Factors Influencing Students’ Adoption of Different Approaches to Learning

Abstract

The current paper endeavors to search on factors that influence students’ adoption of different approaches to learning. It is underpinned by a review of two chapters: Price’s (2011) “Modelling Factors for Predicting Student Learning Outcomes” and Baeten, Kyndt, Struyven and Dochy’s (2010) “Using Student- centered Learning Environments to Stimulate a Deep Approach to Learning.” The chapters are chosen because they represent heuristic and representative models of factors affecting the students’ choice of learning approaches. Price’s model categorized the factors into two broad categories, presage factors and conception factors each of which falls into sub-categories. The former encompassed personological and situational factors, each of which deals with the context, and the latter is composed of the teachers’ conception of teaching and the students’ conception of learning. Baeten, Kyndt Struyven and Dochy’s model listed three categories, contextual, perceived contextual and student factors as promoters of and hinderers to student’s adoption of a particular learning approach.