Full Description
Learning Patterns in Higher Education brings together a cutting edge international team of contributors to critically review our current understanding of how students and adults learn, how differences and changes in the way students learn can be measured in a valid and reliable way, and how the quality of student learning may be enhanced.
There is substantial evidence that students in higher education have a characteristic way of learning, sometimes called their learning orientation (Biggs 1988), learning style (Evans et al. 2010) or learning pattern (Vermunt and Vermetten 2004). However, recent research in the field of student learning has resulted in multi-faceted and sometimes contradictory results which may reflect conceptual differences and differences in measurement of student learning in each of the studies. This book deals with the need for further clarification of how students learn in higher education in the 21st century and to what extent the measurements often used in learning pattern studies are still up to date or can be advanced with present methodological and statistical insights to capture the most important differences and changes in student learning.
The contributions in the book are organized in two parts: a first conceptual and psychological part in which the dimensions of student learning in the 21st century are discussed and a second empirical part in which questions related to how students' learning can be measured and how it develops are considered.
Areas covered include:
Cultural influences on learning patterns
Predicting learning outcomes
Student centred learning environments and self-directed learning
Mathematics learning
This indispensable book covers multiple conceptual perspectives on how learning patterns can be described and effects and developments can be measured, and will not only be helpful for 'learning researchers' as such but also for educational researchers from the broad domain of educational psychology, motivation psychology and instructional sciences, who are interested in student motivation, self-regulated learning, effectiveness of innovative learning environments, as well as assessment and evaluation of student characteristics and learning process variables.
Contents
1. Students' learning patterns in higher education and beyond: moving forward; 2. (Dis)similarities in research on learning approaches and learning patterns; 3. The dimensionality in student learning patterns in different cultures; 4. Modelling factors for predicting student learning outcomes in higher education; 5. Exploring the concept of `self-directedness in learning`. Theoretical approaches and measurement in adult education literature; 6. Student teachers' learning patterns in school-based teacher education programmes: the influence of person, context and time; 7. Achievement goals, approaches to studying and academic attainment; 8. Learning processes in higher education: Providing new insights to understand the effects of motivation and cognition on specific and global measures of achievement; 9. University students' achievement goals and approaches to learning in mathematics: a re-analysis investigating 'learning patterns'; 10. Exploring the use of a deep approach to learning with students in the process of learning to teach; 11. Understanding differences in student learning and academic achievement in first year higher education: an integrated research perspective; 12. Challenges in analysing change in students' approaches to learning; 13. Students' approaches to learning in higher education: The interplay between context and student; 14. Do case-based learning environments matter? Research into their effects on students' approaches to learning, motivation and achievement; 15. Learning patterns in transition: reflections and prospects
