Many recent studies of student learning are grounded in a theoretical framework which is experiential and describes learning from the learner's perspective or "from the inside". A research project on student learning in the Open University has followed a group of 30 students through their first year of university study. Students were…

Promotes the advantages of qualitative research methodologies in distance education; outlines the work of Ference, Marton, and the Gothenberg Group and discusses how this work has related to research with distance education; and describes some insights into how students learn which can be gained through qualitative methodologies. (MBR)

A study investigated the study approaches of students in upper-division distance-learning courses at Britain's Open University. Study approaches of upper-division students were affected by background variables and were more closely related to the avowed aims of higher education than to those found among lower-division distance-education students.…

Describes an investigation of student approaches to study and briefly relates the results to the need for instructional improvement. Open University students in England were interviewed to determine their study habits and two approaches were identified: deep-level (relating ideas and constructing meaning from learning materials) and surface-level…

The conceptions of learning of 29 students enrolled in the Social Science Foundation course of Open University, Great Britain, were analyzed in relation to the five conceptual categories of learning reported by Saljo (1979). The first three of these concepts describes learning as an increase in information, knowledge as external to the student,…

This report describes the work of the Study Methods Group, which uses qualitative research methodologies to determine how Open University students approach learning and why they adopt a particular approach. Research considers student orientation to learning, the relationship of learning outcomes to learning approach, and student development as…