Previous research has demonstrated that the academic environments provided by departments in higher education have direct effects on students' approaches to studying. But other studies have indicated that these effects are mediated by the students' own perceptions of those environments. Here two studies are reported which explore the relationships between approaches to learning, or study orientations, and perceptions of the academic environment. Those perceptions are measured in two distinct ways, one which minimises the effects of differential perceptions, and one which highlights them. Factor analyses of the responses of three groups of students taking engineering and psychology are used to clarify the nature of the relationships between study orientations and perceptions of the academic environment. It is found, as in earlier studies, that there are relationships which associate deep approaches with perceptions of relevance, and surface approaches with a heavy workload. But here it is also shown that students with contrasting study orientations are likely to define effective teaching in ways which reflect those orientations. Implications both for the design of feedback questionnaires and for the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education are discussed.

The development of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) is reported, which incorporates a revised version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory. This questionnaire was completed by three separate samples; /284 mainly first-year students from six British universities, 466 first-year students from a Scottish technological university; and 219 students from a 'historically disadvantaged' South African university. Analyses of these data were designed to explore the patterns of response found in sub-groups which varied in terms of their levels of attainment and contexts. Maximum likelihood analysis of the largest sample confirmed the expected three factors ofdeep, surface apathetic, and strategic approaches to studying, and almost identical patterns were also found in the other two samples, and in students having contrasting levels of attainment. There were, however, some interesting minor differences in the South African sample. Ksmeans relocation cluster analysis was then carried out on the largest sample and produced clusters with generally coherent patterns of response. However, one persistent low attainment cluster showed unexpected, dissonant patterns of response, combining moderately high scores on the sub-scales of both deep and surface apathetic approaches, associated with low scores on the strategic approach.

As the proportion of students entering higher education rises, difficulties caused by inadequate preparation also increase. An ongoing study is developing a computer-based system to identify students whose study skills and strategies appear to be ineffective, which will also provide advice to students that is to some extent targeted to their individual needs. This paper concentrates on the first stages of this project which have involved developing an appropriate questionnaire and inventory, and ensuring that the inventory is technically sound. This instrument is a revised version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory, designed to identify students with weak study strategies. The main part of the project has involved developing a computer-based package to support both staff and students in improving study skills. It allows students to complete the inventory interactively on computer, and staff to collect data from a whole class and so identify students who seem to need help with their study skills or strategies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the rationale underlying the form in which advice is being provided to students, and a brief description of the ways in which that advice is being structured and presented to students within a HyperCard system.

Data describing students' study orientations, in relation to their evaluations of courses and their preferences for different kinds of learning environment, are reanalysed in the light of recent suggestions that failing students perceive their learning context in atypical ways. Factor analysis and unfolding analysis demonstrate that failing students show inter-relationships between study orientations and preferences for learning environments which point to a disintegration of the coherent patterns previously reported in the full achievement range. The implications of such a disintegration of coherent patterns of perceptions are discussed in the light of case studies of individual students.

Students in different disciplines develop characteristic ways of learning based on their perceptions of what is required in their academic work. Within a discipline, effective learning involves interplay between the characteristics of the student and those of the learning environment that is provided by the teacher and the department.