• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Meet us
    • Open days
    • Virtual tours
    • Upcoming events
    • Applicant days
    • Meet us in your country
    • Chat to our students
    • Ask us a question
    • Order a prospectus
    • Our campuses
    • Our four campuses
    • Accommodation options
    • Our halls
    • Helping you find a home
    • What you can study
    • Find a course
    • Full A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Our academic departments
    • How to study with us
    • Undergraduate application process
    • Postgraduate application process
    • International student application process
    • Apprenticeships
    • Applying through Clearing
    • Transfer from another university
    • Fees and financial support
    • Undergraduate finance
    • Postgraduate finance
    • Our funding and support options
    • Supporting you
    • Your wellbeing
    • Student support and guidance tutors
    • Study skills support
    • Careers and employability
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Research-project-banner
Research and knowledge exchange
  • Postgraduate research degrees
  • Research features
  • Research organisation
  • Research environment
  • Groups
    • Groups
    • Applied geosciences
    • Built environment
    • Biomaterials and Drug Delivery
    • Brighton and Sussex Medicines Optimisation
    • Chemistry
    • Stress, ageing and disease
    • Ecosystems and environmental management
    • Education
    • Environment and public health
    • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Interdisciplinary Management and Higher Education
    • Management and Employment
    • Mathematics, Statistics and Operations
    • Musculoskeletal
    • Nuclear physics
    • Past human and environment dynamics
    • Paediatrics
    • Product design
    • Sensory neuroscience
    • Social Science Policy
    • Society space and environment
    • Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine
    • Sport, Tourism and Leisure
    • Sustainability and Resilience Engineering
    • Transforming sexuality and gender
    • Values and sustainability
  • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Research impact
    • Research areas
    • Research projects
    • Collaborations
    • Events
    • About us
  • Research projects
    • Research projects
    • Action for Health
    • Activity Buddies
    • Activity Buddies: promoting quality of life for older people together
    • Addressing the social determinants of health
    • Alumni experiences of group research projects
    • Assessing stress, protective factors and psychological well-being among undergraduate students
    • Benchmarking Regional Health Management (BEN)
    • Breakfast and satiety
    • Breaking down barriers and improving quality of life for wheelchair users
    • Brighton and Hove as a healthy city
    • CEIHPAL
    • Communicating risks of treatment to patients
    • Compassionate nursing care in an acute care trust
    • Complaints and claims against osteopaths
    • Developing a health promoting university
    • Developing a psychosocial index
    • Developing Interprofessional Education
    • Developing the theoretical construct of Flow
    • Development of the PBL directory as a research tool
    • Dynamic pressure measurement
    • Eastbourne local food project
    • ECHIM
    • EDA - Eastbourne designed for all
    • Efficacy-of-intravenous-vs-oral-paracetamol-for-lower-wisdom-tooth-extraction
    • Engaging fathers in supporting breastfeeding
    • Enhancing learning and patient care
    • EUMAHP
    • EUPHID
    • EURODOC
    • Evaluating physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing
    • Evaluation of sexual health services
    • Exploration of the flow process
    • Exploring embroiderers stories
    • Exploring the nature and extent of foot complaints in rheumatoid arthritis
    • Fit as a fiddle
    • Foot and ankle injuries footballers
    • Foot characteristics in gout, diabetes and chronic kidney disease
    • Foot complaints in Lupus
    • Footwear selection in women with RA
    • Further explorations into the conundrum of flow process
    • Gardening and older people
    • GRADIENT
    • Health improvement commissioning
    • Health through volunteering
    • HEPCOM
    • IMHPA
    • Improving motor function for children with cerebral palsy
    • Improving student's perception of attainment
    • Introducing meaningful activity onto hospital wards
    • Lifestyle matters
    • Lumbar spine mobilisations
    • Management of posterior leg pain
    • Measurement of ADLs in two different wheelchairs
    • Measurement of hand/handrim grip forces
    • Measures in EMG in one-arm drive wheelchairs
    • Modelling sexual healthcare for substance misusing women
    • NowHereLand
    • Occupational therapy
    • Occupational therapy students' experiences of role-emerging placements
    • Occupational therapy supporting people with profound intellectual disabilities to engage in occupation at home
    • One-hand user wheelchair development
    • Osteopathy research priorities
    • Our space
    • Pain and quality of life in paralympic sports participants
    • PHETICE
    • Physiotherapy students' lived experiences
    • Play and Cerebral Palsy
    • Primary science learning objectives in a PBL curriculum
    • Retain project
    • Self-forgetting as a therapeutic property of occupation
    • Self-management of acute and chronic low back disorders
    • Significant walks
    • Situational awareness of patient deterioration
    • Small Steps
    • Standardised data collection in osteopathy
    • Student nurses' anxiety and the management of simulated patient deterioration
    • Students' experiences of learning and approaches to studying
    • Support for newly qualified clinical practitioners
    • The haemophilia and HIV life history project
    • The influence of the 'by learning objective' module
    • The lived experience of active Charcot Foot in Diabetes Mellitus
    • The OPEn project
    • The PARO project
    • The risks of childbirth in historical perspective
    • The use of exercise in physiotherapy
    • Trans-Atlantic Exchange Partnerships
    • University Campus E-bikes research
    • User evaluation of the Neater Uni-wheelchair
    • Vertical reaction forces of three different one-arm drive wheelchairs
    • Volunteering for health
  • Students' experiences of learning and approaches to studying

Students' experiences of learning and approaches to studying

How university students study is an obvious and vital area of research into learning and teaching in higher education generally, and in different subjects in particular, and so it is a focus for our pedagogy group. This work builds on the groundbreaking early research in Scandinavia and the UK that revealed that students’ perceived purpose of their learning profoundly affects the way they study, – their approach to learning (Marton & Saljo 1976). It was found that students adopt learning behaviours and strategies according to their perceived need for the material, the course design and the type of assessments; broadly, they develop activities leading to deep meaningful learning, learning through interest and enjoyment, or they become more examination conscious and undertake their learning to satisfy the examiners to pass the assessment. These findings have stood the test of time and international application (Richardson 2005). This relates to how students experience specific aspects of their programmes, course designs and learning activities – such as the context, workload, assessments and sense of independence (Ramsden 1992). These constructs retain their utility today - informing teachers about how their programmes are experienced by students, and how this experience is affecting how they learn.

Professor Gaynor Sadlo was the first to apply the ASI and the CEQ to one study, during her doctoral research during the 1990’s. This was inspired by her work in occupational science, which focuses on how the meaning of an activity, to any individual, heavily influences how that action is carried out. Thus the research into how students learn marries with research in occupational science. Her doctoral study “The Effects Problem-based and Subject–based Curricula on Occupational Therapy Students’ Learning” discovered a dose effect of problem-based learning, in that students attending the more that fully implemented PBL programmes recorded scores that indicated higher quality learning. 

This research has been extended and applied by the course teams in the School of Health Sciences, with the intention of evaluating student learning within our courses, with the ultimate aim of designing courses that maximize deep approaches to learning, which are more effective long term. In collaboration with Professor John Richardson, Professor of Learning and Assessment at the Open University, who is internationally renown for his work using the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) and the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), via his extensive and seminal publications in the field, our pedagogic group applied his Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory and the Course Experience Questionnaire to all first and second year students in the School of Health Professions in 2005. Recent international pedagogy indicates that Approaches need to be considered at the individual student level, in consideration of their unique perception of the programme and the influences on that perception.

Project aims

To enhance the quality of learning and teaching in the School of Health Sciences and beyond, through a deeper understanding of how (our) course designs and methods affect students’ approaches and experience of their programmes by:

  • Measuring students’ Meaning and Reproductive scores from the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) in different courses in the School of Health Sciences (formerly School of Health Professions). Sub-scores included ‘deep approach’, ‘relating ideas’, ‘comprehension learning’, ‘use of evidence’, ‘surface approach’, ‘fear of failure’, ‘improvidence’ and ‘syllabus boundness’.
  • Measuring students experience of their courses using the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) for the items ‘good teaching’, ‘clear goals and standards’.’appropriate workload, appropriate assessment’, ‘independence and choice’ and ‘memory sub-scale’.
  • Comparing scores between subjects and types of programme (subject-based and problem-based, MSc and BSc).
  • Deepening our understanding of individual variation within student course perception and study behaviours, through qualitative methods.

Project impact

Results inform the different professions in the School about their students’ learning experiences and facilitated comparison between problem-based and subject-based learning. There has been a move to use more cases in the subject-based programmes. A follow-on study takes an Action Research approach to study student perceptions of their problem-based curriculum. In 2010-2011 it investigated how students form their questions for the self-directed phase of the PBL cycle, in relation to their experience in the tutorials.

This research has been extended and applied by the course teams in the School of Health Sciences, with the intention of evaluating student learning within our courses, with the ultimate aim of designing courses that maximize deep approaches to learning, which are more effective long term.

In collaboration with Professor John Richardson, Professor of Learning and Assessment at the Open University, who is internationally renowned for his work using the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) and the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), via his extensive and seminal publications in the field, our pedagogic group applied his Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory and the Course Experience Questionnaire to all first and second year students in the School of Health Professions in 2005. Recent international pedagogy indicates that approaches need to be considered at the individual student level, in consideration of their unique perception of the programme and the influences on that perception.

Research team

Professor Gaynor Sadlo

Dr L Dawson  (retired)

Dr Channine Clarke

Dr Raija Kuisma

Professor John Richardson (Open University).

Outputs

Martin & Saljo 1976 On qualitative differences in learning” 1. Outcome and process. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 4-11.

Ramsden P 1992 Learning to teach in Higher Education. London, Routledge.

Richardson JTE 2005 Students’ perceptions of academic quality and approaches to studying in distance education. British Journal of Educational Psychology;31;7-27.

Sadlo G 1997 Problem-based Learning significantly enhances occupational therapy students’ course experiences. Education for Health. Change in Training and Practice. 10(1) 101-114

Richardson, JTE, DawsonL, SadloG, JenkinsV & McinnesJ 2007 Perceived academic quality and approaches to studying in the health professions Medical Teacher 29(5) e108-e116

Sadlo, G & Richardson, JTE 2003 Approaches to Studying and Perceptions of the Academic Environment in Students Following Problem-Based and Subject-Based Curricula Higher Education Research and Development, 22(3) 254-274.

Sadlo, G 1997 Problem-based Learning significantly enhances occupational therapy students’ course experiences. Education for Health. Change in Training and Practice. 10(1) 101-114

Partners

Professor John Richardson, Professor of Learning and assessment, Open University

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19
  • The Student Contract

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents