Independent Study and Project Work: Continuities or discontinuities

This paper raises the issue of whether there are continuities between independent study and project work, or whether there are fundamental differences between these pedagogic strategies. The paper provides a comparative evaluation of a number of published commentaries on the nature of independent study and project work. It identifies different positions in relation to this issue of continuity or difference. The paper also reviews four well established independent study degrees in the UK, in order to identify both common and different features in organisation and practice. These accounts provide the basis for a review of three existing models of independent study and project work. A new, extended and more detailed dimensional model is then developed, proposing that differences are primarily a matter of degree. The value of the new model for curriculum development principally in relation to project work, is then outlined.