411

Higher Education 8 (1979) 411-427

9 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands

STUDENT

LEARNING

AND PERCEPTIONS

OF THE ACADEMIC

ENVIRONMENT
PAUL RAMSDEN

Institute ]br Research and Development in Post-Compulsory Education,

University of Lancaster, Lancaster, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

This paper examines tile effects of the organisation of curricula, teaching, and
assessment on student learning and looks at the different demands which different
academic environments make on their students. After a brief review of research into
learning contexts in higher education, data from a course perceptions questionnaire
are presented. The principal dimensions which students themselves use to characterise
academic environments are identified. The perceptions of students in six departments
at one British university are compared; it is concluded that students in different subject
areas see themselves to be studying in markedly different environments. The results
also suggest students' evaluations of the teaching and the courses in each department,
Data from the course perceptions questionnaire are supported and amplified
by a preliminary analysis of results from semi-structured interviews of students in the
six departments. The most important factor to emerge from the item analysis - the
degree to which students feel that their teachers provide a facilitant atmosphere for
learning
is confirmed. Students' perceptions of their departments and their teachers
are shown to exert important influences on their approaches to learning. It is also suggested that a student's perception of a particular learning task influences the level at
which he tackles it.

Introduction
Little systematic
environments
look

more

which

thought

has b e e n g i v e n to t h e d e s i g n o f a c a d e m i c

encourage

student

learning. It seems to

be time

to

c l o s e l y at t h e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f a c a d e m i c c o n t e x t s a n d to see

h o w t h e y d i f f e r in t h e d e m a n d s t h e y m a k e o n t h e i r s t u d e n t s . W h a t m a k e s
one

department

approaches

a "better"

learning environment

to l e a r n i n g e x p e c t e d

in d e p a r t m e n t s

than

another? How do

t e a c h i n g d i f f e r e n t disci-

The research reported in this paper is supported by a Social Science Research Council
programme grant.

412
plines differ? Does the context of learning matter in influencing how students learn? It is somewhat surprising that these questions have hardly
yet begun to be answered. In all the considerable volume of research into
the correlates of student success and failure, for example, hardly may attention has been paid to the possible effects o f the organisation of the academic
environment. Research has concentrated almost exclusively on the attributes
of individuals.
This paper looks at the relationship between student learning and its
academic and social context. By context, or environment, is meant the
teaching, course organisation, subject areas, and assessment methods of
university departments; this definition excludes variables such as the provision of study space, residential accommodation, libraries, or teaching aids.
This paper exalnines students' own perceptions of their courses and teachers
in six departments at a British university, identifies the characteristics of
those environments, and shows how contextual variables are related in the
students' minds to the ways they learn. The paper draws upon data from
both a course perceptions questionnaire and from a series of semi-structured
interviews.

The Concept of Learning Environment and its Relation to Student Learning.

There is no clear agreement in the literature as to what constitutes an
academic context or environment. For some investigators, it consists of
rather crude attributes such as types of degree courses offered, size, proximity to other institutions, source of finmace, and so on, in relation to the
institution as a whole. A rather more sophisticated approach has been to
study college environments either by investigating the opinions of their
teachers (see for example, Halsey and Trow, 1971; Gaff mad Wilson, 1971),
or by measuring student behaviour such as informal interaction with staff
or amount mad frequency of student contributions in classes (see Astin,
1968).
But the approach to defining and measuring academic contexts which
has gained most favour is that which uses students' perceptions to compare
different college environments. Most of this research has been American.
Instruments have been developed by Stern (1970) and Pace (1967) to
measure the social psychological char'dcteristics o f environments; students
are invited to answer questionnaire items about their opinions of their
teachers and colleagues and about the policies of the institution. A similar
strategy has been to define college environments in terms of student subcultures. A well-known model developed by Clark mad Trow (1966) contrasts four sub-cultures defined in terms of students' involvement with
ideas (high or low) and identification with college (high or low). Peterson

413
(1965) was able to show that colleges differed considerably in the proportion of their students attaching themselves to each sub-culture. Long (1978)
has related students' evaluations o f their college environment to each of tile
types: students' opinions o f the advantages and disadvantages of the university were highly correlated with their subcultural membership.
A difficulty in most o f the American studies o f students' perceptions
of college environments is that althouN1 they. may focus on the immediate
context of a student's learning - how he sees his teachers, his subject, his
academic tasks - they average out the differences between academic departments aJ~d subject areas in order to compare the environments of entire
institutions. European universities, however, are less heterogeneous than
American ones. Students in British universities rarely have much contact
with more than one or two academic departments. The relevant focus of
analysis in this case is probably the main discipline they study or the one
department in which they spend most o f their time, rather than the university as a whole.
Investigations which deal with the context of learning defined by a
department are u n c o m m o n in the literature. Perhaps the most promising
study was carried out by Gaff, Crombag, and Chang with a sample of students in four departments of a Dutch University (Gaff et al., 1976). They
were able to identify distinctive " a t m o s p h e r e s " in the different contexts;
they also isolated groups of questionnaire items which had been answered
in similar ways. More recently, Hermans (1979) has identified similar dimensions of departmental environments at another university in the Netherlands.
In the earlier study, ten scales were derived, ranging from the amount of
time students felt they must spend in course-related activities, through the
personal attention given to students in the different departments, to the
extent to which the course programmes were [Jrescribed or defined by
students themselves. Gaff et al. (1976) used the scales to identify educational problems in the departments. They concluded that steps needed
to be taken to offer more attractive learning environments if the departments were not to suffer high rates o f student attrition.
A possible objection to studies o f the kind summarised above is that
they do not show, either by students' self-reports or by objective measures,
that students' learning is related to their perceptions of the environment.
Might student performance be more closely related to characteristics of
academic departments such as unit size and the type o f staff employed?
Do students know what a " g o o d " learning environment is? Are they perhaps
misled into equating learning with pleasure? These criticisms are not supported by the most recent evidence. Hartnett and Centra ( 1 9 7 7 ) a t t e m p t e d
to relate student performance in different academic fields to various characteristics o f the academic faculties in which the students studied. Criterion
measures achievement tests showed large differences in the apparent "effec-

414
tiveness'" o f the different departments, which were selected from a n u m b e r
o f different universities. Students' pre-entry levels of achievement were
controlled. Analysis of faculty-student ratios, faculty interest in teaching,
faculty salaries, and department size failed to demonstrate features consistently associated with effectiveness. The authors speculate that students'
perceptions may be more important in explaining effectiveness; indeed,
Centra (1976), among others, has shown that student ratings o f teaching
effectiveness are positively related to mean student achievement.
The research we have so far mentioned has relied almost exclusively on
questionnaire techniques for the collection of its data. A further group of
studies has used the techniques o f participant observation, discussion, and
unstructured or partly structured interviews to examine the relationship
between students' perceptions o f the learning c o n t e x t and their approaches
to learning. This work has provided some revealing insights into the powerful
influence which students say the learning environment - and especially its
assessment procedures - has on their learning.
One early study o f this kind was carried out at Kansas University by
Becker (Becket et al., 1968). Becker applies the idea of "situational adjustm e n t " to the experience o f the college student: students learn the requirements of social situations and what makes for success in them, so that they
tuna themselves into the kind o f persons that the academic context demands.
Becker argues that the academic situation requires attendance and written
work, but does not reward students for showing intellectual involvement even though the institution says that it does. Students' approaches to learning
become d o m i n a t e d by the "grade-point average perspective": high grades in
assessment tasks are the most important goals. Students come to perceive a
conflict between learning and grades and speak of using strategies to get
good marks at the expense of understanding the material they are expected
to learn. In this way the process o f assessment comes to have the unintended
consequence Of inhibiting rather than facilitating learning, and it is easy to
see how one might extend this effect to teaching methods as well.
More recent research in Britain has supported and amplified Becker's
findings, although the results are based on small samples. Miller and Parlett
(1974), for example, found that the academic environment defined by
examinations in a Scottish university led to the e m p l o y m e n t of distinctive
strategies of adaptation by different students. The authors show that one
group of students (labelled "cue-seeke~rs"), who went out of their way to
make a favourable personal impression on staff, and who revised very selectively for examinations, obtained the. best degree results. This group o f
students was often uncomfortably aware that these strategies were detrimental to learning.
Becker, Miller and Parlett, and others (e.g., Snyder, 1971) emphasise in
their studies the disjunction between the formal requirements of academic

415
environments (thought, creativity, competence, independent thinking,
critical thinking) and the actual requirements as perceived by students
(menlorisation, fact-gathering, conformity, rote learning). It is very interesting to compare this disparity with recent work, carried out in Sweden, on
the approaches to learning used by students in reading academic articles
(see, e.g., Marton 1975a: Marton and SfiljtS, 1976). Interviews of students
revealed qualitatively different levels of processing of the texts. A " d e e p "
approach involves concentration on the meaning o f the article and actil/e
attempts to relate what it said to previous knowledge and the student's
personal life. In contrast, students using a "'surface" approach anxiously
try to memorise parts of the text and treat it as a phenomenon isolated
from themselves. The Swedish findings show that deep level processing
is more likely to lead to a full understanding o f a text than surface level
processing. The notion of deep level processing shows a remarkable similariW to what lecturers in many disciplines have described as a desirable
goal of higher education
the development of "critical thinking". If, as
Becker and other researchers seem to be suggesting, there is a gap between
the desired end and the o u t c o m e of teaching, assessment, and curriculum
practices, then it is a matter of some urgency that we come to understand
more about the links between students" approaches to learning and the
context in which it takes place. That is the primary objective of the present
research, and in addition to reporting findings from a study o f students'
perceptions of departmental environments in the following pages, we shall
also
9
look briefly at what students have said about the influence of the context o f a learning task on their approach to it.

The Course Perceptions Questio'nnaire

A questionnaire seemed to be an appropriate way of investigating the
c o m p o n e n t s used by students in a number of departments to describe
academic environments. This questionnaire was designed with both theoretical
and empirical considerations in mind. We shall not enter into discussion of
the theoretical background to the analysis o f learning environments in this paper. The study of learning contexts is not remarkable forits theoretical depth,
but Bernstein's concept o f frame strength (Bemstein, 1971), which refers to
the amount o f control over what may and may not be transmitted in the pedagogical relationship, was one important part of the conceptual background
to the present study. In addition, the recurrent notion of " r a p p o r t " or
teachers' understanding of students as a c o m p o n e n t of effective teaching
and learning (see, e.g., Rogers, 1969) shaped to some extent the form of
the questionnaire.
The questionnaire items were derived mainly from preliminary inter-

416
views o f students in two o f the departments which were to be investigated,
and also from a previous survey o f students' course perceptions (Ramsden,
1976). The questionnaire was administered to second year students in six
university departments: social science, applied science, natural science,
two arts departments, and the School o f Independent Studies at Lancaster
University. A total of 285 students completed the questionnaire: the average
response rate was 6 6 ~ , and in no department did the rate fall below 52(7c.
The 47 items were sorted into scales reflecting hypothetical dimensions in terms o f which students were expected to characterise their learning
environments. These dimensions were chosen after examining the results
of the most closely corresponding previous study (Gaff et al., 1976) and
in the light of the concepts o f framing and staff understanding. Percentage
responses to the items and item/scale correlations were calculated, and the
relationships between the items were explored using the techniques of factor
analysis. The details o f these procedures, and of the originally hypothesised
dinlensions, will be discussed elsewhere. The factor structure proved to be
closely related to the expected pattern and a subsequent study o f 767 firstyear students has shown the conqponents to be remarkably stable (Ramsden,
1979). After the factor analyses of the second-year sample, eight dimensions
were isolated. They appear below in order o f importance: the first and most
important factor identified in the analyses was lecturers' understanding of
students and c o m m i t m e n t to good teaching, and the items in this factor
go to make tip the first two scales listed.
DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Relationships with
students
Cominitment to
teaching
Workload
Formal teaching
methods
Vocational
relevance
Social climate
Clear goals and
standards
Freedom in
learning

Closeness o f lecturer/student relationships: help

and understanding shown to students.
C o m m i t m e n t of staff to improving teaching and to
teaching students at a level appropriate to their
current understanding.
9 Pressure placed on students in terms o f demands o f
the syllabus and assessment tasks.
Formality or informality o f teaching and learning
(e.g. lectures v. individual study).
Perceived relevance of courses to students' careers.
/)

Frequency and quality of academic and social

relationships between students.
Extent to which standards expected o f students
are clear and unambiguous.
A m o u n t o f discretion possessed by students in
choosing and organising academic work.

417

Learning Contexts in the Departments

The results of the course perceptions questionnaire show that students
in the different departments see the process of learning and teaching in
contrasting ways. Each department appears to possess a distinctive "atmosphere" or culture in which approaches to learning are realised.
Applied
science
- the process of learning is seen in a very formal way.
Lectures and classes are more ilnportant than individual study as a means
of learning: staff are somewhat aloof and they are unprepared to tackle
topics at a level appropriate to students' current understanding. But there
are close and cooperative relationships between students with reference
to their work, and the students think that their lecturers are prepared to take
their suggestions into account when they are planning courses. The goals
and standards set are particularly clear; students " k n o w where they are
going": the vocational relevance o f the courses is high. But the workload
students have to deal with is greater than in any of the other departments:
75r of the students think that there is too much work to get through.
Natural
science
- relationships between staff and students are somewhat formal, and much learning takes place in timetabled classes. The
staff, heavily involved in research activities, are not seen to be very friendly
towards students. Unlike the applied science department, this departm.ent
does not provide clear guidelines to students in the assessment standards
it expects - 73% o f students agree that it is hard to know how well they
are doing. Nevertheless, the courses are thought to be vocationally relevant.
Students are closely supervised in their work and they have little choice
over methods of study, but in spite o f these constraints the workload is
not excessive.
Social science
- in this department, students think that staff provide
an infonnal and cooperative learning e n v i r o n m e n t : contacts outside formal
classes are frequent and staff give the impression o f being willing to learn
from students. But the students are unsure about the extent to which this
informality is carried over into genuine help with academic problems. Much
learning takes place by individual study, although a lot of time is also devoted
to classes. Students think that they have too little time to concentrate on
the subjects which really interest them: they are also most likely of all to
think that they have little choice over how they want to learn. The courses
are of limited vocational relevance. There are close relationships between
students.
, 4 r t s ( 1 ) - in this department the courses are thought to bear little or
no relationship to students' future careers. The workload is not too high,
but students would like more time to spend on their own interests. The goals
of the students' work are unambiguous, but students find it hard to know
how closely they are reaching them: in this respect, the context here is

418
similar to the natural science department. Relationships with staff are informal (although less so than in social science), and the lecturers are very
willing to give help with study problems. Students have a lot o f choice over
the methods and c o n t e n t of their studies. Of all the departments, this one
most requires students to leana by means o f individual study: only 4 9 o f
students think that you can learn nearly everything you need to know from
the classes and lectures, without doing much further reading (in contrast to
the applied science department, where 619; of students agree with this
statement).
A r t s ( 2 ) -- individual study is felt to be o f great importance as a way
of learning; all the students agree that the department expects them to spend
much time studying on their own. There is also a good deal of choice in the
methods and c o n t e n t o f the students' work. Thus far, this d e p a r t m e n t is very
similar to the first o f the arts departments. But unlike that department,
relationships with staff are fairly formal - much more so than in the social
science department, although less so tham ira the two science departments.
Moreover, assessment standards are clear but the goals of study are rather
vague. Pressure on students to work is low, however, and staff are highly
committed to teaching. There is a good social climate.
l n d e p e n d e J t t S t u d i e s .-- in the School o f Independent Studies at Lancaster, students do not follow a prescribed course within a particular discipline, but decide their own topics of study in consultation with their tutors.
The questionnaire results show that the department is thought to provide a
particularly supportive environment for learning: staff are friendly, responsive to students' suggestions for changes to teaching methods, and they
make real efforts to understand difficulties students may be having with
their work. The courses are thouNlt to have little vocational relevance, but
only 10% of the students (a lower proportion than in any other department)
think that most of what they are learning will be o f no use to them when
they leave university. Students think that they can concentrate on the subjects which most interest them and there is not too much work to get
through. Not surprisingly, students in this department think that they are
working in a context which permits a high degree of freedom in learning.
But while none of these benefits come easily,.the advantages o f this environment are counterbalanced by a poor social climate and by an absence of
clarity ira the goals and standards expected of students. In these last respects,
the environment is similar to that idefitified at another independent studies
department at a British polytechnic (Percy and Ramsden, 1979).

Uses and Limitations of the Questionnaire

The course perceptions questionnaire has identified components of the

419
learning environment in several academic departments and has shown how
each context makes different demands on the way students learn. Some of
the differences between the departments are related to the type of discipline
which they teach. A fairly personalised approach to teaching and learning
is common in the arts and social science departments, for example, while
the nature of the subject-matter in the sciences seems to give rise to more
formal teaching methods and less personal relationships between staff, and
students. The applied science and independent studies departments clearly
stand at opposite ends of a continuum of student v. teacher control over the
transmission of knowledge. Knowledge in the former department is strongly
framed (Bernstein, 1971): clearly defined, its boundaries set to a considerable extent by professional standards, and systematically transmitted. In
independent studies, on the other hand, framing of knowledge is extremely
weak; exactly what constitutes "satisfactory" knowledge is unclear, the
methods and goals of learning are ambiguous, and students are largely left
(notwithstanding a high degree of staff understanding) to find their own way
througll their courses. While quite different approaches to studying are
expected of students in these two extreme cases (and while, no doubt, each
develops different kinds of learning skills), each has its own advantages and
disadvantages as an environment for learning.
Other differences between the departments suggest students' evaluations of the contexts in which they work. Students who feel that they have
too little time to concentrate on their own interests, or who think that
lecturers prepare their teaching inadequately, or who are unsure about how
their work will be assessed, certainly appear to be displaying aspects of
dissatisfaction with their learning environments.
Examination of the relationship between perceptions of learning
environments and students' approache s to learfiing cannot, however, be
carried out effectively by means of questionnaires alone. The course perceptions questionnaire provides a broad but general picture of learning
contexts and their components; in order to approach the fine detail of an
individual student's interaction with his environment, and to ensure that
the dimensions identified above really are ways in which students in different
departments characterise and evaluate their learning environments, we need
additional methods.

Interviews of Students
For these reasons, semi-structured interviews of a sample of students
(approximately 10 in each department) were carried out. The chief aim of
the interviews has been to see whether qualitatively different learning
strategies (see Marton, 1975a) are linked in students' minds with different

420
c o n t e x t s o f learning. By " c o n t e x t o f l e a r n i n g " we m e a n , in this instance,
n o t o n l y the influence (or lack o f i n f l u e n c e ) o f t e a c h i n g and course organisation, but also the l o c a t i o n o f a specific task within the b a c k g r o u n d
k n o w l e d g e and intercsts o f the s t u d e n t . S t u d e n t s were asked to c o m m e n t
on the strengths and weaknesses o f their d e p a r t m e n t and its courses, and
also to talk in detail a b o u t their a p p r o a c h e s to p a r t i c u l a r learning tasks.
These i n c l u d e d , as approprqate, essays, scientific p r o b l e m s , reports, reading,
and e x a m i n a t i o n p r e p a r a t i o n .
It is clear from the interviews that the g r o u p i n g s o f items identified in
the c o u r s e p e r c e p t i o n s q u e s t i o n n a i r e by item analysis are n o t mere c o m p u t a tional artefacts. Moreover, s t u d e n t s c o n s t a n t l y relate c o n t e x t u a l variables
(such as the quality o f their relationships with their teachers and the a m o u n t
o f pressure placed u p o n t h e m by assessment tasks) to their a p p r o a c h e s to
learning. A natural science s t u d e n t , for e x a m p l e , describes the influence o f
assessment by final e x a m i n a t i o n s on his a p p r o a c h as follows:
I look at [the topic] and I think to myself, "'Well. I can do that if I can be bothered
to hunt through hundreds of textbooks and do the work" .- and you sort of relate
that to the value of the work in the course, which is virtually zero because it's so
much exam assessment... I just don't bother with it until the exams come around...
my revision is basically for the exams, purely and simply aimed at passing the
exams without bothering too much about studying the subject (Natural science,
student 12).
While a social science s t u d e n t e c h o e s Miller and Parlett's " c u e - s e e k i n g "
s t u d e n t s in his response to an e n v i r o n m e n t o f c o n t i n u o u s assessment:
With that essay I was just discussing, that reference group one, I wrote for, with a,
the image of a marker in mind, the personality, the person. I find that's important,
to know who's going to be marking your p a p e r . . , you see an essay is an expression of thought, really, but that's not what they're after, they're after a search
through the library, I think, and a cribbing of other people's ideas (Social science,
student 7).
A n o t h e r social scientist describes the i n d u c e m e n t to surface level processing
which the periodic tests held in his d e p a r t m e n t o f f e r :
I hate to say it, but what you've got to do is have a list of the "facts"; you write
down ten important points and memgrise those, then you'll do all right in the
t e s t . . , if you can give a bit of factual information - so and so did that, and
concluded that - for two sides of writing, then you'll get a good mark (Social
science, student 5).
Many o f tile s t u d e n t s in the social science and arts d e p a r t m e n t s were critical o f w h a t t h e y felt to be the excessive f o r m a l i t y o f the assessment s y s t e m s
and tile lack o f flexibility in c h o o s i n g assignments. " T h e r e isn't time for

421
(thinking about what interests you): you've got to stick to the structure and
p l o u g h t h r o u g h i t " is a t y p i c a l c o m m e n t .
In c o n t r a s t , it w a s i n t e r e s t i n g
t o s e e h o w s t u d e n t s in t h e v o c a t i o n a l l y - o r i e n t e d a p p l i e d s c i e n c e d e p a r t m e n t
tackled the problem of a higher workload. As we have seen from the quest i o n n a i r e r e s u l t s , s t u d e n t s in t h i s d e p a r t m e n t s t o o d o u t f r o m t h e r e s t in
their professional commitment
and their perceptions of clear assessment
g o a l s a n d s t a n d a r d s . G i v e n t h i s level o f a g r e e m e n t , it is n o t s u r p r i s i n g t h a t
the interviews revealed that students wanted more pressure on them from
t h e i r t u t o r s t o c o m p l e t e p i e c e s o f w o r k , r a t h e r t h a n m o r e c h o i c e o v e r assessm e n t t a s k s . T h e r e w a s an i m p r e s s i o n o f a c l o s e m e s h i n g o f a i m s , a p p r o a c h e s
to learning, and perceptions of the department from the applied scientists"
i n t e r v i e w s w h i c h w a s q u i t e a b s e n t f r o m t h e i n t e r v i e w s o f s t u d e n t s in t h e less
formally structured departments.
S t u d e n t s in all o f t h e d e p a r t m e n t s

m a d e r e f e r e n c e in t h e i n t e r v i e w s t o

aspects of staff understanding of their learning requirements and emphasised

the inlluence of their teachers' approaches on their desire to learn and their
ways of going about studying. The following extracts exemplify students'
conlments:
I find that the courses I do most work on are the courses where I get on with the
tutors best and enjoy the seminars, b e c a u s e . . , a tutor can put you off the subject . . . some of them don't like students, so they're not interested in what students have to say unless it's relevant to their approach (Arts 2, student 38).
If they [tutors] have enthusiasm, then they really fire their own students with
tile subject, and the students really pick it u p . . . l'm really good at and enjoy
[one course], but that's only because a particular tutor I've had has been so enthusiastic that he's given me an enthusiasm for i t . . . (Arts 2, student 6).
Recently we were doing Fourier analysis, and the ,lecturer mentioned in passing
that it was something which they used when they transmit moon pictures back to
e a r t h . . , that makes a lot of difference, you can see it being u s e d . . . Another
example he quoted was about why when you bang a drum you get lots of different
sounds rather than when you, say, play a violin you .just get the one note . . . he
said, if you look at this you can see why - and he was right, you could see why;
it did make sense (Natural science, student 3).
1 try to get to know [staff] a bit. I just find it a lot easier, 1 feel happier about my
work -- if there's something wrong I can go and talk about it. That's quite important to me (Arts 1, student 7).
My criticisms will be very closely aligned t o . . . the lack of empathy that some of
the staff have about the ability levels of the students relative to their subject . . .
In some of the areas we're talked at at a very high level. So you can't attach anything that you've been told to something you already know, which of course is
a very important point in l e a r n i n g . . , they've gone so far into their own area that
they've forgotten that we know nothing, essentially, compared with them (Social
science, student 7).

422
The concepts are really difficult anyway. It usually takes, I think most people like,
1 certainly like to sit down and go at my own speed. Now the lecturers certainly
assume that we know it and they just keep g o i n g . . , once you get behind it, you
know, you can't really get back on terms (Applied science, student l ).
I think a lot of the [lecturers] are just not particularly interested in you. I mean
there are some who a r e . . , but some tutors, you know, just don't really bother if
you learn or not; they just prefer t6 sit there and wait for you to think of what you
don't know - I mean, if you knew what you didn't know you'd probably learn it
anyway. I've got a tutor like that at the m o m e n t . . , it's no good at all (Natural
science, student 14).
You give an essay in - 1 gave in two at the beginning of the second term and I
didn't get those back till this term . . . you know, it's a bit difficult when you're
writing the next essay, because you want to know where you've gone wrong and
the points that have been all r i g h t . . , by the time you've got it back after waiting
a whole term you've forgotten what it's all about and it doesn't really mean much
then (Arts 2, student 31).
I certainly don't like it if you get tutorials where the guy just comes along and sits
down and makes you stand up and do the work on the blackboard. Usually he picks
on people that can't do it, which I think is terrible because you get stuck up at the
blackboard and made to look a fool, and it switches you right o f f . . . I think I'm not
going to do that if this guy's going to do that to me, because [ d o n ' t learn anything;
nobody else learns anything because it takes you so long to do one question; and
it makes you very unhappy with that particular course, so I lose interest in the
course (Natural science, student 12).
The comments

of the students above illustrate and expand the concept

o f s t a f f u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f s t u d e n t s ' l e a r n i n g n e e d s w h i c h w a s i d e n t i f i e d in t h e
questionnaire scales of Commitment
to Teaching and Relationships with
S t u d e n t s . It is p a r t i c u l a r l y i n t e r e s t i n g t o see h o w s t u d e n t s f r e q u e n t l y c o n t r a s t t h e d i f f e r e n t a p p r o a c h e s o f s t a f f in t h e s a m e d e p a r t m e n t : t h e c o u r s e
perceptions questionnaire cannot, of course, reveal such differences.
It w o u l d be p o s s i b l e t o i l l u s t r a t e e a c h o f t h e c o m p o n e n t s i d e n t i f i e d
in t h e q u e s t i o n n a i r e s t u d y in a s i m i l a r w a y . It m a y be m o r e f r u i t f u l a t t h i s
stage, however, to explore the effects of the immediate context of a particu l a r l e a r n i n g t a s k o n a s t u d e n t ' s a p p r o a c h t o it. W e m e n t i o n e d e a r l i e r t h e
w o r k o f M a r t o n a n d his c o l l e a g u e s o n l e v e l s o f p r o c e s s i n g o f r e a d i n g m a t e rials. A n a l y s i s o f t h e i n t e r v i e w s in t h e p r e s e n t s t u d y s h o w s t h a t t h e c o n c e p t
o f d e e p a n d s u r f a c e l e v e l s o f p r o c e s s i n g is a p p l i c a b l e a l s o t o t a s k s s u c h as
) .
e s s a y w r i t i n g a n d p r o b l e m - s o l v i n g in s c i e n c e . T h e r e s e e m t o b e t h r e e w a y s
in w h i c h a d e e p level a p p r o a c h is m a n i f e s t e d : a t e n d e n c y o n t h e p a r t o f t h e
student to relate the task to personal experience; a desire to make active
attempts to relate the different parts of a task to each other or to other
tasks; an intention to impose a structure on the whole task and think about
its m e a n i n g . In a s u r f a c e level a p p r o a c h t o a t a s k , t h e s t u d e n t i n d i c a t e s an
i n t e n t i o n t o t r e a t t h e l e a r n i n g m a t e r i a l as an i s o l a t e d , e l e m e n t e d p h e n o m -

423
e n o n ; a p p r o a c h e s the task u n r e f l e c t i v e l y o r passively ; and m a y try to m e m o r i s e
the m a t e r i a l . T h e s e c a t e g o r i e s r e p r e s e n t a m o d i f i c a t i o n o f M a r t o n ' s o w n
classification o f i n d i c a t o r s o f d e e p and surface levels o f processing, w h i c h
r e f e r r e d solely to social science s t u d e n t s ' d e s c r i p t i o n s o f a p p r o a c h e s to
r e a d i n g a c a d e m i c articles ( M a r t o n , 1975b).
T h e i n t e r v i e w s also m a k e it clear t h a t a s t u d e n t o f t e n s h o w s i n d i c a t i o n s
o f d i f f e r e n t levels o f p r o c e s s i n g o f d i f f e r e n t tasks. This is true for b o t h the
arts and the science s t u d e n t s , a l t h o u g h the arts s t u d e n t s are r a t h e r m o r e
likely to i n d i c a t e c o n s i s t e n c y in t h e i r a p p r o a c h e s . This s u p p o r t s Biggs'
a r g u m e n t (Biggs, 1970) t h a t s t u d y strategies in science are m o r e closely
tied to the n a t u r e o f the specific task. T h e variables w h i c h a p p e a r to e x e r t
m o s t i n f l u e n c e on a s t u d e n t ' s level o f p r o c e s s i n g in b o t h arts and science
are the s t u d e n t ' s b a c k g r o u n d k n o w l e d g e o f the field and the s t u d e n t ' s level
o f i n t e r e s t in the task. T h e f o r m e r a p p e a r s to be m o r e i m p o r t a n t in scientific
s u b j e c t s and the latter m o r e i m p o r t a n t in the arts and social sciences. In the
f o l l o w i n g e x t r a c t a n a t u r a l science s t u d e n t describes h o w his p r e v i o u s k n o w l edge o f a t y p e o f p r o b l e m e n a b l e s him to take a d e e p level a p p r o a c h , while
his w e a k n e s s in a basic m a t h e m a t i c a l c o n c e p t m a k e s his a p p r o a c h to a n o t h e r
p a r t o f the s a m e q u e s t i o n a n x i o u s , passive, and superficial:
It was like one of the questions from a previous course, which I could relate. It
was a Shroedinger equation for a particle in a box, which we'd solved generally
before in chemistry, so I could relate it, 1 could see a picture of what 1 wanted,
I knew basically what sort of answer l should get, and from that I could work my
way through i t . . . The other bit was different; I couldn't do it. Basically I gave
up with it, because it was a function, which I've never really u n d e r s t o o d . . . I
looked at it and I thought "That looks complicated" . . . it was very short, it
looked like it would need a lot of rearranging... (Natural science, student 6).
H e r e , an arts s t u d e n t , h a v i n g d e s c r i b e d a d e e p level a p p r o a c h to her
essays in o n e p a r t o f h e r c o u r s e , c o n t r a s t s this w i t h a subject in w h i c h she
is less i n t e r e s t e d :
It's a bit confusing, [this subject]. When it comes to writing essays, because I'm
not very interested in it, I tend to rush through the books I'm reading for the
essays, so I don't really understand it when I've finished reading. And because
there's such a lot of information I think you can either oversimplify or get into
too much detail, l think I tend to oversimplify (Arts 2, student 31 ).
It s e e m s u n n e c e s s a r y to e l a b o r a t e on the p o i n t t h a t b o t h b a c k g r o u n d
k n o w l e d g e and level o f interest are m u c h i n f l u e n c e d by the b r o a d e r cont e x t u a l variables o f c o u r s e o r g a n i s a t i o n and t e a c h e r s ' c o m m i t m e n t to h e l p i n g
t h e i r s t u d e n t s to learn. A s t u d e n t ' s personal c o m m i t m e n t to a t o p i c o f
s t u d y , p a r t i c u l a r l y o n e he has c h o s e n f o r h i m s e l f , m a y also i n f l u e n c e his
a p p r o a c h to s t u d y i n g . H e r e an i n d e p e n d e n t studies s t u d e n t describes t w o
c o n t r a s t i n g a p p r o a c h e s to r e a d i n g a n d essay writing:

424
In rcading a particular bit of the book that I thought was relevant I was relating it
to the overall arguments within that book . . . and also relating it to the overall
directions of the independent studies project I was doing, But that particular
approach was a product of my desire to sort of do a bit of creative, original work.
Itad l been writing a straight essay, which 1 did in my first u n i t . . . I probably
would have just, sort of, taken out the main points and strung them together...
there's a definite difference between reading a book with the objective of simply
summarising the argument and reading a book with the objective of actually using
those arguments for your own ends (Independent studies, student 7).
We have c o n c e n t r a t e d above on differences in approach in relation to
the c o n t e x t o f learning tasks rather than on differences between individual
students. But ira analysing the interviews it has become clear that one small
group o f students stands out from the majority. These students are seemingly
less negatively influenced by the course and depart m ent al c o n t e x t than the
rest, make special efforts to use assessment systems to their own ends, have
a singleminded assurance that they will do well in their work, and are often
e x t r e m e l y successful. O t he r research studies have identified similarly motivated students. Wankowski (1973) describes a type o f "Highly successful
composed s t u d e n t " : "An introverted and generally stable person with an
above average admission grade and a reasonable outline o f his future car e e r . . . [with] a deep sense o f inner confidence that things will go right in
the end. Confidence so great that even a trespass against the dem~mds of
l o g i c . . , does not ruffle his c o m p o s u r e " . Entwistle and Wilson's ( 1 9 7 7 )
"highly motivated, stable scientists" and "hardworking, syllabus-free arts
s t u d e n t s " also show similarities with thisgroup. So t oo do Miller and Parlett's
"cue-seekers" (Miller and Parlett, 1974).
Miller and Parlett's study, however, appears to have identified a special
case o f a more general attitude towards academic work and assessment tasks.
The interviews carried out in the present investigation support the view that
the type o f departmental c o n t e x t imposes limits on the kinds o f tactics
which this c o n f i d e n t group o f students can use. In the social science department, these students w.ere not unlike Miller and Parlett's cue-seekers: they
tried to make good impressions on staff and carefully selected their assignm e n t and revision topics to coincide with t h e implicit messages sent out by
tutors. Cue-seeking may be effective ira a fairly informal and personalised
c o n t e x t o f learning, but it is probably c o u n t e r p r o d u c t i v e in m ore formally
organised departments. Some studentas in the applied science d e p a r t m e n t
were aware that at t em pt s to make good personal impressions and to seek
out favoured ex am i nat i on topics might damage their credibility in the eyes
o f the staff, and used o t h e r m e t h o d s o f maximising assessment o u t c o m e s ,
including paying special a t t e n t i o n to the detailed requirements o f a t u t o r
when presenting written work, mad the meticulous study o f past examination papers. A more generally applicable description o f this assured ap-

425
proach to assessment tasks, manifested in different contexts, is "strategic"
rather than cue-seeking. The most striking single characteristic o f students
who use this approach is the ability to adapt, in a positive way, to the demmlds made by the context o f learning, so that what would appear as
adversity" to most students is made to work towards the strategic student's goals - whether they be essentially academic or vocational.

Conclusions
1. DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
There seems to be little d o u b t about the validity and generality o f the
more important dimensions identified in the item analysis of the course perceptions questionnaire. This is especially true for the c o m p o n e n t s of Commitment to Teaching + Relationships with Students, Workload, and Fonnal
Teaching Methods + Vocational Relevance. The c o m p o n e n t s o f students'
perceptions of the immediate academic environment are consistent with
data from the interviews, and, moreover, are closely related to the only
other directly comparable study (Gaff et al., 1976). Above all, students
value an environment in which their teachers make genuine efforts to .help
them to learn.
2. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
The course perceptions questionnaire effectively distinguishes between
different academic departments as contexts of learning. The different
departments appear from the results to require contrasting approaches to
learning from their students: the degree to which these differences are a
consequence of disciplinary differences is not yet clear. The differences
between the environments do, however, appear to support the view that
the concept o f framing (Bemstein, 1971) is a useful means o f distinguishing
different contexts of learning. Moreover, it is not hard to infer from the
results the perceived advantages and disadvantages of each department in the
eyes of its students. Thus the questionnaire acts not only as a measure of
students' perceptions but also as a device by which students can evaluate
their courses. Whether those who organise those courses are prepared to take
account o f students' comments in their future planning is another matter
altogether.
3. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CONTEXT ON STUDENT LEARNING
It would be surprising indeed if students thought that staff understand-

426
ing o f their learning needs was an unimportant c o m p o n e n t of the learning
environment o f a department. What is remarkable a b o u t the present findings,
however, is the extreme importance attached by the students to this dimension. The significant loadings in the first factor in the item analyses were
without exception attached to items referring to teachers' understanding
of students and tutors' teaching effectiveness. A supportive atmosphere
for learning is an elusive quality: but one of the things which students
seem to be saying is that such an atmosphere is more likely to exist if lecturers show humility rather than arrogance towards their students. Students
emphasised the critical importance o f the teaching and assessment environment in the interviews. A tutor without a c o m m i t m e n t to teaching his subject might put students o f f studying it, perhaps for ever. Enthusiasm on
the part o f a lecturer encouraged them to put more effort into a subject
and enjoy it more. The careful use o f analogies helped them to see the
meaning underlying a mathematical abstraction. Failure to reach the level
o f students in a lecture made it difficult to learn. Threatening teaching
environments creates anxiety and students learn nothing.
These contextual variables, and those appearing in the questionnaire
items, influence the student's level of interest in a topic and also have
a bearing on the background knowledge which is used to help understand
a new problem. And, as we have shown, whether a student's approach to
a learning task is to tackle it in a superficial way or to strive for meaning
is very much affected by his perception of that task, which in turn is influenced by level o f interest, personal c o m m i t m e n t , and previous knowledge.
The nature o f these linkages is still somewhat inchoate, and future research
will try to examine them in more detail.

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