During one of the many discussions that I often have with my classes, it became apparent to me that some students had varied views regarding teaching and learning. In fact, what was basically a good teaching practice to me, apparently to many of my students it was not so. At the same time, in the last few years lecturers began expressing their disappointment concerning their students' outcomes and their evident lack of interest as regards their introductory courses. This creates some of the most immediate challenges for lecturers and teacher education designers to question the purpose of their teaching and the ways in which they teach. Indeed, what is the aim of university and college teaching and how should it be carried out? The study explored the conceptions of learning and teaching brought by a group of Cypriot students and their lecturers in their everyday introductory Business courses, carried out in one of the three largest private colleges of Nicosia, Cyprus. Data was gathered through interviews with five lecturers and 12 students in one of the three departments of the college, the School of Business, and analysed using the phenomenographic approach. On the basis of analyses of the data, six conceptions of teaching and six conceptions of learning were identified. It was possible to summarise the conceptions under distinct levels of categories. A three - set - order categorisation of teaching and a two - set - order categorisation of learning were developed. Comparisons were made between the two sets of categories. The findings showed that most participants developed comparatively traditional conceptions of both learning and teaching in a limited range of categories. Relationships between the categories indicated interesting similarities worth exploring further. The overall aim of the research is to offer a more defined understanding of the students' early conceptions of their learning and the lecturers' conceptions of teaching those students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:514694 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Varnava-Marouchou, Despina |
| Publisher | University of Nottingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10490/ |
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