in the classes where teachers describe their approach to teaching as having a focus on what they do and on transmitting knowledge, students are more likely to report that they adopt a surface approach to the learning of that subject. Conversely, but less strongly, in the classes where students report adopting significantly deeper approaches to learning, teaching staff report adopting approaches to teaching that are more oriented towards students and to changing the students conceptions. The study made use of a teaching approach inventory derived from interviews with academic staff, and a modified approach to learning questionnaire. These conclusions are derived from a factor and cluster analysis of 48 classes (involving 46 science teachers and 3956 science students) in Australian universities. The results complete a chain of relations from teacher thinking to the outcomes of student learning. Previous studies have shown relations between teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning and their approaches to teaching. Numerous studies have shown correlations between students' deeper approaches to learning and higher quality learning outcomes. The results reported here link these two sets of studies. They also highlight the importance, in attempts to improve the quality of student learning, of discouraging teacher-focused transmission teaching and encouraging higher quality, conceptual change/student-focused approaches to teaching.     

Enhancing students' learning through differentiated approaches to teaching and learning: a Maltese perspective

Within the context of Malta, differentiated teaching pervades the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) published in 1999 , in 11 of 15 principles that the NMC supports. The study seeks to explore how well prepared and equipped the teachers are with the necessary skills to fulfil a differentiated teaching approach. The aim of this research study was to explore the current pedagogical procedures teachers are adopting in order to ensure curriculum access to all students, and to what extent these actually reflect differentiated instructional strategies.
Data was collected through questionnaires. All teachers in the school were asked to participate and the response rate was high. The results are therefore representative of this particular school but cannot be generalised to the whole teaching population.
It was found that many teachers were taking an individualised role to teaching, and in the future the school will need to adopt policy decisions and a School Development Plan (SDP) which feature differentiation. Such an approach will be needed in order to encourage the teachers to utilise strategies that reflect a differentiated approach to teaching within a whole school context. In-service training will be required to enable teachers to be made aware of the varying ways of responding to the needs of all students through differentiated teaching approaches in order to provide paths to learning so that the classroom becomes a 'good fit' for varied learners.     

Personality and preference for evaluation methods: A study among business administration students

The goal of this study is to verify whether preference for evaluation methods can be predicted by personality as defined by the Big Five model, when controlling for gender and business major. A sample of 108 students enrolled in two compulsory undergraduate business courses completed an online questionnaire. Analysis of multiple linear hierarchical regressions indicate that gender, business major and personality account for 7–16% of the variance in preference for case studies, group work, oral exams, written exams, multiple choice tests, and practical work. These findings are discussed with regard to the relationship between personality factors predicting preference for evaluation methods and potential impacts on student evaluation and academic success in business schools.     

Innovation in postgraduate teaching: mixed methods to enhance learning and learning about learning

Growing pressure to restructure and reform tertiary education is encouraging university academics to use innovative practices that assist students to develop ‘employable’ skills. The hybrid approach described in this paper stimulated students to be self‐directed adult learners who maximized their learning of content and skills by means of problem‐based learning and action research strategies. The lecturer also operated as a reflective practitioner and role model by using an action research approach. This paper demonstrates the value of student empowerment, communication and leadership in autonomous learning groups. It outlines methods by which academic teaching staff can build continuous improvement into a university unit’s curriculum design and processes. These can be powerful additions to lecturers’ teaching strategies and to students’ learning experiences.     

University teacher approaches to design and teaching and concepts of learning technologies

This study investigates the experience of teaching of 19 teachers who are teaching on university courses involving face-to-face and on-line learning. The teachers are asked about how they think about learning technologies and how they approach the design and teaching of their courses across these two contexts. Results show that there are qualitatively different ways of thinking about learning technologies that relate logically and positively to qualitatively different ways of designing and teaching using learning technologies. The results have implications for teachers and those interested in maximising the likelihood of learning for university students when teachers teach with learning technologies.     

Participatory evaluation: implications for improving electronic learning and teaching approaches

This paper examines the participatory approach used by a group of academic support staff in evaluating an academic professional development resource designed to support e‐learning and teaching. The resource, titled Designing Electronic Learning and Teaching Approaches (DELTA), showcases examples of electronic learning and teaching approaches developed at Monash University, Australia. The evaluation included individual and collective reflection, dialogue and action, drawing on the features of participatory action research. This paper explores the value of this critically reflective, participatory approach for evaluation to improve the use of new learning technologies, demonstrating how it provided a clear decision‐making framework for iterative improvement of the DELTA site by identifying consensus items for action and recording other items for later consideration, while also contributing to team members’ own professional development.     

Exploring the relationship between experienced students' preference for open- and closed-book examinations,approaches to learning and achievement

The relationship between university students' approaches to learning and preference for the open- and closed-book examinations was investigated for 144 Greek undergraduate (56 third- and 88 fourth-year) students attending a Philosophy, Education and Psychology Department. The approaches were explored by the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST). Examination preferences for open- or closed-book exams were assessed by 3 self-report questions. Students who preferred the open-book examination scored lower on “Time management”, “Achieving”, and “Unrelated memorising”. The study provides links between the students' study orchestrations/profiles, assessment preference, and achievement. The deep profile students (mainly 3rd-year students) seem to prefer the open-book exam but appear unorganised in their study in a similar extent to surface-profile students. They also reported low achievement. The study cautiously suggests the influence of the year of study on students' assessment preference. The results are discussed in relation to recent literature.     

Institutional variations in British students' approaches to learning and experiences of teaching

This article examines differences in reported approaches to studying and course perceptions of students in British universities and polytechnics. Hypotheses about these differences derived from the functions and characteristics of the two sets of institutions are compared with data from a questionnaire survey of 1903 university students and 305 polytechnic students. The results, adjusted for subject area differences, indicate that contrary to expectation the university group are less likely than the polytechnic group to use deep approaches to studying. The two groups report similar patterns of study organisation. The university students experience somewhat poorer teaching. The polytechnic students are more interested in gaining qualifications for employment and perceive their courses to be clearly to this end. The results are considered in relation to further research into student learning patterns and implications for the binary system of higher education.     

Students' Perceptions of Teaching and Learning: The influence of students' approaches to learning and teachers' approaches to teaching

Nearly 500 secondary students in 24 classes were surveyed and four students in each class interviewed concerning their approaches to learning and perceptions of their classroom environment. While interviewed students with deep approaches to learning generally demonstrated a more sophisticated understanding of the learning opportunities offered to them than did students with surface approaches, teaching strategies also influenced students' perceptions. When teachers focused strongly on actively engaging students and creating a supportive environment, students with both deep and surface approaches focused on student-centred aspects of the class. In contrast, when traditional expository teaching methods were used exclusively, students with deep and surface approaches both focused on transmission and reproduction.     

Epistemological framing and novice elementary teachers' approaches to learning and teaching engineering design

As engineering learning experiences increasingly begin in elementary school, elementary teacher preparation programs are an important site for the study of teacher development in engineering education. In this article, we argue that the stances that novice teachers adopt toward engineering learning and knowledge are consequential for the opportunities they create for students. We present a comparative case study examining the epistemological framing dynamics of two novice urban teachers, Ana and Ben, as they learned and taught engineering design during a four-week institute for new elementary teachers. Although the two teachers had very similar teacher preparation backgrounds, they interpreted the purposes of engineering design learning and teaching in meaningfully different ways. During her own engineering sessions, Ana took up the goal not only of meeting the needs of the client but also of making scientific sense of artifacts that might meet those needs. When facilitating students' engineering, she prioritized their building knowledge collaboratively about how things work. By contrast, when Ben worked on his own engineering, he took up the goal of delivering a product. When teaching engineering to students, he offered them constrained prototyping tasks to serve as hands-on contexts for reviewing scientific explanations. These findings call for teacher educators to support teachers' framing of engineering design as a knowledge building enterprise through explicit conversations about epistemology, apprenticeship in sense-making strategies, and tasks intentionally designed to encourage reasoning about design artifacts.     

Digitalisation in higher education: mapping institutional approaches for teaching and learning

This paper explores the digitalisation of teaching and learning understood as external processes, influenced by government and international trends and as internal processes within the institutions, in Denmark and Norway. These are countries with similarities regarding digitalisation and educational systems. In the internal processes, there was some use of digital technology in teaching and learning when initiated from administration including IT-staff, in collaboration with academic leaders. There was little or only limited reported use of technology for teaching and learning, when the processes were initiated by administration together with enthusiasts among faculty staff, who did not have leadership roles or influence on change. There was more reported use of technology in teaching and learning in Denmark than Norway. The paper discusses possible explanations for these findings and thus illuminates how processes of digitalisation are influenced by broader governance arrangements, institutional maturity and academic and administration staffs.     

二外法语词汇教学方法探析

词汇是语言的三要素之一,是构成语言最基本的材料。词汇教学是二外法语教学的基础环节,掌握足够的词汇是学好法语,提高听、说、读,写、译能力的前提。因此运用多样的词汇教学方法,在二外法语教学中起着重要的作用。     

Qualitative variation in approaches to university teaching and learning in large first-year classes

Research on teaching from a student learning perspective has identified two qualitatively different approaches to university teaching. They are an information transmission and teacher-focused approach, and a conceptual change and student-focused approach. The fundamental difference being in the former the intention is to transfer information to students, while in the latter the intention is to change and develop student understanding. Much of our research has been conducted in first-year classes of 100 or more students. The paper begins by outlining a model of teaching and learning based upon this research. It then reviews the quantitative research showing the relationship between teachers’ approaches to teaching in large classes and their students’ approaches to learning. Further analyses of previously collected data are used to identify the size of the relationship between teachers’ approaches and their students’ approaches. The paper concludes by discussing how a more conceptual change and student-focused approach can be manifested in large classes.     

建立与学生学习方式相适应的教学方式

面对新课程改革，教师应该从固有的，陈旧的观念中走出来，树立“以学生发展为本”的教育理念，并随着学生学习方式的改变而重新析的教学方式，形成自己的教学风格，适应新课程改革的要求。     

浅谈提高思想政治理论课教学实效的途径

思想政治理论课教学特别讲求实效,而现实情况并不理想。要提高思想政治理论课的教学实效,应该统一各方对其教学意义的认识,教师以身作则,教学讲究方式方法。     

Instructional methods and languages in class: A comparison of two teaching approaches and two teaching languages in the field of intercultural learning

The article presents the results of a quasi-experimental intervention study with a 2 × 2 factorial design. We implemented a problem-based intercultural learning unit in four secondary schools (grades 9 to 12) and varied the teaching approach (analytical/affective-experiential) and the language of instruction (German/English). The learning unit covered six 45-min lessons and was conducted in nine school courses (n = 143). Five additional school courses (n = 66) served as a control group. In all experimental groups, students engaged with critical incidents. These were either analysed (analytical focus) or acted out as role plays (affective-experiential focus). In addition, students analysed film clips (analytical focus) or participated in a simulation game (affective-experiential focus). The experimental groups outperformed the control group in the post-test, which required the analysis of critical incidents. Both teaching approaches were equally effective; however, students evaluated affective-experiential learning more positively. Using a foreign language for teaching did not impair performance.