Proposal for HERG/SRHE Conference

Proposal for HERG/SRHE conference

Higher Education as if the World Mattered

Encouraging the disposition to understand for oneself and others

Noel Entwistle, University of Edinburgh

Abstract

Quality seen solely in terms of students being able to obtain acceptable grades on their assessments is a minimal expectation within a university education, and dangerously limiting when considering the long-term development of the student. While knowledge and skills form the bedrock of that education, it is how these can be put to work in developing professional levels of expertise and conceptual understandings, within disciplinary frameworks, that are the hallmarks of a high quality university education. Research into student learning has been showing how the notion of quality can be broadened from the reproduction of knowledge, towards a deeper personal understanding of ideas and their interrelationships, and eventually to include the development of a disposition to understand for oneself, which, if fully applied in studying, can lead to a powerful, integrative form of understanding that can be used effectively in a wide range of situations.

Outline

Quality of learning is often described in terms of ‘fitness for purpose’, but in education generally, and in university education in particular, that purpose has been seen in very different ways. Governments see the purpose of higher education primarily in terms of equipping people with advanced knowledge and skills to enhance their employment prospects; university managers have had to narrow down their view of educational purposes to fit into a framework of performance indicators; and university teachers, at least in Britain, in those countries are increasingly being required to make their teaching purposes clear within another framework of predetermined ‘intended learning outcomes’. While the dictum of ‘social responsibility’ requires universities to cater for the demands of society and employers, and ‘responsibility to students’ involves clarity in educational aims, there is also an ‘academic and moral responsibility’, one which has traditionally been at the forefront of a broader view of the purposes of university education, and depends on “the academic traditions of open enquiry and exploration of the diversity of values” (Ericksen, 1984, pp.: 1-2).

This paper will describe increasingly inclusive conceptions of ‘quality of learning’ within higher education, based on what university teachers want their students to acquire and how students describe their experiences of developing academic understanding (Entwistle, 2012). It will also draw on the distinctions made by Perkins (2008) between different forms of knowledge and understanding. Within his classification, the simplest conception involves knowledge as simply the possession of knowledge, in the form of information or other people’s ideas, passively accepted. He contrasts this with performative understanding, which also requires the possession of knowledge but goes further in developing a personal understanding of the material. Finally, he introduces a ‘forward-looking’, proactive understanding that depends on progressively enhancing understandings into more complete and useful forms, as well as a willingness to look for their relevance in new situations. And this three-way classification also fits how research into student learning has been describing what quality involves.

Research in the mid-1970s, by Marton and his research team at Gothenburg drew attention to a dimension of quality that had not been recognized before. They introduced the distinction between deep and surface ‘levels of processing’ in reading an academic text (Marton & Säljö, 1976). A deep level involved the intention to understand the author’s meaning, and the necessary learning processes to allow understanding to emerge. Subsequent research into students’ ways of preparing for final examinations showed that hose adopting a deep, holistic approach recognised the importance of making of connections for themselves between ‘parts’ and ‘wholes’ (Entwistle & Entwistle, 1997), connections, that is, between concepts, but also of building up evidence so as to justify conclusions. This form of academic understanding broadened the conception of quality in student learning, and that definition was taken a further step forward when a distinction was made between understanding that allowed students to pass exams or an understanding that was continuously being broadened to apply it in professional situations (Fyrenius, Wirell, & Silén, 2007).

Barnett (2008) suggested that university education in the 21st century should prepare students to cope, not just with the levels and kinds of complexity familiar to students in the past, nor with the additional complexity that comes from facing more and more unanswerable questions, but also with the personal demands arising from living in a general climate of uncertainty. So, the types of understanding we have to address in university education involve the familiar conceptual understandings required for disciplinary discourse, but also types of understanding that go beyond these to enable students to engage intellectually and emotionally with what Barnett called super-complexity. The idea of quality in learning at university level thus becomes broader still, and it is this type of understanding which has been addressed in recent research I have been carrying out with Velda McCune (Entwistle & McCune, 2009; in press).

We have suggested that some students display a clear disposition to understand for oneself, which we describe as having three main elements. First, there are the learning processes used, seen in the interplay of relating ideas and the critical use of evidence with careful attention to detail; then the willingness to put in the necessary time, effort, and concentration to apply the learning strategies effectively, while the final element relates to several forms of alertness to the context within which the learning is taking place, or might take place in the future. There is an alertness involved in monitoring understanding in relation to the demands of the task, along with a recognition of the opportunities provided by the whole learning environment to further one’s understanding. The disposition to understand for oneself is also likely to foster a continuing determination to use acquired knowledge and disciplinary ways of thinking and practising in new contexts, as well being more alert to possibilities for applying them.

In considering how best we might enhance this type of disposition at university, we have

suggested that students need to experience powerful learning environments that, besides arousing interest, will also provide authentic, open problems, encourage students to develop self-regulation in studying, and create a classroom climate that encourages discussion and reflection (De Corte et al., 2003; Verschaffel et al., 2005). The importance of authentic problems was also found in a recent large-scale project directed in Edinburgh, where opportunities to deal with realistically complex problems, and to take part in placements within professional contexts, markedly affected students’ attitudes to studying (Entwistle, McCune & Hounsell, 2003). It also seemed to have affected their disposition to understand for themselves and their sense of themselves as future professionals (McCune, 2009). But there are other interesting possibilities being provided through the use of the emerging Web 2 technologies, with social networking being used to encourage dialogue among students and collaborative knowledge development being encouraged among both students and teachers, thus making the learning processes involved more transparent (McCune & Entwistle, 2011).

References

Barnett, R. (2007). A will to learn: Being a student in an age of uncertainty. Berkshire: Open University Press and Society for Research into Higher Education.

De Corte, E., Verschaffel, L., Entwistle, N. J., & van Merriënboer, J. (Eds.) (2003),. Powerful learning environments: Unravelling basic components and dimensions. Oxford: Pergamon.

Entwistle, N. J. (2012). The quality of learning at university: Integrative understanding and distinctive ways of thinking. In M. J. Lawson & J. R. Kirby (Eds.) Enhancing the Quality of Learning (pp. 15-31). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Entwistle, N. J., & Entwistle, A. C. (1997). Revision and the experience of understanding. In F. Marton, D. J. Hounsell, & N. J. Entwistle (Eds.), The experience of learning: Implications for teaching and learning in higher education (2nd edn.) (pp. 145-155). Edinburgh: Scottish Universities Press, (downloadable at http://www.tla.ed.ac.uk/resources/EOL.html.

Entwistle, N. J., & McCune, V. (2009). The disposition to understand for oneself at university and beyond: Learning processes, the will to learn, and sensitivity to context. In L-F. Zhang & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Perspectives on the nature of intellectual styles (pp. 29-62). New York: Springer.

Entwistle, N. J., & McCune, V. (in press). The disposition to understand for oneself at university: Integrating learning processes with motivation and metacognition. British Journal of Educational Psychology.

Entwistle, N., McCune, V. & Hounsell, J. (2003). Investigating ways of enhancing university teaching–learning environments: Measuring students’ approaches to studying and perceptions of teaching. In E. De Corte, L. Verschaffel, N. Entwistle & J. van Merriënboer (Eds.) Powerful learning environments: Unravelling basic components and dimensions (pp. 89–107). Oxford: Elsevier Science.

Ericksen, S. C. (1984). The essence of good teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fyrenius, A., Wirell, S., & Silén, C. (2007). Student approaches to achieving understanding: Approaches to learning revisited. Studies in Higher Education, 32, 149-165.

Marton, F., & Säljö, R. (1976). On qualitative differences in learning: I. Outcome and process. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 4-11.

McCune, V. (2009). Final year biosciences students’ willingness to engage: teaching-learning environments, authentic learning experiences and identities. Studies in Higher Education, 34, 347-361.

McCune, V., & Entwistle, N. J. (2011). Cultivating the disposition to understand in 21st century university education. Learning & Individual Differences, 21, 303-310.

Perkins, D. N. (2008). Beyond understanding. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 3-19). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Verschaffel, L., De Corte, E., Kanselaar, G., & Valcke, M. (Eds.) (2005). Powerful environments for promoting deep conceptual and strategic learning. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.

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