The "educationally disadvantaged" student : factors impacting upon conceptions of learning and perceptions of learning contexts
Master Thesis
1992
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
Utilising an individual-difference model of student learning, this study set out to explore the manifestations of qualitative differences in study behaviour at the individual level, amongst a group of educationally disadvantaged students enrolled in the Academic Support Programme in Engineering at Cape Town (ASPECT). The first aim of the study was to describe and conceptually categorise, within the concept of the study orchestration, the manifestation of these individual differences in study engagement, by means of a retrospective analysis of students' school-based study of Science. This process was undertaken when the students first arrived at the university. The quantitative process of classification, done independently of the author, was augmented by each student being individually interviewed by the author about his (retrospective) study behaviour. The second aim was to investigate the study orchestrations of these students in the transition between school and university. Stability over time, in the absence of explicit intervention, of (in particular) students whose study orchestrations had been classified as "at risk" on entry to the university, confirmed the findings from previous studies (some of which had been conducted with groups of educationally disadvantaged students). In previous studies, it had been shown that students in this conceptual category were likely to fail or achieve poorly in conventional university examinations. An ongoing programme of intervention was then designed with the specific aim of enabling "at risk" students to 'reorchestrate' aspects of their study behaviour in qualitatively 'deeper' ways. Modelled in part on previous, more narrowly focused, intervention strategies, the intervention in this study set out to improve "at risk" students' qualitative levels of perceptions of their learning contexts, but it also focused more broadly on the whole ASPECT group without losing sight of the manifestations of qualitative differences in learning conceptions, student epistemologies, and so on, amongst this group. This was achieved by engaging all students in ongoing discourse about crucial learning processes, such as the development of metacognitive awareness and the .need to assume personal responsibility for learning. The study confirmed the findings of other studies: that it is possible to alter "at risk" students' contextualised perceptions in qualitatively 'deeper' ways. In addition, the study suggested lines for individual and subgroup intervention that (1) is possible within the context of everyday learning and teaching; (2) can be carried out by the average academic practitioner, and (3) is transferable to other contexts of academic support.
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Includes bibliography.
Reference:
Cliff, A. 1992. The "educationally disadvantaged" student : factors impacting upon conceptions of learning and perceptions of learning contexts. University of Cape Town.