Exploring University Teaching and Learning: Experience and Context

138 Pages·2020·1.521 MB·English

by  Keith Trigwell, Michael Prosser

Exploring University
Teaching and Learning
Experience and Context
Keith Trigwell
Michael Prosser
Exploring University Teaching and Learning
“Enhancing discipline-specific evidence-based development of the quality of
teaching and learning in higher education has been my strategy during my whole
career. Therefore and with great pleasure I read the book by Trigwell and Prosser
which distills their teaching and learning research into a guide for those seeking to
better understand their teaching environment. Building on their discovery of rela-
tions between the ways of teaching and the ways of learning, they expand on what
is known about variation in teaching and how it links to course design, to research
and to academic development. This book will be a valuable resource for many
academics.”
—Professor Sari Lindblom, University of Helsinki, Finland
Keith Trigwell • Michael Prosser
Exploring University
Teaching and
Learning
Experience and Context
Keith Trigwell Michael Prosser
University of Sydney Melbourne Centre for the Study
Sydney, NSW, Australia of Higher Education
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Faculty of Education
University of Tasmania
Hobart, TAS, Australia
ISBN 978-3-030-50829-6 ISBN 978-3-030-50830-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50830-2
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P
reface
In 1999 we had just finished writing a book that was published with the
title Understanding Learning and Teaching: The Experience in Higher
Education. As a summary of our research into university teaching and
learning up to that year, the book contains an overview of students’ expe-
rience of learning. It has a focus on how university teachers can use their
awareness of the context of their students’ learning to reflect on their
teaching. It ended by revealing that in our empirical research we had
found a relationship between the way university teachers teach, and how
their students approached their learning. That relationship was important
because without it, attempts to improve teaching would be for naught.
That book is still in print, but of course it does not contain the story of
what has happened in the 20 years since our report of the teaching- learning
relationship.
Over the last 20 years we have continued to conduct research into uni-
versity teaching and learning together and separately with other col-
leagues. That research has both replicated and extended the earlier research
work. In doing so it has involved a shift in focus more towards university
teachers’ awareness of their own teaching context (which continues to
include an awareness of their students’ learning). While it has been pub-
lished in many papers in a wide range of journals, we wanted to see it
brought together to form the subject matter of a book. Exploring
University Teaching and Learning is that book. It is essentially about the
implications for teaching and learning in higher education of the variation
in teachers’ approaches to teaching.
v
vi PREFACE
The trigger for the writing of this sequel to Understanding Learning
and Teaching was a request from Peter Kandlbinder, who asked us to sum-
marise the last 20 years of our research in the form of a review paper for
the on-line publication HERDSA Review of Higher Education. The for-
mat and content themes presented in this book were first written by us for
that publication. Permission from the Higher Education Research and
Development Society of Australasia Inc. to build on the summaries we
crafted for that review is acknowledged.
As we approach the end of our careers, we have many more acknowl-
edgements. In getting started on the 30-year teaching and learning
research project featured in this book we received valuable guidance and
support from Ingrid Moses and Mick Dunkin. We have benefitted mas-
sively from the generous mentoring we received from Ference Marton,
Noel Entwistle and John Biggs who, in the 1970s, established the field
that we later came to occupy. We have thrived in collaborative research
contexts with many people, including Elaine Martin and Paul Ramsden
(Paul died unexpectedly in 2017. He is remembered as a colleague, a
leader and a friend.), Paul Ashwin, Rob Ellis, Elizabeth Hazel and Sari
Lindblom-Ylänne. Our ideas were clarified and enhanced in conversations
with referees and colleagues including Shirley Booth, John Bowden,
Graham Gibbs, Peter Goodyear, David Kember, Herb Marsh, Erik Meyer,
Paul Pintrich, Lennart Svensson, John Richardson and Torgny Roxå. As
this book shows we have learnt much together with our PhD students –
Gerlese Akerlind, Maliheh Babaee, Chris Cope, Jane Davey, Helen Forbes,
Katherine Jukic, Lynne Leveson, Fangfang Li, Jo McKenzie, Anna Reid,
Daniel Sze, Kate Thomson and Fiona Waterhouse. And we have been
assisted over the years by a talented group of Research Assistants – Joan
Benjamin, Harriet Dunbar-Goddet, Patsy Gallagher, Fei Fei Han, Andria
Hanbury, Jason Kelleher, Gillian Lueckenhausen, Heather Middleton,
Rosemary Miller, Anne Pitkelthy, Kitty te Reile and Phillip Taylor. We also
wish to acknowledge all of our co-authors and many other colleagues
throughout the world who have contributed to making our academic and
social lives so enjoyable. We also thank Kaye Nolan and Laura Menschik
who have shared our research/academic odyssey and still smile politely
when conversations lurch towards variation theory or phenomenography.
Most of our research was funded by grants from the Australian Research
Council, the Hong Kong University Research Grants Committee and the
PREFACE vii
United Kingdom Higher Education Academy, which we gratefully
acknowledge. Finally, Palgrave Macmillan have given us the chance to pro-
duce this ‘swansong’ and for their professional support we are thankful.
Sydney, NSW, Australia Keith Trigwell
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Michael Prosser
Hobart, TAS, Australia
2020
c
ontents
1 Exploring Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 1
2 Students’ Experiences of Learning 15
3 Teachers’ Experiences of Teaching 37
4 Teachers’ Experiences of their Subject Matter and of
Research 63
5 Leadership of Teaching and Learning 85
6 Changing and Developing Teachers’ Approaches to Teaching 99
7 Summary and Conclusions 111
Appendix: Approaches to Teaching Inventory-Revised (ATI-R) 119
Index 123
ix
a a
bout the uthors
Michael Prosser is a professorial member of The University of Melbourne
and the University of Tasmania, Australia, and recipient of life-time
achievement awards from national and international organisations. He has
a career in supporting and researching teaching and learning in higher
education, including co-development of the Approaches to Teaching
Inventory.
Keith Trigwell is an Honorary Professor at The University of Sydney,
Australia. His research interests include investigating qualitative differ-
ences in university teaching and students learning and the scholarship of
teaching, including co-development of the Approaches to Teaching
Inventory. He has been awarded life-time achievement awards by
national and international organisations.
xi
a
bbreviations
3P Presage Process Product
ATI Approaches to Teaching Inventory
ATI-R Approaches to Teaching Inventory Revised
CCSF Conceptual change/student-focused (approach)
CDSF Conceptual development/student-focused (approach)
EEI Experience of Emotions Inventory
ETI Emotions of Teaching Inventory
GPA Grade Point Average
ITTF Information transmission/teacher-focused (approach)
MEQ Module Experience Questionnaire
OSI-R Occupational Stress Inventory-Revised
PBL Problem-based learning
PTEI Perceptions of the Teaching Environment Inventory
SAL Student Approach to Learning
SEM Structural Equation Modelling
SOLO Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome
SPQ Study Process Questionnaire
SRL Self-regulated learning
TOQ Teaching Orientation Questionnaire
xiii