Individual Differences in Student Learning: A Comparison Between the Student Approaches to Learning and...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Educational Psychology
• Learning Sciences

Background:

• Learning is conceptualized as surface or deep.
• Cognitive science uses concept-building tasks (exemplar/abstraction).
• Education uses self-report surveys (surface/deep approaches).

Purpose of the Study:

• To directly compare cognitive science and education frameworks for assessing learning approaches.
• To investigate links between exemplar/abstraction learning and surface/deep learning approaches.

Main Methods:

• Two studies were conducted.
• Self-report data from M-ASSIST and R-SPQ-2F were collected.
• Objective classifications from a computer-based function learning task were obtained.

Main Results:

• No significant links were found between exemplar learning and surface approaches.
• No significant links were found between abstraction learning and deep approaches.
• Direct comparisons between the two frameworks yielded null results.

Conclusions:

• Current frameworks for assessing surface and deep learning may not align empirically.
• Student metacognition, measurement inaccuracies, or content dependencies may explain discrepancies.
• Future research should focus on reconciling these different assessment approaches.