Student Perceptions of Factors Influencing Tertiary Learning

An interview study about perception of factors involved in tertiary learning of 60 second year students at the Australian National University is reported. Factors which encourage deep rather than surface level processing are highlighted as are problems of transition from school to tertiary learning. An unexpected outcome was that students’ responses to probing about the nature of the differences between school and tertiary learning provided evidence of qualitative differences between the way students utilising deep or surface level processing conceive the process of learning itself. This finding has implications both for those attempting to change these students’ approach to learning and for the selection of research methods appropriate for this area.     

Differences in taste-potentiated odor aversions with O+/OT+ versus OT+/O+ conditioning: Implications for configural associations

The present research demonstrates a conditioning order effect difference: Odor-aversion conditioning is stronger following OT+/O+ conditioning than following O+/OT+ conditioning with specific odor (O) and taste (T) cues. When a weak odor cue was used in Experiments 1A and 1B, OT+/O+ conditioning produced significantly stronger odor aversions than did either O+/OT+ or O+/O+ conditioning, which did not differ. The same design was used in Experiment 2 with a strong odor, but the order effect difference was not replicated, suggesting that the order effect difference is specific to conditions that produce taste-potentiated odor aversions. The interpretation that O+/OT+ conditioning is weaker because of the absence of a taste-odor within-compound association was not supported in Experiments 3 and 4. Notably, using stimuli that supported potentiation in earlier experiments, in Experiment 4, we found evidence of a taste-odor within-compound association in the absence of potentiation. These results confirm that previous theories of potentiation (within-compound association model, sensory-and-gate channeling model) are not sufficient to produce potentiation. Instead, these results are interpreted in terms of taste-odor configural associations.     

Factors influencing the study methods of Australian tertiary students

Two studies are reported which examine factors influencing the approach to study of Australian tertiary students from a traditional, psychometric perspective (supported by student comments). Study I, with 199 first year students as subjects, indicates that being interested in the subject, seeking an honours grade, and being assessed by essay rather than multiple choice examinations are factors which independently encourage the student to adopt a deep level approach to study. Student comments suggest that the lecturer's enthusiasm and teaching ability has a significant impact on student interest level. Lack of time for study is another factor seen as leading to a surface level approach. Tertiary study was often seen as requiring a deeper approach and harder work. Comments of mature age entrants showed that in general they had thought more about the learning process and had not wandered into tertiary education like some of the recent school leavers. Study II was a conceptual replication of the work of Ramsden and Entwistle, which appeared in the 1981 volume of the British Journal of Educational Psychology. The responses of 292 senior year students indicated that students adopting a deep level approach to study were more likely to perceive their courses as encouraging independence in both attitudes and approach to learning and as being challenging but not over burdening. These results were discussed in terms of the need for students and lecturers to think more about the learning process itself and the need for more to be done to assist the transition to tertiary learning of recent school leavers.     

Disparate bodies: the role of the teacher in contemporary pedagogic practice

The teacher’s body has a dubious status within contemporary pedagogic practice. The impact of progressivism in many western countries, with its emphasis on student‐centred learning, has resulted in a marginalisation of the teacher’s role in many classrooms. While its influence appears to be waning, in Australian primary schools, student‐centred methodologies such as group‐based and independent learning tend to dominate classroom practice. Relegated to the role of facilitator the teacher’s overall presence and bodily impact in classrooms has been greatly reduced. Drawing on a study of the practice of two kindergarten teachers in two schools in Sydney, Australia, this article will examine the ways in which they embody pedagogic space, the regimen they create and the techniques they employ in teaching their students how to write. In a sense the title ‘Disparate bodies’ has a dual focus. Not only does it relate to the different ways in which the two teachers deploy their bodies in the classroom, it also refers to the differential embodiment of their students which results from the affects that their teachers’ pedagogies engender.     

Cross‐cultural Validation of Models of Approaches to Learning: an application of confirmatory factor analysis

Six structural equation models were tested by analysing responses to the Learning Process Questionnaire of 10 samples of primary and secondary school students from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Malaysia, Beijing, Hong Kong and Canada. Confirmatory factor analyses provided general support for the cross‐cultural within‐construct validity of the questionnaire. As predicted, the dimensions of deep and surface approaches to learning received cross‐cultural support, but the positioning of the achieving dimension varied across cultures. This is in line with the notion that students who adopt an achieving approach will adopt different strategies which will be likely to maximise their achievement according to particular course and teacher characteristics.     

The families of children who fail to thrive: preliminary investigations of parental deprivation among organic and non-organic cases

A majority of cases of failure to thrive (FTT) do not have a known organic etiology. Social and psychological determinants are sought for these "non-organic failure to thrive" (N-O FTT) cases. Social and psychological differences between non-organic and organic cases are also explored here. With the introduction of the term, "maternal deprivation," medical practitioners have implicated mothers' deficiencies as instrumental in the etiology of N-O FTT. However, these mothers are themselves usually deprived. Lack of cooperation in childcare by both parents is noted when classic clinical cases are reviewed. We suggest that the concept, "parental deprivation," provides a more accurate model. Preliminary research findings support our hypothesis that mothers of FTT infants do not have good social support networks. Teen motherhood and socioeconomic status also appear to be important, but not necessary as determinants. An unexpected finding is that there are few differences in the social deficiencies of families of N-O FTT infants as compared to those failing for organic reasons. Two unanticipated findings appear noteworthy. First, infants failing for organic reasons are significantly smaller and thinner at birth, independent of pregnancy complications or prematurity. Second, infants failing for non-organic reasons are more likely to present during the period of infant-caretaker role development and less likely in the later toddler stage. Additional research into the feasibility of strengthening family supports as a basis of intervention is recommended.     

The Erasure of Habit: Tracing the pedagogic body

While education involves much more than a set of habits, their formation is integral to learning. Within many Western countries, however, habit formation is no longer considered a pedagogic goal. Students may still acquire certain habits of learning as a function of schooling, but the process whereby teachers utilize a form of instruction designed to encourage the habituation of particular knowledge and skills in students now seems something of an anachronism. This article focuses on the erasure of habit in the teaching of writing within the New South Wales education system in Australia. A genealogy of the pedagogic body is undertaken through an examination of primary school syllabus documents. In tracing the body it is revealed that while habit formation was once a central pedagogic tenet, its influence has now waned. With a resultant change in pedagogy, the body has been reformed with new postures of learning framed by the progressivist disciplinarity of teaching.     

Students' Evaluations of University Teaching: A China Perspective

This study investigates the applicability of two American instruments, designed to assess students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness, to university students in China. Based on the responses of 367 Chinese undergraduates, the results indicated that the scales had high internal consistency reliability coefficients and the items were generally considered appropriate and clearly distinguished between good and poor lecturers. Moreover, every item was deemed important by at least some of the students. Further analysis lent support to the convergent and discriminant validities of the scales hypothesised to measure similar or dissimilar components of teaching effectiveness. However, this analysis and factor analytic findings did indicate more overlap among aspects of Learning/Value, Organisation/Clarity, Enthusiasm, and Breadth of Coverage, than that found in Western studies. Hence, this study only provided partial support for the cross‐cultural validity of the two instruments and the multidimensional model of teaching effectiveness on which they were based.     

Student participant‐observation in the contested workplace: the policy dilemmas of in‐school work experience

The study discussed in this paper examines the views on the workplace of year 11 students from an Australian metropolitan post‐primary school before and after they went out of the school into the workplace for two weeks work experience. One of the themes which emerged from the discussions with the students was related to the degree of control exerted by employers on employees and the oppositional response which is sometimes forthcoming from those employees. The views which form this theme are then placed within the context of a current debate on work experience. On the one hand some educationalists are advocating ‘jumping off the work experience bandwagon’, while on the other those scholars with a more critical stance are pointing to the educative potential of work experience.