Student-centred and teacher-centred learning environments: what students think

This contribution explores the relationship between teacher-centred and student-centred learning environments from a student's perspective. Three different views with respect to this relationship can be retrieved. The balance view suggests that the more teacher-centred a learning environment is, the less student-centred it is and vice versa. The transactional view stresses the continuous renegotiation of teacher- and student-roles. The independent view argues that teacher- and student-centredness are independent features of learning environments. Results from three survey studies of higher education students’ conceptions of quality education are discussed. While the practice-oriented literature regularly seems to adopt a balance view, factor analyses did not reveal evidence for the balance view in any of these studies. In students’ minds student-centredness and teacher-centredness seem to be mutually reinforcing features of high quality education. From a curricular point of view, and especially with regard to teacher training, the results warrant to argue for the development of so-called powerful learning environments rather than for the transition from teacher-centred towards student-centred learning environments.

[1]  J. Vermunt,et al.  Congruence and friction between learning and teaching , 1999 .

[2]  L. Steffe,et al.  Constructivism in education. , 1995 .

[3]  David Kember,et al.  Conceptions of teaching and their relationship to student learning , 1993 .

[4]  M. David Merrill,et al.  First principles of instruction , 2012 .

[5]  J. Bruner.  The act of discovery. , 1961 .

[6]  G. Clarebout,et al.  Instructional conceptions: Analysis from an instructional design perspective , 2004 .

[7]  Katherine Samuelowicz,et al.  Revisiting academics' beliefs about teaching and learning , 2001 .

[8]  M. Fullan.  The New Meaning of Educational Change , 1990 .

[9]  Michael J. Lawson,et al.  TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS' KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HOW CLASS DISCUSSIONS HELP THEM TO LEARN , 2002 .

[10]  D. Kember.  A reconceptualisation of the research into university academics' conceptions of teaching , 1997 .

[11]  Susan E. Newman,et al.  Cognitive Apprenticeship: Teaching the Craft of Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. Technical Report No. 403. , 1987 .

[12]  T. Shuell.  The role of the student in learning from instruction , 1988 .

[13]  A. Collins,et al.  Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning , 1989 .

[14]  Paul Cooper,et al.  Patterns of interaction between teachers' and students' classroom thinking, and their implications for the provision of learning opportunities , 1994 .

[15]  Bert P. M. Creemers,et al.  The Effective Classroom , 1994 .

[16]  Menucha Birenbaum,et al.  Alternatives in Assessment of Achievements, Learning Processes, and Prior Knowledge , 1996 .

[17]  S. Lea,et al.  Higher Education Students' Attitudes to Student-centred Learning: Beyond 'educational bulimia'? , 2003 .

[18]  L. Shulman.  Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching , 1986 .

[19]  D. Olson,et al.  The Handbook of education and human development : new models of learning, teaching, and schooling , 1996 .

[20]  Michael Prosser,et al.  Understanding Learning And Teaching , 1999 .

[21]  S. Volet,et al.  Active Learning: Self-directed Learning and Independent Work , 2000 .

[22]  Philip Taylor,et al.  A phenomenographic study of academics' conceptions of science learning and teaching , 1994 .