Study strategies and approaches to learning

In this study students’ study strategies have been compared to their approaches to learning. The time students spend on different study activities has been investigated at the Technical University of Denmark, and as a pilot project a few students also filled in a reduced version of Bigg's Study Process Questionnaire to identify their approach to learning. It was hypothesised that the students’ learning approach would depend more on the quality of the study work than on the quantity; that an active and reflective study strategy was required to obtain deep conceptual understanding. The result showed a weak correlation between the student’s main learning approach as defined by the ratio of the deep approach score to the surface approach score and the student’s study intensity as identified by the ratio of non-scheduled independent activities to scheduled teacher-controlled activities. There was however a much stronger linear correlation (significant at the 0.01 level) between the deep-surface ratio and the total study load. The same result was observed when measuring other students’ study strategy and learning approach for a single course. The empirical basis is still too limited to draw conclusive conclusions, but it raises some intriguing questions. Is time more important than the kind of learning activities for obtaining conceptual understanding – is all that matters from a teaching point of view to ensure that the students spend long hours studying?