The Development of Students' Experiences of Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the development of tertiary students' experiences of learning as they progress through three years of undergraduate study in two different psychology programs. Previous research that is relevant to this topic has tended to focus either more narrowly on the development of epistemic beliefs or more broadly on the variation of learners' experiences of learning. Research on epistemic beliefs has tended to focus on the structural aspects (stages) of development and to ignore the content of thinking. In contrast, research on experiences of learning has concentrated upon the content of students' experiences, yet it can be criticised for the way in which it decontextualises students' experiences and for its limited attention to change and development. Moreover, despite evidence suggesting that learning comprises a complex of phenomena such as understanding, memorising and knowing, this line of research has tended to treat learning as a single phenomenon. In the thesis I draw on Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, Gurwitsch's view of awareness, and much of the conceptual framework of the phenomenographic perspective to argue a case for a theoretical framework and consequential practices that are more plural and inclusive of learner's experiences of learning. The new approach refocuses the relationship between researcher, knower and known in terms of the knowing relation-one that involves a dynamic iterative interweaving of first and second order perspectives. Using this new approach, students' experiences are analysed to provide rich description and ontological explanation of both change and development over time. The approach allows the unity of the partlwholelpart relation of an individual's experience to be recognised. So the method is able to take account of the contextual relevancy of the individual whilst also focusing on the experiences of the group. The results show that rather than comprising a single phenomenon, learning is itself part of a multi-dimensional (depth, spatial and temporal dimensions), multi-phenomenal field. The phenomena of learning, understanding, memorising and knowledge are described in detail, and their individual internal relations are elaborated along with the internal relations between the phenomena. Four main groups of experiences of learning are described within this framework: reproductive experiences; relational experiences; constructive experiences; and transformative experiences. Each of these categories comprises several sub- categories. This fine-grained focus on individual students' data, and the use of the phenomenographic whadhow framework, allows the development of experiences to be traced and interpreted as a gradual morphing over time. The pattern of development suggests that each part of the learners' journey plays an important role in the growth of skill and competence in learning. Thus, it may be important that curricula account for variation not by focussing upon transformative experiences of learning, as is often the case, but by facilitating shifts through all of the experiences that learners may pass through.