Approaches to studying and academic performance in short-essay exams

Individual learning on environmental vocational education and training courses does not always lead to the workplace application of knowledge and skills

“…Anecdotal evidence indicated that some unsuccessful students, such as SC9 and SC35, had adapted their learning style in response to the open-book examination by adopting a surface approach to revision, i.e. : These results again echo the outcome of previous studies indicating that the mode of assessment has a significant effect on student approaches to learning (Biggs et al 2001;Diseth 2007;Minbashian et al, 2004).…”

“…Echoing previous research, for example by Biggs et al (2001), Diseth (2007) and Minbashian et al (2004), the mode of assessment was shown to have a significant and dominant effect on a student's choice of learning approach and associated learning styles and strategies.…”

“…Teacher-directed learning and student strategies such as rote learning and a focus on learning for assessments are associated with a surface approach to learning (Minbashian et al 2004;Vermunt and Vermetten 2004). However, as with their counterparts on other courses, Management Course attendees had a general preference for collaborative learning and a deep approach.…”

Equity or Advantage? The effect of receiving access arrangements in university exams on Humanities students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)

“…One explanation for this may be that students who spend more of the exam time planning and thinking critically about their responses in order to produce a well-structured, fluent, concise argument that clearly addresses the question (and so demonstrate understanding of the study material) tend to achieve better outcomes than those who aim to reproduce as much information as possible in the time available (i.e. the examiners are looking for quality not quantity) (Minbashian, Huon & Bird, 2004). Although the data fails to show any correlation between longer answers and increased marks for the student group as a whole, a positive relationship was observed between the number of words on a script and the mark achieved for SpLD students with access arrangements (albeit a weak correlation (rp = .306, n = 67, p = .012)).…”

The relationship between students’ approaches to learning and the assessment of learning outcomes

“…Entwistle, McCune, and Hounsell (2003, p. 90) suggest that research findings vary "due to differences in the extent to which understanding is explicitly rewarded in the assessment procedure". A recent study by Minbashian, Huon, and Bird (2004) tried to investigate this moderating effect of the type of exam questions in a study involving 49 third year psychology students using Entwistle and Tait's (1994) Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory and short essay questions. However, the hypothesis that a deep approach would be more effective for questions of higher cognitive order than for questions of lower cognitive order could not be confirmed: the observed relationship was not significant and was in the opposite direction.…”