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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.
LSRC reference Section 7 page 100/101 Perhaps the most useful contribution to understanding how to improve pedagogy in higher education is that this research provides: a language of concepts and categories through which to discuss more precisely teaching and learning in higher education. Through that language, we should be able to explain to students how to become more effective learners. The research suggests that it is essential for students to become more aware of their own learning styles and strategies – to think out carefully what they are trying to achieve from their studying and to understand the implications of adopting deep and surface approaches to learning … We should surely not leave effective study strategies to evolve through trial and error when we are now in a position to offer coherent advice. (Entwistle 1989, 676) Despite the potential of the model as a basis for better understanding about teaching, learning and approaches to study, Entwistle acknowledges that the recommendations he advocates have not been empirically tested. Instead, he offers a number of activities that can be logically deduced from his research to form a strategic approach to curriculum design, teaching and assessment. These activities include: providing a clear statement of the purposes of a course designing a course to take account of the students’ current knowledge base in a subject and the level of understanding of the discipline that students show on entry diagnostic testing of knowledge of the discipline and its concepts, with feedback to students as a basis for them to judge what they need to do to make progress pitching teaching to previous knowledge, with remedial materials to overcome gaps and common misunderstandings designing realistic assignment workloads combining factual knowledge within problem-based curricula making demands on students to adopt ‘relativistic thinking’ towards the end of a course rather than, unrealistically, from the outset offering opportunities for peer discussion of course content and approaches to learning. A number of universities have responded to Entwistle’s work by developing study skills courses that encourage students to reflect on their approaches to learning. Entwistle argues that conventional study skills courses have limited value: ‘taught as separate skills, they push students towards adopting surface approaches more strategically’ (Martin and Ramsden, cited by Entwistle 1989, 676). The demands of formal, summative assessment also push students towards instrumental, reproduction learning. There is a sense, though, in which Entwistle and his colleagues have not fully addressed the finding in their own and external evaluations that strategic approaches are important for students’ achievement. Instead, there seems to be an underlying value judgement that perhaps most academics share – namely, that a deep approach is preferable to a strategic one. As more students take part in post-16 learning, it may be more realistic to foster good strategic approaches at the outset and then to build deeper approaches. Nevertheless, Haggis’s (2003) warning about problems in relating the model to a mass system offers an important caveat in thinking about how to promote effective approaches to learning. This warning is also pertinent, given that it is difficult to identify specific forms of support that can deal adequately with the complexity of individual students’ approaches. For example, McCune and Entwistle (2000) found that some students, identified as having poor approaches to learning, were negative or indifferent to direct advice about study skills, even when they acknowledged problems in their approaches. A number of students showed little evidence of change in their approaches over time. These findings challenge the usefulness of generic study skills. In addition, intensive individual attention to students’ everyday learning does not seem realistic in the context of declining resources for contact between lecturers, support staff and students. Somehow, effective advice and support need to take account of the dynamic, idiosyncratic aspects of studying, students’ motivation, the specific demands of subjects and disciplines, and particular academic discourses. The problem of how far teachers in a mass system with ever-expanding student/staff ratios can realistically diagnose and respond to individual needs is a significant one. Implications for pedagogy It is possible to offer a set of practical strategies that have been tested in empirical applications of ASI and ASSIST. Entwistle acknowledged, 14 years ago, that there was little evidence of individual departments in universities responding to his research findings (1989). In contrast, there is now growing interest in using the inventories to introduce changes in pedagogy. This leads, however, to the risk that the inventory becomes divorced from the complexity of the model of learning and also to the dangers of reification to which Haggis (2003) alerts us (see above).
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LSRC reference Contents 1 9 13 37 4
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LSRC reference Figures and tables L
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LSRC reference Acknowledgements The
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Section 1 A systematic review of le
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Figure 3 Vermunt’s model of learn
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We devised this classificatory syst
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The popular appeal of the notion th
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Figure 5 Gregorc’s four-channel l
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From the evidence available, we con
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Table 1 Gregorc’s Mind Styles Mod
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Table 2 Variables and factors in th
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The measures Over 25 years, Dunn an
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Table 4 Percentages of respondents
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The BES instrument has elements for
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Shwery (1994) also questioned aspec
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However, the notion of ‘gifted’
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Second, the model encourages teache
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Table 6 Dunn and Dunn’s model and
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The most influential member of the
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Table 9 Studies of the interaction
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Riding and Rayner (1998) do not def
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Implications for pedagogy Riding (2
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Section 5 Stable personality type L
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Appendix 3 Glossary of terms LSRC r
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