Variation in contrasting forms of 'memorising' and associated observables

There is a posited conceptual distinction in the student learning literature in higher education between contrasting forms of 'memorising': as a process of rehearsal which is usually equated with rote learning, and as a process of committing to memory material that in two separate senses is temporally either 'understood' before or after the event.

The present study reports on the operationalisation of these contrasting forms of 'memorising' and investigates their empirical association with one another, their gender sensitivity, and their joint association with other modelling sources of explanatory variation in student learning.

Two samples of entering first-year economics students at the Universities of South Australia (N = 896) and Adelaide (N = 448) which are combined in the present study (N = 1344). The combined sample is further distinguishable by gender (females, N = 662, males, N = 682).

Students were surveyed prior to the commencement of lectures and reported retrospectively on their most recent school-based learning experiences. Resultant data in the form of inventory responses were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, multivariate analysis of variance, and correlation analysis.

Empirically the three forms of 'memorising' are independent of one another and they are furthermore sensitive to gender-based response differences in terms of both location and structure. Forms of 'memorising' are respectively associated in a theoretically congruent manner with 'deep'-level processes, learning pathologies, and contrasting conceptions of learning.

The unqualified use of 'memorising' in studies of student learning is contra indicated. Contrasting forms of 'memorising' represent discrete sources of explanatory variation that can be used to construct finer grained models of student learning in process terms.