learning-styles

The growing influence of Entwistle’s work raises
new difficulties and criticisms, not least that inventories
come to be separated from their underlying rationale
for learning and used for different purposes than
those intended by their designers. Notwithstanding
these problems, there is a ‘surprising lack of critique’
in ideas surrounding deep and surface approaches
to learning in higher education (Haggis 2003). One
effect is that their increasing influence in mainstream
academic debates can lead to the separation
of individual elements from the underlying model,
which then become identified as separate aspects
of learning. Through ‘a process of gradual reification
as the ideas move into wider circulation, [the term]
“deep approaches to learning” becomes “deep
learning” and, ultimately, “deep learners”’(Haggis
2003, 91). This conceptual separation of the model
from its inventory and the tendency to label people
is a problem of all the inventories.
In addition, Haggis argues (2003, 91) that as the
model and its scientific methodology become more
influential, it ‘appears to be seen as describing
a kind of “truth” about how students learn in which
research has “identified” both the categories and
the relationships between them’. This ‘truth’ also
becomes reified as other researchers interpret the
implications of the model. For example, a number
of interpretations of the research findings mistakenly
claim that ‘without exception’, deep approaches are
‘more likely’ to result in high-quality learning outcomes
(see Haggis 2003, 91).
A more fundamental difficulty, according to Haggis,
is the assumption among supporters of the model that
changing learning environments can induce students
to see higher education differently. A mass system
of higher education involves more students from
‘non-traditional’ backgrounds, and so assumptions
in Entwistle’s model about approaches and strategies
become less valid. Haggis argues that the focus in
the model on changing individuals’ understanding
contains implicit cultural biases that no longer fit mass
participation in an expanding, underfunded system.
She also argues that the model is epistemologically
confused, because it combines human subjectivity
and qualitative explanation with what proponents
of the ‘approaches model’ claim are ‘exceptionally
rigorous’ methods of scientific research. Taken together,
these problems have, according to Haggis, created
a narrow conception of the difficulties facing students
and teachers in higher education. Haggis (2003)
contends that alignment of the model to current political
imperatives in higher education runs the risk of creating
a single unifying framework that is becoming immune
from critique and which creates passive learners.
Implications for pedagogy
The body of work on Entwistle’s model and inventories
has three broad implications for improving pedagogy.
The inventory and its model could be used as:
a diagnostic tool for lecturers and students to use in
order to discuss approaches to learning and how they
might be developed
a diagnostic tool for course teams to use in talking
about the design and implementation of the curriculum
and assessment, including forms of support such as
study skills courses
a theoretical rationale, based on extensive empirical
research, for discussion among lecturers (eg on teacher
training and staff development courses) about students’
learning and ways of improving their approaches.
In contrast to a belief in the relatively fixed nature
of stylistic preferences, Entwistle, his colleagues
and other supporters of the model argue that students,
teachers and institutions can all change students’
approaches to learning. Combining quantitative
and qualitative methodology suggests that approaches
to learning do not reflect inherent, fixed characteristics
of individuals. Instead, Entwistle and his colleagues
argue that approaches are responsive to the
environment and to students’ interpretations of that
environment. However, there remains a conceptual
and empirical tension between the stability
of approaches across similar situations and their
variability (Entwistle 2002).
Entwistle also claims that teaching can affect
approaches to learning. For example, Ramsden and
Entwistle (1981) showed that a deep approach is
encouraged by students being given freedom in learning
and by experiencing good teaching, with good pace,
pitch, real-life illustrations, empathy with students’
difficulties, tutors being enthusiastic and offering
‘lively and striking’ explanations. A surface approach
is reinforced by the forms of summative assessment
required in the course, a heavy workload and lecturers
who foster dependency by ‘spoon-feeding’. In recent
work, Entwistle and his colleagues have explored
how to create ‘powerful learning environments’ in order
to change students’ conceptions of learning. Referring
to work by Perry on progression through different
conceptions of knowledge (discussed in Section 7.1)
and work by Vermunt and colleagues, Entwistle and
Peterson (2003) argue that universities should
encourage ‘constructive friction’ between the curriculum
and teachers’ and students’ conceptions of knowledge.
Drawing on constructivist and cognitive apprenticeship
ideas about learning, they offer guidelines for promoting
a deep approach to learning and more sophisticated
conceptions of knowledge.