Active Learning in Higher Education

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Liz Mcdowell Active Learning in Higher Education 2000; 1; 95 DOI: 10.1177/1469787400001001008 The online version of this article can be found at: http://alh.sagepub.com

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BOOK REVIEWS

Understanding Learning and Teaching: The Experience in Higher Education by Michael Prosser and Keith Trigwell. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press, 1999. ISBN 0335198317; 0335198325.
The ideas of deep and surface learning, which stem from the phenomenographic tradition in student learning research, must be among the most powerful ideas around in higher education teaching and learning in recent years. This book provides an upto-date overview of this research and its implications for the practice of learning and teaching. It also contains new contributions to the research eld from the authors, Michael Prosser and Keith Trigwell, and their colleagues. The whole message of the book is about the variation in the ways in which people perceive, experience and behave in particular contexts. This gives a reviewer pause for thought, heightening awareness of the different ways in which other readers may approach the book! The published literature of student learning research in the phenomenographic tradition, or relational student learning research as Prosser and Trigwell prefer to call it, is vast and still growing. The list of references in this book runs to seven pages and even that must be highly selective. This is not the rst book to aim to take stock and provide an overview. The collection edited by Marton, Hounsell, and Entwistle (1997) did this very successfully and ran to a second edition. Ramsden (1992) drew the strands of the research together in a book specically aimed at practising teachers in higher education. However, this new book is a valuable addition to the eld which adds something new in several ways. It is based on a model applied to both student learning and to teaching, which is not so widely known in its current form. It includes new research and insights into both student learning and teaching. I found particularly interesting the chapter on learning outcomes which drew together a variety of research in a very useful way and is certainly a challenge to the rather mechanistic thinking which often dominates the learning outcomes discourse. Only one of eight chapters is concerned specically with the experience of teaching, but I think that this is especially valuable. This type of approach is less well known and less used in respect of teachers and teaching, in comparison with the widespread knowledge of this research in relation to students and learning. The model on which the book is based systematically explores the linkages and relationships between students prior experiences of learning, students perceptions of their current situation, students approaches to learning and students learning outcomes. A similar model is presented for the experience of teaching. This is a rigorous approach which continually points to the underlying theme of the relational nature of learning and teaching. The notion of relational emphasizes the importance of context and the situated nature of these activities. The importance of perceptions cannot be overstated: the world is an experienced world. Students and teachers act on the basis of their perceptions of the situation they are in, not on the basis of any objective reality or the perception that someone else would like them to have. I know from personal experience that lecturers frequently nd this difcult to accept or to cope with. When offered evidence of the ways in which students perceive their learning situation many are inclined to say the students are simply wrong or that they must be weak students end of story. This book offers a subtle and complex argument to shift such people away from the xity which they often see in a teaching and learning situation: xed levels of student ability; prior experience which must be simply taken as a given; stable learning approaches or learning styles; and learning outcomes which are virtually predetermined by these factors. The underlying message of the book is hopeful,

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AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N

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in the sense that there is not only variation, there is always the possibility of change and development. The model used in the book contains different facets of the learner or teacher experience which are simultaneously present and not independently constituted. This clearly then creates difculties in presenting such a model which is not linear or staged in a sequence of chapters each foregrounding a particular element. The problem is that there is a sense of repetitiveness when reading the book through. Perhaps the book should not be read as a whole but dipped into, although that might lose the ow of the argument, and is probably only possible for those who already have a good grounding in the research eld. This leads me to considering who are the audiences for this book? Researchers in this eld will certainly get a lot out of it and it is a very valuable contribution to the research literature. It would interest ordinary lecturers who do not consider themselves as mainstream educational researchers but who are involved in action research and investigating their own practice. There is a growing number of courses and training programmes in learning and teaching in higher education and this book might provide a resource for those programmes. The programmes themselves are, of course, very varied in nature and intentions. This book certainly does not provide simple models of good or even best practice. It is inevitably gives a partial view of contemporary higher education because it concentrates mainly on learners developing conceptual understandings. While this is a vital component, there are other dimensions, such as the development of personal and interpersonal capabilities, capacities for problem-solving and professional practice, which are not touched upon. Many courses in learning and teaching are offered mainly to new lecturers, and I am not sure that this is the book for them to read. It would be much better used as a resource and drawn upon by those teaching the courses. Each chapter offers examples of classroom research and practice based on the principles covered. In this sense, it does offer practical ways forward, but these are explicitly not predetermined recipes, techniques or templates to learning and teaching situations. To gain from them, a good understanding of the underlying research, evidence and principles is required and this is where I believe that new lecturers in particular will need help and guidance. This book provides an excellent resource for their teachers and mentors to provide that support.

References
M A R T O N , F. , H O U N S E L L , D.

& E N T W I S T L E , N . J . (eds) (1997) The Experience of Learning Implications for Teaching and Studying in Higher Education, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. R A M S D E N , P . (1992) Learning to Teach in Higher Education. London: Routledge.
L I Z M C D OW E L L

University of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

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