Evaluating the quality of student learning. I—An unfolding analysis of the association between perceptions of learning context and approaches to studying at an individual level

Abstract

This study investigates the association between students' perceptions of learning context and approaches to studying at an individual level. The emphasis of this study thus focuses on individual student differences and, in order to facilitate the analyses presented, a statistical procedure (multidimensional unfolding analysis) has been introduced that is new to educational research of this nature. This procedure is described in non-technical terms as well as in a more technical Appendix. The results of this study confirm the existence of the important association between qualitatively different perceptions of learning context and approaches to studying at the individual level. They illuminate, furthermore, the subtly different ways in which individual students orchestrate their approaches to studying in relation to their perception of contextual variables. The diagnostic value of an unfolding analysis is discussed and it is concluded that the methodology described in this study constitutes a potentially powerful paradigm for improving the quality of student learning by facilitating intervention in terms of the perception of the context in which learning occurs.