The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

learning / learning strategies is to a certain degree influenced by their intentions /
motivations of learning. Students‘ choice of approaches is closely correlated with how
students perceive the context and the content of the task.
Likewise, Biggs‘ work (e.g. 1976, 1979, 1987, and 1993) emphasizes the importance
of interrelations between the teaching context, student factors, and learning outcomes
in student learning process. A 3P model was devised to illustrate the relations, as
shown in Figure 3.4. In this model, mutual interactions of student factors, teaching
context, learning-focused activities and learning outcomes form an integrated and
dynamic system: approaches to learning form an important component of the 3P
model; they interact with presage factors and together determine the learning
outcomes; reversible arrows shows that each factor affects every other factor (Biggs et
al., 2001). Students‘ choice of approaches to learning interacts with their perceptions
of learning context.
Figure 3.4: The 3P model of teaching and learning (Biggs et al., 2001)
Biggs (1976) developed an inventory – the Study Behaviour Questionnaire (SBQ) – to
identify and measure learning approaches in tertiary level education. The revised
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