Complete thesis - Murdoch University

visual where reading text is classed as verbal and fundamentally sequential, implying a preferencefor logical steps to problem-solving (Soloman and Felder, 1999).The Kolb results (Table 7.2) support these findings: the 2003 RE students are most stronglyengineering types. They are pragmatists (Convergers) who revel in active experimentation(labs, fieldwork) with a tendency to narrow technical interests, or theorists (Assimilators)with a forté in the basic sciences. The imaginative ability of the Diverger or the intuitiveproblem solving of the Accommodator is sadly limited. Yet we have seen that these are skillshighly rated in an RE context.Table 7.2: RE 2003 students compared with the Murdoch profile (percentages) (based on KolbLearning Style Inventory)Eng 1styear(cum)ENG1082001*Accomodator 8 18 10Diverger 18 3 10Assimilator 33 32 40Converger 41 47 40*The 2002 RE students were a subset of this groupENG2602003In years previous to 2003, the class predominantly comprised students expecting to completea 4-year Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree, most probably in software. These studentscome into the programmme with a higher tertiary entrance score than Bachelor of EngineeringTechnology (BTech) students, and have completed one year of study within the School.This has implications in learning expectations, acceptance of the learning culture within theSchool, etc.As Figure 7.3 shows, in 2003 the BE students were in the minority. An additional factorin 2003 was that almost 50% of the BTech students were TAFE (Technical and FurtherEducation, ie technical college) articulation students. These students entered the programmewith advanced standing, and although a formal analysis in the Murdoch context had not beenundertaken at this stage, there was anecdotal evidence that they had additional problems.A discrepancy between the teaching/learning environment they were expecting and the onethey were experiencing was almost immediately apparent across all units they were studying.The characteristics of both articulating and Murdoch students have implications for thelearning environment of this cycle. Firstly, while the Apprenticeship model aligned reasonablywell with student learning styles, the PBL model could be expected to be a challenge – PBLis considered an ideal pedagogical strategy only for Accomodator students (Felder and Brent,2005), who make up one of the minorities in the cohort.278