Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

Two lines of thinking are becoming increasingly important in higher educational practice. The first derives from constructivist learning theory, and the second from the instructional design literature. Constructivism comprises a family of theories but all have in common the centrality of the learner's activities in creating meaning. These and related ideas have important implications for teaching and assessment. Instructional designers for their part have emphasised alignment between the objectives of a course or unit and the targets for assessing student performance. “Constructive alignment” represents a marriage of the two thrusts, constructivism being used as a framework to guide decision-making at all stages in instructional design: in deriving curriculum objectives in terms of performances that represent a suitably high cognitive level, in deciding teaching/learning activities judged to elicit those performances, and to assess and summatively report student performance. The “performances of understanding” nominated in the objectives are thus used to systematically align the teaching methods and the assessment. The process is illustrated with reference to a professional development unit in educational psychology for teachers, but the model may be generalized to most units or programs in higher education.

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Enhancing Teaching through Constructive Alignment.

Three field experiments with high school and college students tested the self-determination theory (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 2000) hypotheses that intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) goals and autonomy-supportive (vs. controlling) learning climates would improve students' learning, performance, and persistence. The learning of text material or physical exercises was framed in terms of intrinsic (community, personal growth, health) versus extrinsic (money, image) goals, which were presented in an autonomy-supportive versus controlling manner. Analyses of variance confirmed that both experimentally manipulated variables yielded main effects on depth of processing, test performance, and persistence (all ps <.001), and an interaction resulted in synergistically high deep processing and test performance (but not persistence) when both intrinsic goals and autonomy support were present. Effects were significantly mediated by autonomous motivation.

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Motivating learning, performance, and persistence: the synergistic effects of intrinsic goal contents and autonomy-supportive contexts.

The instructional technology community is in the midst of a philosophical shift from a behaviorist to a constructivist framework, a move that may begin to address the growing rift between formal school learning and real-life learning. One theory of learning that has the capacity to promote authentic learning is that of situated learning.

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An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments

A sample of 206 second-year Education students completed questionnaires on issues relating to their preparation for and perceptions of two methods of assessment of the same course: an assignment essay and an end-of-course multiple choice question (MCQ) exami- nation. The questionnaire required a simultaneous response for each assessment method to statements focusing on their learning approaches, their perceptions of the levels of intellec- tual abilities being assessed, and their preference for either the assignment essay or MCQ examination as an assessment method of the course and the reasons for their choices. The above variables were analysed in relation to each other and to performance outcome in both assessment tasks. Results suggest distinct patterns according to assessment method. Students were more likely to employ surface learning approaches in the MCQ examination context and to perceive MCQ examinations as assessing knowledge-based (lower levels of) intellectual processing. Poorer performance in the MCQ examination was associated with the employment of deep learning strategies. In contrast, students were more likely to employ deep learning approaches when preparing their assignment essays which they perceived as assessing higher levels of cognitive processing. Poorer performance in the assignment essays was associated with the employment of surface strategies. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The influence of assessment method on students' learning approaches: Multiple choice question examination versus assignment essay

Previous research on student learning has established the importance of the constrasting conceptions of learning held by students, and of the distinction between deep and surface approaches to learning. It has also shown that the outcome of learning may be described in terms of qualitatively different levels and that different forms of examination encourage different levels of answer. Within all these studies the nature of the understanding which is developed has been rather taken for granted. In this essentially exploratory study, a detailed examination of the interview transcripts of 13 students, who had just completed their final degree, was supplemented by analyses of written responses from an additional 11 students in their final undergraduate year. In the interviews, the students were asked about the revision strategies they had adopted and their attempts to develop understanding, and aspects of these were explored further through the written responses. Analyses of both interviews and written responses indicated the existence of differing forms of understanding which parallel, to some extent, the conceptions of learning identified previously. Links were also explored between the revision strategies adopted and the forms of understanding reached. Implications of the findings suggest that traditional degree examinations do not consistently test deep, conceptual understanding. It appears that some students gear their revision to question types which can be answered within frameworks provided by the lecturer or a textbook and that the type of questions set has a strong influence on the forms of understanding students seek during their studying and their revision. Some types of question encourage, and test, a restricted form of conceptual understanding. It also seems that the particular types of structure used in a lecture course to provide a framework also has an important influence on the ease with which students can relate it to other courses and also develop their own understanding.

Contrasting forms of understanding for degree examinations: the student experience and its implications

Experiences of understanding in revising for degree examinations

The theme of this volume is The Design of Constructivist Learning Environments. To begin, we need to explore why we might need such environments in education, and then to identify research findings which might guide the establishment of such environments. Nancy Cole (1990) has recently criticized schooling in the USA for overemphasizing the acquistion of knowledge and basic skills to the detriment of higher-order skills and advanced knowledge. She comments: Students can repeat science facts and principles, but in explanations of events, they fail to use them. They also fail to use them in new, relevant, problem situations.… Conceptions of educational achievement — how we view and characterize achievement — affect what teachers teach and how they teach it.… Present conceptions of educational achievement as basic skills and facts tend to focus attention on the shortterm goals of schooling.… We must have conceptions … that help us attend to the long-term goals (with) some flavour of the higher-order skills and advanced knowledge. …We have under-emphasized (both) the associative uses of schooling (increasing the web of associations students have) and the interpretive uses (translation of ideas, giving meanings). (pp. 2, 4, 6)

Abigail Entwistle

Papers

Contrasting forms of understanding for degree examinations: the student experience and its implications

Experiences of understanding in revising for degree examinations

Academic Understanding and Contexts to Enhance It: A Perspective from Research on Student Learning