Constructing Images of Ourselves? A Critical Investigation into ‘Approaches to Learning’ Research in Higher Education

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Abstract
This article focuses on the surprising lack of critique in the pedagogical literatures of higher education in relation to the use of ideas surrounding deep and surface approaches to learning. The article explores problems with the assumed relationships between ‘conceptions of learning’, ‘perceptions of the learning environment’, ‘approaches to learning’ and ‘learning outcomes’, and suggests that whilst the model may be successful in creating a generalised description of the ‘elite’ goals and values of academic culture, it says surprisingly little about the majority of students in a mass system. After exploring research in the area of academic literacies as an alternative approach to understanding student learning, it is suggested that higher education is going to have to find new ways of conceptualising its core values and activities if it is to become truly accessible to the widest possible range of ‘lifelong learners’.