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Adopting a “satisficing” model forschool performance in students' viewsof learningLinor Lea Hadar aa Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education,Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

Available online: 25 Jul 2011

To cite this article: Linor Lea Hadar (2011): Adopting a “satisficing” model for school performancein students' views of learning, Educational Research and Evaluation, 17:3, 193-214

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Adopting a ‘‘satisficing’’ model for school performance in students’ views

of learning

Linor Lea Hadar*

Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, University ofHaifa, Haifa, Israel

(Received 8 March 2011; final version received 17 June 2011)

This study explored students’ views on learning in a sample of 171 secondaryschool students. The answers on an open-ended task were analyzed bothqualitatively and quantitatively. The views on school learning were mostlyreflected in the things students do in school in order to be good learners. Factoranalysis of students’ views of school learning showed they referred more topragmatic categories, passive learning strategies, and grades than to activelearning motives and understanding. The most dominant factor in students’ viewsof school learning, adequate school performance, does not relate to actuallearning processes but can be viewed as the minimal compliance behaviorsstudents must perform in order to keep up in school by ‘‘satisficing’’ (Simon,1955) – satisfying and sufficing – the teachers (task completion and classparticipation). Theoretical and educational implications were discussed toheighten educators’ awareness of students’ thinking about learning.

Keywords: conceptions of learning; students’ voice; students’ experience; learning

Introduction

Learning to learn is considered one of the principal goals of education (Klatter,Lodewijks, & Aarnoutse, 2001). Thus, schools are increasingly taking into accounthow learners process information and develop their learning potentials, rather thanfocusing solely on the contents and outcomes of learning. As schools gradually investmore efforts into enculturating the habits of mind that can support students’ lifelonglearning, the issue of how students construe learning comes to the fore (Ritchhart,Turner, & Hadar, 2009). Students’ interpretation of learning is a part of whatconstitutes students’ conception of learning. Vermunt and Vermetten (2004) claimthat ‘‘A conception of learning is a coherent system of knowledge and beliefs aboutlearning and related phenomena (e.g., knowledge and beliefs about oneself as alearner, learning objectives, learning activities and strategies, learning tasks, andlearning and studying in general)’’ (p. 362).

The important function of students’ interpretation of learning was highlighted byKlatter et al. (2001), who suggested that students’ thoughts about learning maystrongly influence students’ actual learning behavior:

*Email: lhadar@edu.haifa.ac.il

Educational Research and Evaluation

Vol. 17, No. 3, June 2011, 193–214

ISSN 1380-3611 print/ISSN 1744-4187 online

� 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13803611.2011.600547

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Learning strategies are not automatically developed in the course of the teachingprocess; learning activities and strategies must, in fact, be considered as being highlydependent on individuals’ ideas and views about what the nature of learning is and whatdemands are being put on the student by learning. These conceptions or mental modelsof learning may affect the individual’s understanding of learning and the way in whichlearning objectives, learning tasks, and teaching measures are interpreted (p. 486).

The quality of the learning outcomes is another aspect which may be influencedby students’ thoughts about learning. For example, low-level learning outcomes andhigh-level learning outcomes were linked to different ways of conceptualizinglearning experience (Martin & Ramsden, 1987; Marton & Saljo, 1997; Nijhuis,Segers, & Gijselaers, 2005, 2008; Struyven, Dochy, Janssens, & Gielen, 2006; VanRossum & Schenk, 1984).

Marton, Dall’Alba, and Beaty (1993) described a conception of learning ascomprising ‘‘the what’’ and ‘‘the how’’ of learning, which are parts of the samephenomenon. This definition of a complex conceptual system broadens theboundaries of a learning conception from that of a single belief (as in early studies,e.g., Marton, 1981; Saljo, 1979) towards a construct that allows all sorts of viewsregarding different aspects of learning. In the current study, students’ explanations ofschool learning were viewed as different foci of awareness constituting parts ofstudents’ experiences of learning (Morgan & Beaty, 1997).

Research on students’ conceptions of learning

Students’ conceptions and beliefs about learning have been traditionally examinedby two lines of research. The phenomenological approach (e.g., Marton, 1981;Marton et al., 1993; Saljo, 1979) and epistemological approach (e.g., Kitchener &King, 1981; Ryan, 1984; Schommer, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1998; Schommer-Aikins,2004; Schommer-Aikins & Easter, 2006; Strike & Posner, 1985). Both researchperspectives are grounded in Perry’s (1968, 1970) pioneering work on collegestudents’ epistemological development (Purdie, Hattie, & Douglas, 1996).

Quantitative line of research: analyzing students epistemological beliefs aboutknowledge and learning

The term ‘‘epistemological beliefs’’ describes fundamental assumptions about thenature of learning and knowledge, which are part of the underlying mechanism ofmetacognition (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; Ryan, 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983; Schommer,1990; Schommer, Crouse, & Rhodes, 1992; Schommer-Aikins & Easter, 2006).Schommer (1990, 1993), a central researcher in this group, developed the 63-itemEpistemological Questionnaire surveying students’ degrees of agreement withstatements about learning and knowledge. Factor analysis of these subsets initiallyyielded four factors. Schoenfeld’s (1983) research concerning mathematical beliefsled to an expansion of Schommer’s epistemological beliefs paradigm to anotherfactor that concerns learning.

Added together, this paradigm includes five continua or dimensions of beliefsabout: (a) the stability of knowledge, ranging from unchanging knowledge totentative knowledge; (b) the structure of knowledge, ranging from isolated bits andpieces to integrated concepts; (c) the source of knowledge, ranging from omniscientauthority to reason and empirical evidence; (d) the speed of learning, ranging from

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the belief that learning occurs quickly or not at all to the belief that learning isgradual; and (e) the ability to learn, ranging from fixed at birth to improvable. Thisfactor system suggests multidimensionality, asserting the existence of more than onebelief about learning and knowing, where students may be sophisticated in somebeliefs but not necessarily in others.

Other researchers have made efforts to improve and expand Schommer’squestionnaire (Jehng, Johanson, & Anderson, 1993; Schraw, Bendixen, & Dunkle,2002; Wood & Kardash, 2002). They found similar factor structures. Schommer’swork also went beyond simply identifying the dimensions of epistemological beliefsto show how these beliefs may influence comprehension and cognition of academictasks, mostly regarding classroom learning (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997).

Qualitative line of research: The phenomenographic approach

Early phenomenographic research into conceptions of learning yielded quiteconsistent results concerning students’ variation of conceptions, despite somedifferent wordings (e.g., Giorgi, 1986). Such studies (e.g., Martin & Ramsden, 1987;Saljo, 1979; Van Rossum & Schenk, 1984) provided five conceptions of learning: (1)as an increase in knowledge and as an activity by which the learner adds newknowledge to previous knowledge; (2) as memorizing or reproducing and as anactivity by which pieces of knowledge and units of information are transferred froman external source; (3) as acquisition of facts or procedures that can be utilized ineveryday life (i.e., application), meaning knowledge that is useful only if the learnercan use it outside the narrow educational context; (4) as understanding that is viewedas an abstraction of meaning, that is, no longer as a mere reproductive activity butrather as a constructive, active task in which the learner selects ideas and principlesthat are not only to be learned but to be understood; and (5) as an interpretiveprocess aimed at comprehending reality differently, thus emphasizing that seeingthings from different perspectives helps learners interpret reality. A later study(Marton et al., 1993) identified a sixth conception of learning that further developedthe fourth and fifth conceptions of the previous studies. In this sixth conception,learning was understood as the learner’s development of new ways for seeingphenomena in the world and thus as the learner’s change as a person.

These six conceptions of learning have been divided into two distinct groupsaccording to their focus or lack of focus on meaning in the learning process. The firstthree conceptions were defined as lacking in constitutive meaning (Sachs & Chan,2003), whereas the second three conceptions were seen as focusing on the veryconstruction of meaning. This distinction is parallel to the surface/deep distinctionexamined in approaches to learning (Marton & Saljo, 1976a, 1976b). A ‘‘surface’’ or‘‘shallow’’ conception of learning deals more with outcomes than with processes,upholds a materialistic approach to learning, and underscores tasks such asassignment completion, material absorption from the teacher, and repetition. Incontrast, a ‘‘deep’’ conception of learning focuses on the learning process as a moreactive, self-driven process of deep thought and self-structuring of knowledge andunderstanding. The series of learning conceptions has been attributed to ahierarchical structure (Marton, Watkins, & Tang, 1997). This hierarchical structurewas viewed as one ‘‘dimension of depth’’ (Cano & Cardelle-Elawar, 2004, p. 169)that starts with a surface conception of learning and develops in the direction of adeep conception of learning. Individuals who exhibit more than one conception are

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rated according to the ‘‘highest’’ conception of learning that they mention. Thishierarchical structure implies that each person can hold one conception of learning.

Other studies investigated conceptions of learning at different education levels,using varied techniques for data collection and revealing somewhat differentcategories. For example, Purdie et al. (1996), in a cross-cultural comparison oflearning conceptions, validated Marton et al.’s (1993) six conceptions of learningand added three more categories: learning as a duty, learning as a process not boundby time or context, and learning as developing social competence. Tynjala (1997)asked students to write their own answers to open-ended questions about learning.She found a seventh category: from learning as an externally determined event tolearning as a creative process. Likewise, Lonka and Lindblom-Ylanne (1996) usedscales to score students’ written answers about their own subjective definitions oflearning, yielding two distinct principal components. They called the first component‘‘externally-regulated, reproduction-directed learning’’ and the second one ‘‘self-regulated, meaning-oriented, goal-oriented learning’’. More recently, Klatter et al.(2001) identified three learning conceptions of young learners in the final year ofprimary education: (a) restricted (low scores for most beliefs), (b) functional (egoorientation and external regulation), and (3) developmental (deep approach andemphasis on personal growth).

The two lines of research resulting from Perry’s (1968) initial study ledresearchers to undertake very different paths. Phenomenographic (qualitative)research tends to be unidimensional developmentally, and its instruments rely mostlyon in-depth interviews. Quantitative epistemological research tends to be multi-dimensional, providing more complex patterns. Although stemming from the samesource, the two lines of research differ considerably on the dimensions they measureand on the results they obtain, revealing different conceptions and/or beliefs aboutlearning.

Hadar (2009) revealed a more complex reality regarding high school students’conceptions of learning and thus distinguished several conceptions of learning.Secondary students’ reality of learning consisted of two separate spheres that rarelyinteracted: ideal learning and school learning. Students held complex, deepconceptions of ideal learning, which were separate from their conceptions of schoollearning. These school learning conceptions were mostly comprised of surfacecompliance conceptions. Although the study’s prompt, regarding students’ concep-tions of learning, was not limited to the school setting, students responded withinschool during regular class hours. This methodology may have set up expectations asto the kinds of issues students should address when thinking about learning.However, in line with the view that conceptions of learning are foci of awarenessconstituting parts of a student’s experience of learning (Morgan & Beaty, 1997),students may make the conceptual distinction between school learning and otherlearning because they experience learning in a qualitatively different way in schoolversus in other contexts like sports or music.

Most research in this field has been undertaken with students in schools oruniversities. For example, Klatter et al. (2001) investigated 27 students in fourdifferent primary schools and 367 students from 13 primary schools, Schommer-Aikins and Easter (2006) investigated 107 college juniors from a California stateuniversity, and Trigwell and Ashwin (2006) investigated 154 undergraduatestudents in the last term of their academic year in one college at the Universityof Oxford. These studies have not specifically related to the school context as a

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dominating factor that may influence students’ general learning concepts. In somecases (e.g., Marton et al., 1993; Purdie et al., 1996; Tynjala, 1997), students weresimply asked: What is learning? In other cases (e.g., Schommer, 1990, 1993;Schommer-Aikins & Easter, 2008), students were asked to state their preferencesregarding statements on learning and knowledge, assuming that one notion oflearning exists.

The study of Hadar (2009) is the starting point and the main motivator for thecurrent research, exploring specifically school learning. The study will be replicatedwith a different sample of students from different schools in the same range of age.

The current study

The focus on student understanding of learning underlies the current study’s aimto investigate ‘‘good learning’’, ‘‘good learner’’, and the actions a learner needsto take in order to be a ‘‘good learner’’. This study explored students’explicit awareness of what learning is, without limiting it solely to the conceptof learning but rather by relating it to actions students must take to become goodstudents.

The present research specifically explored how students construe school learning.Rudduck and colleagues (Fielding, 2007; McIntyre, Pedder, & Rudduck, 2005;Rudduck, 2006; Rudduck & Fielding, 2006; Rudduck & Flutter, 2000, 2004)previously addressed students’ conceptions of school learning using a pragmatic viewwhere students’ voices about the learning process offered schools a very importantmeans for self-improvement. These studies addressed environmental and adminis-trative aspects of students’ voices for the purpose of school reform. The currentstudy addresses students’ views of school learning for the purpose of understandingtheir school and learning experience as learners.

Without being phenomenographic in nature, this study can be placed within therealm of the studies using a phenomenographic approach, while, at the same time,incorporating the multidimensionality of views suggested by the epistemological lineof research. The current study assumes that individuals may have numerous beliefsabout certain phenomena (Klatter et al., 2001) and that these beliefs are organizedinto architectural systems with observable behavioral consequences (Fishbein &Ajzen, 1975; Rokeach, 1968). Under this assumption, an individual’s view oflearning is a system that encompasses conceptions relating to different aspects oflearning (such as its goals, processes, outcomes, and motives).

Aim and research question

Previous studies have related to students’ understanding of learning as one holisticconception which relates to school experience as well as other learning experiences.The added value of this study is by focusing on school learning as a separate entity.As pointed in a previous study (Hadar, 2009), it might be that school learningexperience is different than other learning experiences. Klatter et al. (2001) suggestedthat students’ thoughts about learning may strongly influence students’ actuallearning behavior. Thus, students’ thoughts about school learning deserve specialattention. The aim of this study is to explore students’ thinking about their schoollearning. Specifically, the research question is how students construe their schoollearning experience.

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Method

Participants

Participants were 171 students in Grades 10 through 12 (age 15–18 years; 71 male,100 female) from three public high schools in middle- to high-socioeconomic status(SES) neighborhoods in Israel. Two classes from each of the three schools completedthe study instrument during a compulsory subject (e.g., bible, history), to ensuremaximal heterogeneity of students and to avoid subjects where students were dividedinto achievement tracks (e.g., mathematics, English as a second language) or studymajor subjects (because high-achieving students tend to choose a science major,whereas medium and low achievers tend to choose humanities and social sciences).

Instrument

A written, open-ended task tapping students’ views of school learning was adaptedfor the purpose of this study from Tynjala (1997) and from Purdie et al.’s (1996)open-end task model. Students were asked to write an essay expressing what good‘‘learning’’ is. When developing their ideas about learning, students were also askedto consider: What does it mean to be a good learner? What do you do in school inorder to be a good learner? The last two questions aimed to place the concept oflearning into the school context. All the questions were presented together at thetop of the page. Students wrote their answers in a space provided after the guidingquestions. Students were encouraged to elaborate and, if possible, to giveexamples.

Thus, to specifically bring the school context into students’ descriptions oflearning, this study limited students’ definitions of learning to the students’experiences in school. The open-ended task enabled non-aided responses. Studentswere able to say what came to mind when thinking about learning and what theybelieved they usually do while learning. As such, the current participants’ learningviews may include a broad range of beliefs regarding a variety of learning-relatedaspects.

Although a structured interview procedure has some advantages over writtenresponses to open-ended questions (e.g., the interviewer can probe students who maybe shy or less articulate), separate interviews were not feasible for a sample this large.Nevertheless, this open-ended data collection method does offer some advantagesover closed-ended questions (as used in Schommer’s 1990, 1993 studies) because thelatter limit respondents’ answers to pre-established categories, whereas the formerenables free self-expression, focuses on students’ explanations for their activities, andencourages students to convey the meanings they give to the phenomena in whichthey engage. Other researchers who used open-ended methods suggested that high-school students can clearly and coherently express their views in a written essay(Berry & Sahlberg, 1996).

Procedure

Under previous agreement with the Ministry of Education, school principalsand teachers agreed for their classes to participate in the research project. Beforebeginning the task, general information about the study, specific instructionsfor writing the essays, and assurance of anonymity and confidentiality were

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given. Students completed the essays in schools during regular class time.Participants were asked to provide demographic information such as gender,grade, and age.

Data analysis

Data obtained from essays were analyzed in two steps: qualitative and quantitative.The qualitative data analysis relied on grounded theory method (Grove, 1988;Shkedi, 2004a, 2004b; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). This accepted procedure for thecoding of qualitative data requires the analyst to create or adapt concepts from andrelevant to the data, rather than to establish groupings according to pre-establishedtheory and categories (Shkedi, 2004a). Although former studies have establishedcategories for conception of learning, this study aims at school learning, which wasscarcely explored. Thus, grounded theory seemed an appropriate method forexploring these data.

Categories for the meaning of school learning emerged from qualitative analysisof the data. In this iterative procedure, students’ responses were first read and reread,with the coder noting any recurring themes. Words and statements were grouped andregrouped a number of times on the basis of ‘‘similarities, differences, andcomplementarities’’ (Marton et al., 1993). When a single statement seemed to implythe existence of more than one meaning (e.g., ‘‘learning helps you explore your mindand add to it’’), it was categorized under each of the appropriate categories. Thismeans that it was possible for a student to hold multiple meanings of learning. Therewas no sense that any one understanding was seen to be more dominant thananother; it was not possible to arrive at such a conclusion from a student’s completestatement about the meaning of learning.

In addition, when students explained their views of good learning by describingwhat they do while learning, as in ‘‘listening to the teacher’’, it was categorized alongwith explanations regarding the nature of school learning. For example, anexplanation of the term of learning as ‘‘knowing new things about the worldaround you’’ was classified as within the building knowledge category, and withinthe same category ‘‘adding new knowledge to what you already know’’ exemplifiedwhat you do in order to build knowledge. As in Marton et al. (1993), both of theseaspects seemed to be abstractions from experiences, and both seemed to constituteparts of the phenomenon.

In order to refrain from subjectivity in the initial selection of categories, oncethese categories were abstracted, an inter-rater reliability of 89.5% was achievedbetween four researchers, who each received the same sample of 20 essays, and whoeach categorized the students’ answers according to the proposed scheme. Tocalculate a percentage of reliability, the number of agreed-upon categories wasdivided by the total number of categorizations abstracted from these essays(agreed þ disagreed).

Given the relatively large sample for such essays, the second step of analysisintegrated quantitative methods aimed at creating larger categories of responses anddescriptive statistics and to identify broad patterns across a wide variety of cases.These large categories were achieved through exploratory factor analysis. Forstatistical analysis quantifying the qualitative data found in nominal variables, onecolumn in the statistical software was assigned to each learning conception category.Each student’s response received a score of 1 for a category of conception described.

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A score of 0 was given if this category was not mentioned in the student’sdescription. Students’ responses were scored according to the presence of a certainlearning conception category in their essays (i.e., regardless of the number ofstatements referring to a certain category, it was scored only once per essay). Thiscreated a data base of binary data which allows performing a standard exploratoryfactor analysis (Parry & McArdle, 1991). This research technique sought asystematic and objective quantitative description of the contents obtained throughqualitative methods.

Principal axis factoring was chosen to represent the data because, in contrast toprincipal component analysis, which attempts to account for the variation in thevariables by retaining as much information as possible from the original variables,principal axis factoring tries to explain the correlations among the variablesquantitatively and qualitatively, and it is considered more appropriate whenresearchers want to examine a latent factor through various variables (Fabrigar,Wegener, MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999). Oblique rotation was used to extractfactors. Oblique rotations are often preferred because they allow factors andcomponents to be correlated (Fabrigar et al., 1999). If the factors are unrelated, anoblique rotation will show correlations close to zero.

It is important to note that the exploratory factor analysis was performed inorder to group the initial categorization of the data (abstracted through qualitativedata analysis procedures) into more covering categories. In grounded theory, thisprocedure is done using qualitative methods. However, in this study the intention isto group the categories according to the internal connections that are found in theessays and not only according to the researchers’ understanding of the connectionsamong categories based on content analysis (as suggested by grounded theorymethods). This procedure enables one to see which categories are connected instudents’ minds when they think of their school learning. For example, in aqualitative content analysis, the category ‘‘grades’’ and ‘‘acquisition of knowledge’’can be grouped into one wider category, namely learning outcomes. Factor analysiscan reveal a whole different reality, in which grades are connected withmemorization and reproduction, and acquisition of knowledge with effort andpersistence. It is possible that students’ actual thinking about learning is webbeddifferently than any content-based grouping. In this study, it is asserted that the waystudents web their thinking about learning deserves attention. Thus, in presentingthe qualitative analysis (content-based categorization) of the first stage, the initialcategories (the very basic level of categorization) which were later inserted into thefactor analysis are discussed. In a second phase, the connections among thepreliminary categories provide a picture of the way students web their understandingof school learning.

Results

In their thoughts about school learning, students mostly related to the processes andactions they undertook in school to be good learners (70% of the 583 responses wereprocess oriented). The students’ understanding of school learning and the things thatthey do in school in order to be good learners revealed 13 initial categories, asdetailed next. Students in this study mentioned a range of diverse categories ofschool learning, ranging from one to eight categories per essay (M ¼ 3.40,SD ¼ 1.50).

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The thirteen categories: frequencies, definitions, and excerpts

Because the categories of views were not mutually exclusive (i.e., students could holdmultiple views of learning), for each student, each category was scored 1 if it wasmentioned in the essay and 0 if not (i.e., each category was scored only onceregardless of the number of relevant statements mentioned per essay). Thus, an essaycould be scored 0–13 for presence of the 13 possible categories. This scoring systemyielded a total of 583 responses for the 13 categories. The following section presentsand exemplifies the 13 categories of learning conceptions, in descending order offrequency among the participants.

1. Grades

Grades comprised the largest category mentioned in the students’ views of learning.Unsurprisingly, 84 of the students (49.1%) said that good learning means grades.For many students, good learning has multiple meanings, but, for almost half thestudents, grades appear to play a big part in this view. Some students related togrades as resulting from a good learning process:

. Learning is when a student gets good grades. Then it is most likely that thestudent has experienced good learning.

. Good learning is when at the end of the process you get good grades, and alsoknowledge.

. Grades have a big role in learning, also when you learn new things you gethigher grades.

Others just said that good learning means good grades. One student even wrotethat:

. Good learning ¼ good grades. Good learner ¼ a student who has goodgrades.

2. Task completion

This category was the second largest, with 74 (43.3%) of the students saying thatgood learning means doing all the work that you are told to do. The emphasis in thiscategory was on the ‘‘work’’ part of learning, like doing homework, worksheets, andassignments:

. To work in class, to do homework, and to do what the teacher says.

. To do all that the teacher demands of you, work nicely in class, and do all thework.

. A good student does not think but only does what he is told.

3. Active participation in class

The class context was the main consideration of the 67 students who mentioned thiscategory in their essays (39.2%). In fact, this context was dominant in theforthcoming categories of learning. Sometimes the notion of being active in class wasreferred to as merely taking an active role in the lesson (as in the first excerpt below),

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whereas at other times activities took on a larger scope, combining activeness in classinteraction with keeping up in the content area being taught (second excerpt):

. to participate during the lessons;

. taking an active part in the lesson: answering the teacher’s questions, listeningto other students, knowing what is going on, being updated, and being thereand not sleeping or doing other things.

4. Learning as repetition and memorization

Previous research has identified this conception as ‘‘memorizing and reproducing’’,but most of the 57 current students whose statements were classified in this category(33.3%) did not connect memorizing with reproducing. Most students respondedwith a simple:

. Learning to me means watching and repeating.

. Memorizing formulas or dates or just anything that is in the book.

Other studies (e.g., Marton et al., 1993; Purdie et al., 1996) found that in thisconception of learning, students indicated that they were in some way activelyinvolved in the process of learning. In the present sample, one third of the studentsalso seemed to think of memorizing as doing something in the process of learning.

5. Receipt of knowledge from the teacher

This frequently mentioned category (n ¼ 45, 26.3%) in many ways resembles thebuilding knowledge category below. However, building knowledge can be seen as anactive endeavor, whereas receipt of knowledge from the teacher is passive in nature.While analyzing the data, it seemed that the definition of learning proposed bystudents classified in this category had a distinct meaning that differed from that ofthe building knowledge category below. Over one fourth of the students felt that theteacher’s role is to input knowledge into students’ minds, while they passively receiveit:

. Good learning happens when the teacher teaches you what you need to know.

The notion of knowledge handed down by authority, while the learner passivelyreceives it, dominated descriptions of this view. In line with Schommer-Aikins’(2004) notions about sources of knowledge, some students also related to theteacher’s role as transmitters of knowledge:

. Good learning is first and foremost learning with teachers who can give youknowledge in a way that is interesting and informative so we can do well onour finals.

6. Effort and persistence

About one fourth of the students (n ¼ 42, 24.6%) related to the effort andpersistence category when describing learning. The students who mentioned effort

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and persistence as part of good learning related more to the learning process than todefinitions of learning. Hence:

. You need to put effort into your learning. A good learner is someone who triesas hard as he can.

. In order to be a good student, you need curiosity, you need to be serious, andyou need to be persistent and to put in a lot of effort.

7. Self-interest/curiosity

This category refers to the motivational aspects of school learning. About one fourthof the students (n ¼ 41, 24%) related to this aspect in their process of learning inschool, saying that good learning occurs when they are interested in what is beinglearned:

. To find some kind of interest in any school subject matter, that the student cantake in any direction he wants.

. Good learning involves learning the material not only because the teacherasked but also because of the student’s self-interest.

. Good learning comes from curiosity and from the student’s interest in what isbeing learned and not because the student wants to satisfy someone else, likeparents or teachers.

8. In-class behavior

This category referred to actual behavior during class hours. Although not relateddirectly to actual learning activities, 39 students (22.8%) felt that a lot of what makesthem good learners is their behavior:

. A good student is one who comes to each lesson, does all the work. A studentneeds to listen to the teacher, not interrupt, disrupt, or interfere with thingsthat are going on in class.

Many students also referred to this aspect of learning as part of their definition ofgood learning and not only their definition of good learners, as in:

. I think that good learning means not disturbing the lessons, not acting rudely,listening to the teacher, taking notes during the lesson, writing downeverything the teacher says, doing whatever the teacher says – this is what Ithink good learning is.

9. Learning as building knowledge

In contrast to previous research that referred to this category as passive soaking in ofknowledge, the present results show that knowledge acquisition can be an activeendeavor in which knowledge is not delivered from an external source but is builtthrough the process of learning. The passive aspect of knowledge acquisition, inwhich knowledge is placed as input in the student, was classified under theaforementioned separate category of receiving knowledge from the teacher.

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Thus, the current category, mentioned by 38 (22.2%) of the students, refers to theaccumulation or absorption of knowledge, as shown by the following excerptstatements:

. Real learning means that you add new knowledge to the knowledge that youalready have.

. To know new things that you never knew before.

. To know things about the world around you.

. From learning you get new knowledge.

Students frequently referred to knowledge building as a result of the process thatthey described as learning:

. By being active in class, learning enables you to gain new knowledge.

. The more you learn, the more you know.

10. Attendance

At first, it seemed surprising that students mentioned the simple act of coming toclass as an integral aspect of being a good learner. However, this response was not atall rare (n ¼ 37, 21.6%):

. regular class attendance, with no skipping;

. to come to all of the lessons and to do your homework.

11. Learning as understanding

In contrast with the findings of Marton et al. (1993) and Purdie et al. (1996), the 34students in the current study who referred to this category (19.9%) did not speak ofgaining (developing, grasping, discovering, finding, searching for) meaning. In thisstudy, students simply referred to the word understanding in contrast to memorizingor knowing. Students did not explain the meaning of getting to understandsomething in the process of learning.

. Learning is going to school and understanding things.

. What learning means to me is to understand what you are doing.

. Learning means working to understand something.

Much of the literature on student learning highlights the supposed existence of adichotomy between memorizing and understanding. However, in some cases (e.g.,Purdie et al., 1996), the relationship between these two processes was not, on thewhole, clearly differentiated. Here, as in Purdie et al.’s case, students more oftenthan not spoke of learning as involving both processes in one sentence:

. In order to understand something really well, you need to memorize it.

This implies a complex concept of learning, in which each student holds manymeanings for learning. In many cases, students specifically mentioned that learningmeans many things:

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. Learning means a lot of things. These are just a few of mine. It can meantaking in information and understanding something and someone.

In addition, as in Purdie et al.’s (1996) case, the focus for understanding oftenappeared to be related directly to classroom learning:

. development of deep understanding of the material that is taught in class.

12. Achievement of personal goals

In this conception, mentioned by only 20 participants (11.7%), the process oflearning is seen as important because it helps students achieve their goals at a laterstage of life, whether a future job or higher education. The features of this categorywere similar in many respects to Purdie et al.’s (1996) ‘‘Learning as means to an end’’category. However, in the present case, students whose statements referred to goalsseemed to add a personal meaning to the future end, and sometimes added a sense ofimprovement. Hence:

. Learning and grades enable you to get the job you want in the future.

. By doing well in school, you can get the job you want and live the life youalways wanted.

In contrast to Purdie et al. (1996), students did refer to school contexts whendescribing learning as a means to achieving personal goals:

. Without learning in school you will not make it to college.

13. Gradual learning

The fewest number of students (n ¼ 5, 2.9%) related to this category in their essays.Students who mentioned gradual learning viewed learning as a process, somethingthat is more than a one-time occasion that happens in one lesson:

. Learning is something that happens when you learn from one lesson to theother.

The notion of process was also apparent when students related to themselves aslearners:

. Learning is built in stages, according to my phase, the place I am at in thebeginning of the year and the place that I have reached at the end.

Factor analysis

Table 1 presents the factor pattern, with its ‘‘grand’’ categories of studentperceptions responsible for the covariation in the data. At least three variablesloaded on most factors (presented in bold), resulting in a reliable measure for eachunderlying factor. Two factors had only two variables; however, they were includedin the final solution because of the high percentage of notes for its constructing

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categories. Factor analysis extracted five factors, while the final factor distributionaccounted for 63.27% of the variance among participants.

The first factor involved adequate school performance, including pragmaticcategories like: class attendance (0.78), task completion (0.77), active participationin class (0.81), and in-class behavior (0.38). The second factor involved activelearning motives, including achievement of personal goals (0.81), buildingknowledge (0.82), and effort and persistence (0.43). The third factor involvedpassive learning strategies including receipt of knowledge from the teacher (0.63),repetition and memorization (0.77), and negative loading for effort and persistence(–0.58). The fourth factor involved understanding (0.82) and self-interest (0.71).The fifth factor connected gradual learning (learning from lesson to lesson, 0.89)and grades (0.52).

In a second analysis, an examination of the number of responses for each factorrevealed students’ general orientation when thinking about their learning. Resultsshow that students commented more on pragmatic categories for adequate schoolperformance (217 responses, 37.2%), on passive learning strategies (144 responses,24.6%), and on grades (89 responses, 15.2%) than on active learning motives (58responses, 10.0%) and understanding (75 responses, 12.0%). The factor distributionand higher response rate for the views of standard school requirements indicate thatthese views were more consistent from student to student, showing greater generalagreement or consensus concerning what students do when they learn.

Table 1. Factor analysis solutions and factor loadings for the conceptions of learning.

Variable F1 F2 F3 F4 F5

Activeparticipation

.814 7.187 7.017 .030 .165

Attendance .781 .043 7.009 .021 7.154Task completion .767 7.127 7.022 7.044 7.038In-class behavior .383 7.204 7.162 7.372 .179Achievement ofpersonal goals

7.195 .810 7.190 7.165 7.076

Building newknowledge

7.157 .820 7.014 .155 .042

Effort andpersistence

7.181 .428 7.579 .145 .127

Receivingknowledge fromteacher

7.277 7.262 .629 .097 7.099

Repetition andmemorization

7.017 7.109 .767 7.061 .139

Understanding .072 .034 .045 .817 7.004Self-interest/curiosity

7.046 7.100 7.166 .707 .116

Gradual learning .088 .067 .124 7.015 .893

Grades 7.252 7.253 7.324 .223 .523

Variance explained 18.98% 14.20% 12.14% 9.53% 8.91%Interpretation Adequate

schoolperformance

Activelearningmotives

Passivelearningstrategies

Understanding Graduallearning& grades

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Discussion

This study explored secondary school students’ views of school learning. Thedeparting point was that students’ thinking about learning influences students’ actuallearning behavior which they employ in school.

When thinking about school learning, students related more to what should bedone to be a good learner than to their understanding of the concept ‘‘learning’’.This implies that when students think of learning, they think of an occasion oflearning and about actions they take while learning. Thus, students construe theirunderstanding of what learning is from their actual learning experience. The notionthat students’ views of learning do not develop arbitrarily but are usually conceivedand organized in relation to their experience is important for the discussion of thispaper and its implications. Trigwell and Ashwin (2006), argued that ‘‘it is not somuch conceptions of learning per se but those conceptions are evoked by thestudents’ experience of their unique learning situation’’ (p. 244). By arguing thatconceptions of learning were not stable traits of individuals but rather a type ofawareness springing from experience, Morgan and Beaty (1997) also pointed outthat students’ perspectives were an upshot of the students’ experiences within aparticular educational and pedagogical environment. Thus, when analyzing whatschool learning means to students, this study indirectly looks at their internalizationof patterns of thought, learning behavior, views, and values that they experience inschool.

With this in mind, the following discussion first relates to the school learningcategories. This grounded theory analysis of students’ interpretation of schoollearning provides an insight into dominant and less dominant categories ofresponses; what students say when they are asked about school learning. However,the separate categorical analysis does not give information as to how those distinctcategories are connected and how students web their thinking about their learningexperiences. This information uncovers nested ideas and reveals interrelationshipsand connections among categories as seen by the students themselves. Hence, aseparate discussion will relate to the factors and their occurrence. The third part ofthis discussion will relate to the significance and general implications of students’views of school learning.

Students’ school learning categories

Students in this study mentioned a range of diverse categories of school learning.This diversity in the views that students hold implies a complex conceptual systemthat is broader than that proposed by Marton (1981) and his colleagues (e.g.,Marton & Saljo, 1976a, 1976b). Four of the categories (building knowledge,repetition and memorization, understanding, and achievement of personal goals)bear some resemblance to those identified by previous phenomenological studies(e.g., Marton et al., 1993; Purdie et al., 1996). Another category (gradual learning)can be found in Schommer’s (1990, 1993, Schommer-Aikins, 1994) interpretation.The other eight categories (self-interest/curiosity, effort and persistence, activeparticipation in class, class attendance, grades, task completion, in-class behavior,and receipt of knowledge from the teacher) relate more to the process of learning andcan be attributed to the two process-oriented questions in the prompt.

Learning conceived as ‘‘grades’’ was the most commonly mentioned view of goodschool learning. As this category suggests, students in this study perceive their school

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as appreciating mostly their grades. This category was closely followed by taskcompletion, active participation in class, and repetition and memorization. All ofthese most frequently mentioned conceptions coincided with standard schoolingrequirements, providing us a picture of the kind of learning activities that studentsare mostly engaged at in schools. The higher frequencies for conceptions of standardschooling requirements indicate that these conceptions were more consistent fromstudent to student, showing greater general agreement or consensus concerning thesecategories.

The most infrequent response was gradual learning, preceded by achievement ofpersonal goals and understanding. These meanings coincided with more sophisti-cated motivated learning, which probably do not constitute what students mostlyexperience in their schools. One could argue that by the low appearance of thesecategories, these students communicated no inclination toward self-management andthus demonstrated a shallow approach to learning (an ‘‘either you get it or youdon’t’’ mindset; Perkins, 2009).

Factors and their occurrence

When considering how students web their understanding of school learning, thefindings expand the picture from the previous analysis of the separated categories.The most dominant factor in students’ views of school learning is adequate schoolperformance. Interestingly, this factor contains no learning strategies at all. Itscategories include: class attendance, task completion, active participation in class,and in-class behavior. Although these categories are traditionally identified withschool, they do not relate to actual learning processes. They can be viewed ascompliance behaviors, the minimum a student must do to keep up in school. In fact,these minimum requirements have very little to do with learning; they can be viewedas the ‘‘game students play’’ in order to keep up the appearance of learning. Thefinding that these categories were most commonly mentioned in the students’description of what it means to be a good learner (task completion noted by 43.3%of the students, active participation in class by 39.2%, in-class behavior by 22.8%,and attendance by 21.6%) may imply that school learning, according to students’understanding, seems to have very little to do with learning at all in the deeper sense.The current adequate school performance factor thus appears to corroborate thefindings from Biggs, Kember, and Leung (2001) and from Kember, Biggs, and Leung(2004). Biggs et al. acknowledged the existence of a ‘‘minimal set of behaviors’’factor, which consisted of motives (i.e., to keep out of trouble with minimal effort)and strategies (i.e., selective memorizing) as surface approaches for learning.Likewise, the current adequate school performance factor can validate the notion ofa ‘‘merely satisficing school performance’’ factor as central to students’ conceptionsof learning. ‘‘Satisficing’’, a portmanteau of ‘‘satisfying’’ and ‘‘sufficing’’ coined bySimon (1955), is a decision-making strategy that attempts to meet at least someminimum criteria for adequacy but does not necessarily maximize its value. The factthat this satisficing factor is the most dominant in student description of learning,and of what it means to be a good learner, is troubling. This finding should stand outto heighten educators’ awareness of students’ thinking about the learning processesthat take place in school, and what students do in order to be good students.

The second most commonly mentioned factor, passive learning strategies,contains all those passive learning strategies that are missing from the former

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satisficing factor (receipt of knowledge from the teacher, repetition and memoriza-tion, and a negative loading for effort and persistence). It is not surprising that effortand persistence loaded negatively for passive learning strategies, emphasizingstudents’ conception that the learning processes within their classes do not demandany effort of them. Moreover, they do not feel that effort and persistence are neededto be a good student in their classes.

The third most common factor is grades, which also reflects students’ surfaceconception of what it means to learn in school. At first, it seemed unlikely that gradeswould be connected with a category like gradual learning, which implies a deeperstance toward learning than mere grades. Looking back on what students said whentheir conception was scored as grades showed that in most cases the concept ofgrades was conceived as an outcome of a process that the student named as learning.In some cases, this process was conceived as gradual.

Two additional factors were less dominant than the previous factors. The firstmainly involved understanding. Unsurprisingly, students connected understandingwith self-interest in learning. As in Dart et al. (2000), students seemed to give a moreactive or deep stance toward the concept of learning as understanding.

The final factor, which also shows a more active stance toward learning,connected achievement of personal goals, building knowledge, and effort andpersistence. This factor may also be ‘‘conceptually’’ connected with motives forlearning (i.e., What is the purpose of my learning? Why do I learn?). In this case,effort and persistence can be a process that leads to achievement of personal goalsand knowledge construction.

Theoretical and practical implications

Combining the qualitative and quantitative findings of this study, it seems thatwhen students think about their school learning, they tend to adopt a satisficingmodel. Students’ views of learning have been found to influence learningactivities in such a way that different types of views may lead to differentlearning activities and, consequently, to different learning outcomes (Klatteret al., 2001). An explanation of a phenomenon is a kind of knowing how(Fodor, 2004). In this sense, adopting a satisficing view of learning is amotivational stance towards learning; the satisficing view informs motivation.According to this approach, students who understand learning as merelyattending class, behaving well during the lesson, participating in class, anddoing the tasks the teacher asks them to do, will most probably adopt a specificmotivational stance toward learning, which emphasizes those compliancebehaviors – the minimum they must do to keep up in school. This satisficingmotivation may indicate students’ disposition to take a passive stance towardtheir school learning. In fact, when looking at the factor structure, we can seethat the second most frequent factor concerns all those passive strategies forlearning (like rote memorization and mere receipt of knowledge from the teacher,without investment of effort or perseverance).

Such learning, which seeks merely to meet set requirements by employing passivestrategies with minimal effort, will differ qualitatively from learning undertaken forother reasons. Students’ decisions about learning may be termed the students’psycho-logic (Biggs, 1987) – how the students construe their role in the situation anddecide to do something about it.

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If in a learning situation one decides that a pass is sufficient, then it seems to make bestsense to rote learn only those facts and details which are judged as most likely to betested. If one is interested in a particular subject, then it makes the best sense to find outas much as possible about it, and work out what it all means, regardless of any testingthat may ensue. (Biggs, 1987, p. 11)

If when thinking about learning, one decides that a satisficing model for schoolperformance is sufficient in order to be a good student, then it seems to make the bestsense to use strategies in order to ensure success in this situation. Marton and Saljo(1976a, 1976b), working from phenomenological psychology, came to a similarposition. They showed that students would adopt one or another strategy inacademic tasks according to their thinking on how they should approach the task inthe first place. In addition, Baxter Magolda (1992) described how learners whobelieve that knowledge is handed down by authority then function as passivereceivers of knowledge. With all this in mind, the predominance of the satisficingfactor accompanied by the passive strategies in students’ school conceptions oflearning offer food for thought.

Moreover, as former research suggests (see, e.g., Morgan & Beaty, 1997; Trigwell& Ashwin, 2006), students’ views of learning can be attributed to the context inwhich learning takes place. Research findings comparing views of learning in twolearning environments show compatibility between the school’s environment and itslearners’ views of learning (Hadar & Erez, 2007). Students encode situations andthus behave in a way that is dictated by a particular situation (Biggs, 1987).Accordingly, students actually adopt views of learning dictated by their schools andlearning environments. Students encode the learning context or institution as awhole, which then transforms into adoption of a merely satisficing model for schoolperformance – which in turn can serve as a motivational stance toward learning. Assuch, the pivotal relationship between the learning context and students’ motivationfor learning should be seriously considered when planning school’s curricula andpedagogy.

Discovering more about students’ understanding of school learning is importantalso for developing effective educational practices. These views are barely consideredin the design of instruction. Yet, such knowledge determines the kind ofinterpretations students will make during instruction and, therefore, is importantfor consideration. Unfortunately, as this study shows, many students do not adoptlearning as their main purpose of engagement in school. The fact that students ‘‘playthis game’’ of appearances in our schools is not surprising, but the predominance ofthe ‘‘merely satisficing model’’ among students’ basic views of what it means to learnis an important finding to consider, calling for further research.

Knowledge of how students construe school learning and their understanding ofwhat school learning is can serve as a powerful tool for educators who wish tounderstand student learning behavior (inasmuch as students’ engagement in learningcan be attributed to their understanding and beliefs about how learning happens), onthe one hand, and as a means for developing effective educational experiences on theother. Thus, it might be useful to hear ‘‘students’ voices’’ in school on a regular basis.

We cannot claim that schooling is primarily intended for learning, if students’own views of what school learning is are disregarded by schools. Fielding andRudduck’s (Fielding, 2007; Rudduck & Fielding, 2006) unique approach is a case inpoint. Their approach was innovative in that it related to students’ ‘‘voices’’ as ameans for understanding and eventually improving pedagogy. Educators would do

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well to consider students’ understanding of their learning experience as it can provideinsight into what may be involved in creating environments that can enable studentsto develop a deep and more sophisticated orientation for learning.

It should also be noted that the formulation of the prompt asking students tofocus their attention and beliefs predominantly on school only comprises a smallarea of learning. Moreover, this study did not appeal to students’ learning processesin the sense of their mental learning activities undertaken during school learning orrelated learning activities such as homework or specific learning tasks, but only totheir views of what school learning is. Therefore, the results of this study, thus theoutcomes of the essays, related only to those aspects.

The theoretical implications of this study touch upon the connection betweenstudents’ experiences of learning and their actual learning behaviors. This studysuggests that the way students interpret their experience serves as a motivationalstance towards learning. As such, this interpretation affects students’ learningbehaviors. This paper invites future research that should continue to explore thecompound relations between the students’ actual experiences in schools, their viewsof what learning is, and their actual learning behaviors.

Notes on contributor

Linor Lea Hadar teaches at the Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Educationat the University of Haifa and at the Beit Berl College of Education. Her research interestsinclude the intersection of professional development and school pedagogical reform. In orderto understand school pedagogy and pedagogic changes, she also explores students’ voices,through which she investigates pedagogy in practice. She also works with teacher educators todevelop thinking dispositions among teacher candidates. She recently published ‘‘Pedagogy inPractice: The Schools’ Pedagogy from the Students’ Perspective’’ (in Research Papers inEducation, 2010) and ‘‘From Isolation to Symphonic Harmony: Building a Community ofLearners among Teacher Educators’’ (in Teaching and Teacher Education, 2010).

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