This article presents a phenomenographic study that investigates students' approaches to achieving understanding. The results are based on interviews, addressing physiological phenomena, with 16 medical students in a problem-based curriculum. Four approaches--sifting, building, holding and moving--are outlined. The holding and moving approaches…

Studies of students' educational outcomes tend to be based on rather simple input-output models. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that more informed theoretical perspectives are appropriate to analyses of quantitative data on professional learning processes. It is suggested that "connection to knowledge" and "wanting structure" are…

Two studies, a cross-sectional (173 first-year and 215 final-year participants) and a longitudinal (81 participants), examined whether two aspects of the learning experience of student teachers (epistemological beliefs and learning approaches), and the interrelations between them changed as a result of their tertiary education. Between the first…

The term curriculum is familiar in school education, but more ambiguous in its usage in a higher education context. Although it is frequently used in academic staff discussions, policy and planning documents, and to describe advisory bodies, its usage is inconsistent and multifarious. This article reports a phenomenographic study of the ways in…

Explores the postmodern critique of higher education, which presents a challenge to discard the contemplative conception of knowledge and promotes a pragmatic conception of inquiry. Discusses how higher education curricula, particularly scientific inquiry, can be renewed, taking into account this understanding of knowledge but also acknowledging…

Emphasizes the role of intuition in the learning process where rational knowing alone does not suffice. Connects practical, didactic examples applied in a university course in psychology to some epistemological suppositions of different aspects of intuition. (EV)

Uses John Searle's concept of "Background" to explore the acquisition of scholarly know-how, particularly as it relates to graduate students whose previous education impedes their epistemological access to scholarly practices. (EV)

An ethnographic account of the community of professional historians constructs a picture of what history is like as a discipline, what features of its epistemology differentiate it from others, and what characterizes the profession in career structure, value system, and preferred modes of communication. (Author/MSE)

Biology education in Britain has developed since the eighteenth century from dependence on medicine and economic botany to a vigorous and autonomous field. This progress is due partially to the influx of European ideas, individuals, the imported rigors of the physical sciences, and various other external factors. (Author/MSE)

Examines ways in which research and teaching have been changing and shows how it is linked with the crisis in ideas about knowledge. Argues that to understand the changing relationship between research and teaching, it is important to view it in the context of these changes. Implications of this analysis for the future of research and are drawn.…

This study examined the learning experience (learning approaches, study orchestrations and epistemological beliefs) of 388 university students. Data analysis revealed two main results. First, the different aspects of students' learning experience were related: learning approaches and epistemological beliefs (two pairs of canonical variates…

A discussion of the relationship between theory and practice in professional continuing education considers the different kinds of professional knowledge (according to its generalizability or explicitness), modes of knowledge (replication, application, interpretation, association), and the contexts of knowledge use. (MSE)

Examines Schon's idea of "reflective practice" in higher education through analysis of "reflectivity" -- its history, possible forms, interpretations, and underpinning values. Notes four underpinning epistemologies for reflective practice: technical rational, humanistic emancipatory, postmodern deconstructive, and radical phenomenological.…

Discusses possible theoretical underpinnings of proposed courses in teaching and learning for higher education teachers. Proposes a model which draws upon the disciplinary perspectives of academics and conceives of three kinds of knowledge in dynamic relationship: public knowledge, personal knowledge, and knowledge derived from present…

The incompatibility of American liberal education and multiculturalism ground this qualitative study. Given this assertion and that teaching and learning is central to the liberal educational mission, we explore faculty perceptions of the relationship between multiculturalism and liberal educational pedagogy. The findings of this study suggest…