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Journal of Further and Higher Education, Vol. 32, No. 1, February 2008, 47–57

Scaffolding students’ transition to higher education: parallel introductory courses for students and teachers John Hultberga*, Kaety Plosa, Graham D. Hendryb and Karin I. Kjellgrena a The Sahlgrenska Academy, Go¨teborg University, Sweden; bFaculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Australia

The aim of this article was to outline the basis for an introductory course to higher education focusing on students’ approaches to learning and the role of teaching in higher education. The framework is a discussion on contemporary literature on approaches to learning. In the article experiences are also reported of developing and implementing an introductory course at the Sahlgrenska Academy, Go¨teborg University, Sweden. This was made within the LearnAble project, which was a two-tier approach in which students were given an introductory course to higher education parallel with a course in pedagogy in higher education for teachers. The courses were evaluated with different instruments, which is also to some extent accounted for. The transition from upper secondary school to studies in higher education is discussed, as is the importance of a scholarship of teaching in the context of the courses mentioned above. In this article the authors argue that a well-planned and stimulating introduction to higher education could be a natural part of the transition process, which can help students develop better prerequisites to manage their studies in higher education. Keywords: higher education; lifelong learning; transitional programs; tutor training

Introduction Important questions in higher education are how teaching methods, the learning environment and students’ learning background can predict the quality of learning outcomes and the process to higher education. Of course, there is no base from which we can produce the ‘once-and-for-all’ curriculum, but through looking at previous studies we can find some important components. Within the literature there are various perspectives that discuss students’ engagements and approaches to learning in higher education (Marton and Sa¨ljo¨ 1997; Biggs 2003; Ramsden 2003). Students’ view on education is not fixed, but is constructed in relation to learning context; it is therefore important to study how students experience learning at university (Cuthbert 2005). Students today are not a homogeneous group, but come from different social and cultural backgrounds, and have had different experiences of education. This puts new demands on the transition process to higher education. How students are received and introduced into higher education influences their future academic life (Biggs 2003; Harrison 2006). It might even be argued that it influences their approaches to learning. The transition process is therefore an important issue that should be further researched in its context. *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ISSN 0309-877X print/ISSN 1469-9486 online # 2008 UCU DOI: 10.1080/03098770701781440 http://www.informaworld.com

48 J. Hultberg et al. Accountability has also become important for universities; however, a problem in higher education is that teaching is not always regarded as an important part of an academic career (Kreber 2002a). To know one’s subject and to do research, and write articles, receives higher credit than teaching. The concept of the scholarship of teaching has been developed in order to raise the recognition of teaching (Boyer 1990; Trigwell and Shale 2004). In this article we will argue that a well-planned and stimulating introduction to higher education could be a natural part of the transition process, which can help students develop better prerequisites to manage their transition to higher education. The idea of a simultaneous education of the teachers involved could also raise their awareness of the importance of the scholarship of teaching for the development of students’ metacognitive skills. We describe an introductory course at the Sahlgrenska Academy, Go¨teborg University, Sweden, carried out within the LearnAble project. The LearnAble project is a two-tier approach in which students are given an introductory course to higher education, and teachers are provided with a course in pedagogy in higher education. The transition process The transition process refers to the move from upper secondary school to higher education. Many authors have emphasised that the first year, even the period of the first weeks, at university is crucial to students’ academic achievement, especially as it is the induction into higher education that is the problem (Terenzini et al. 1996; Harrison 2006; Bennett, Kottasz, and Nocciolino 2007). It is in the first year that students’ expectations might or might not be fulfilled. The transition can even be seen as a life’s passage, which has to do with a change in identity (Terenzini et al. 1996; cf. Jackson 2003). In this way the transition process must be seen as a change inside as well as outside the classroom. It is not only a change of the type of study situation, with higher demands on students’ use of time, but also a new social situation: moving away from home, financial stress, new friends, etc. In this new setting, how can higher education find new ways with the aim to give students opportunities for lifelong learning and to learn and be aware of this process, in collaboration with teachers? There is a need to understand the transition process when students start their university studies. On the one hand, research has focused on the socialisation of students—a process that incorporates a ‘validation’ of a student, to be regarded as a person with competence for higher education (Terenzini et al. 1996). On the other hand, teachers often focus on learning outcomes in terms of the number of credits a student has received during their first year. This focus is associated with what Marton and Sa¨ljo¨ (1997) have called shallow learning—that is, learning what is needed to pass an exam. Another focus is important-—how to make students aware of a deep approach to learning, where outcomes are not only credits, but include the capacity to learn more effectively; thus, learning to learn is the key. Higher education is increasingly subject to economic and managerial considerations and many teachers today are not necessarily tenured, but are on short-term contracts (Biggs 2003). Institutions are under pressure regarding accountability, change, and quality control. This also means larger class sizes, increased student intake, fewer staff, and new courses, which puts new pressure on teaching skills

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(Biggs 2003). Ramsden argues that higher education is part of what he sees as a ‘global shift to a new way of creating and using knowledge’ (Ramsden 2003, 3). This shift can be seen as corresponding to changes within funding and organisation of research, in that it focuses on problem solving and students’ needs. It promotes transdisciplinarity, competitiveness, and market orientation (Gibbons et al. 1994; Ramsden 2003). Thus we can see how students have to become more focused and more goal-oriented, and cannot digress from the programme they are studying. To make the transition process as smooth as possible it is important to deal with these issues. McInnis (2001) argues, however, that the problem is the way the question is posed. Much research today, he says, is directed towards programme evaluation and institutional assessment, in order to improve students’ positive experience. What McInnis found was that institutions were more interested in trying to obtain a substantial and comprehensive curriculum, than in asking students what they find important in the transition process. In this process both internal factors such as the learning environment and external factors such as students’ personal life are crucial (McInnis 2001; Harrison 2006). In a study of first-year experiences, Rhodes and Neville (2004) found eight facets that were important for students’ experience of their first year: balance between study and personal life; availability of learning resources; society’s views of students; feeling able to cope with workload; physical condition of the learning environment; feeling able to get financial advice; variety of assessment techniques; and other students’ views of university life. What they found as factors most likely to lead to a student finishing their education were the chance of a career, good self-confidence, and a stimulating course. Factors that resulted in students leaving were debt, poor teaching, and not coping with workload. Approaches to learning and learning styles In discussing students’ anticipation and ways of approaching higher education, many studies have investigated students’ approaches to learning (Marton and Sa¨ljo¨ 1997; Biggs 2003; Ramsden 2003). Approaches to learning are primarily concepts that characterise students as either active or passive in their learning. Students do what they think is asked of them, using techniques to learn as much factual knowledge as possible, or they are interested in the subject in a way where understanding and comprehending course material is the focus (Biggs, Kember, and Leung 2001). Within the literature there are two main perspectives on approaches to learning – one looking at students’ approaches as individual experiences and understanding of the learning situation, and one looking at students’ approaches as general styles related to the learning context (Cuthbert 2005). The former is based on phenomenographic studies where the notion of approaches is seen as personal experiences of learning situations (Marton and Sa¨ljo¨ 1997). The latter is based on findings from survey studies combining the concept of generic learning styles with the notion that there are effective ways to teach that would help students improve their knowledge and marks, enabling them to utilise their preferred learning style (Ramsden 2003). Marton and Sa¨ljo¨ (1997) presented the concepts of deep and surface approaches to learning as students’ understanding of learning, where a deep approach is oriented towards meaning, while a shallow approach is oriented towards reproduction. Ramsden (2003), on the other hand, sees learning in a context by dividing learning

50 J. Hultberg et al. approaches into a structural category (‘How’ – the specific situation, its context, etc.) and a meaning category (‘What’ – the experience of learning), which then are divided into two separate sub-categories. The sub-categories of ‘How’ are ‘holistic’ and ‘atomistic’, and the sub-categories of ‘What’ are ‘deep’ and ‘surface’. Ramsden means that this model can be used to discuss general tendencies in students’ learning approaches, which he calls orientations to studying. Ramsden shows that even though a deep approach tends to be connected with involvement, fulfilment and pleasure, it does not guarantee better results since assessment methods may not test understanding. Thus students’ approaches to learning are one important component, but not the only one. The quality of teaching, the learning environment, and assessment methods are also important. Biggs (2003) tries to define good teaching by presenting three interacting factors that have implications for learning: engagement, learning-related activities, and students’ academic orientation. According to Biggs there exists a spontaneous learning approach of ‘high-level engagement’. The goal of good teaching is overcoming low-level engagement from the student by helping them to employ an active approach to learning. Thus, learning approaches as related to students’ experiences could be manipulated according to the teaching approach. Scholarship of teaching—teaching the teachers It is important to raise the level of awareness that teachers’ approaches to teaching influence students’ approaches. Scholarship of teaching encompasses theories of education and teaching as well as personal experiences, and is seen as a parallel career strategy to research, making teaching open for peer review and assessment in new ways (Kreber 2002a). The concept of the scholarship of teaching was taken up by Boyer (1990) to promote the professionalisation of teaching in higher education. In the beginning the concept focused more on reward structures and making the status of teaching comparable with that of research. Boyer meant that the scholarship of teaching was a form where theories of teaching meet the personal experiences of teaching. To reflect on teaching was characteristic of what became known as expert teachers (Biggs 2003). However, scholarship of learning prioritises disciplinary knowledge and contextual practice over general pedagogical knowledge (Palmer and Collins 2006), and it has become a research field in its own right, where reflection, research on teaching, and dissemination is central (Kreber 2001, 2002b; Trigwell and Shale 2004). As Trigwell and Shale (2004) put it, the field is ‘trying to make scholarly processes transparent and publicly available for peer scrutiny’ (525). An important aspect taken up by Kreber (2002b) is that the scholarship of teaching focuses on the ability of faculty to do educational research in their own discipline. Thus excellent scholarship does not become the dissemination of what is seen as good pedagogic/didactic theories, but the development of local practices in correlation to disciplines; as Kreber (2002b) puts it: ‘effective teaching is linked to learning about the discipline, learning about how students learn, and learning about the wisdom of practice’ (157). The LearnAble project In the LearnAble project, we combine teachers and students from different disciplines. We see that it is important for students and teachers to meet and reflect

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on their basic assumptions. It is possible that through a deeper understanding of different conceptions of the world through reflection we can facilitate further collaboration. We cannot only look at students’ learning approaches, but must also consider teachers’ approaches to teaching. The way we teach and assess students influences their learning approach, as do the quality of assignment tasks that we set students (Trigwell and Shale 2004). Biggs’ (2003) and Ramsden’s (2003) views are important for their focus on teaching approaches. As Biggs argues, getting students to employ an active and engaging learning approach requires a great deal of professional development as a teacher, but also knowledge of pedagogy (Prosser and Trigwell 1999). The LearnAble project was started in order to address the transitional process, students’ learning approaches, and teachers’ awareness of their teaching. The project involved development and implementation of a course for students entitled ‘Introduction to academic studies within health science’. The project has been run twice across four programmes at the Sahlgrenska Academy. The Sahlgrenska Academy is the faculty of health sciences at Go¨teborg University. The programmes involved so far have been audiology, dental hygiene, dietetics, and public health science. The LearnAble course incorporates around 135 students each year. At the same time a course in pedagogy for higher education for teachers, ‘Teaching in academic studies in health science education’, was developed and implemented, with 16 teachers each year attending the course. In this course the teachers were also active as tutors for groups of six to ten students each. Students from the different programmes were mixed in the face-to-face and self-study modules. The aim of mixing students was to establish a better understanding between students of the different programmes and thus enhance future collaboration in the health-care sector. Study in higher education puts higher demand on students’ approaches to learning. Providing tools for such learning must be a central issue of an introduction to higher education. As we know, the way we teach and assess students also influences approaches (Biggs, Kember, and Leung 2001; Cuthbert 2005). Through scaffolded instruction, learners are motivated to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. Self-evaluation and reflection on learning experiences stimulate and train critical thinking and problem-solving. Students’ self-evaluations can become useful feedback for reflective teachers. Thus, in addition to teaching a student course, the teachers must acquire insight into teaching in higher education, as well as regarding the heterogeneity of students’ background and knowledge level. We argue that the transition process must be regarded as a process that can be divided into three equally important areas: information, instruction, and integration, which can be seen as a process (see Figure 1). In the LearnAble project, we try to incorporate all three areas in an introductory course by focusing not only on formal aspects such as getting familiar with official course documents, but also on questions of learning, since we find that understanding one’s approach to learning makes future learning easier. The areas identified are not divided into static parts but are seen as a process. Information deals with what the students need to know in order to start their academic life, official documents, how to enrol for courses, where to find further material, etc. Instructions deal with how they are supposed to deal with different issues, such as understanding course plans, organising their daily work, dealing with lectures and

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Figure 1. The contextual view of the introductory course.

tutorials, assessments, etc. Integration deals with the way we learn and understand academic knowledge and academic culture, as well as the process of becoming a part of that culture; here, discussions of learning and learning styles are of vital importance. The content of the course for students is research skills, tools for learning and communication, and ethical and personal values applied to the general topic of health. The content of the course for teachers is pedagogic and didactic with a focus on health science, and educational perspectives on information and communication technology (ICT) and tutoring. The courses took place over the first ten weeks. The teachers’ course started prior to the students’ course in order for the teachers to be prepared to apply the theories in teaching when tutoring the students (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. The parallel tracks of student and teacher courses.

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The courses consist of both face-to-face modules—meetings with six to ten students from different education programmes and one teacher—and self-study modules using a learning management system (LMS). In the face-to-face modules, the students collaborated to identify a health problem. They used tools for learning to seek evidence-based knowledge in order to prepare for the assessment that was a scholarly paper that could be presented either using ICT-based media or as a poster presentation. The teacher’s role was to supervise the group, engaging all students in the work to further their self-understanding of learning styles. In the self-study modules, students were asked to write reflective diaries and self-evaluations of their learning process. Teachers commented on students’ reflective diaries, with all comments being confidential. Trigger situations were used to initiate the learning process, consisting of a video, a panel discussion, or a lecture. The teachers were asked to assess how their strategies of teaching in the students’ course influenced students’ learning as seen through their reflective diaries throughout the course. General questions were discussed within the small groups. The project was followed up through several evaluation processes using different methods. For a general analysis of the project a fourth-generation evaluation process was used (Guba and Lincoln 1989), involving interested partners to create a survey. Course evaluation was carried out by online evaluation form, and approaches to learning and teaching were evaluated using the Learning Process Questionnaire (Kember, Biggs, and Leung 2004) and the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (Trigwell and Prosser 2004; Trigwell, Prosser, and Ginns 2005). In the latter, it is deep or surface approaches that are primarily of interest. The results from the fourth-generation evaluation and the questionnaires will be reported elsewhere. The project was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine at Go¨teborg University. Some first issues from the course evaluation can be mentioned. Many of the students valued the library education, getting to know students from other programmes, the extent of self-education in form of an essay, and the positive experience of being in the smaller study groups. Another issue that was experienced positively was reflection on group processes. One student expressed this in the following way: I wondered in the beginning what kind of course this was and thought it was more complicated than it turned out to be. One often gets suspicious towards new things, which many students were, but one has to accept it as it is. I think it is good that Gothenburg University engages in students in this way. Not everybody gets to learn these things, and one has use of it further on. I also appreciate that students are shown such interest and given space already in the beginning of a course. It’s strong to do something different and to dare try new things with students. Overall LearnAble has been good, although PingPong [the LMS system] should be used in more courses – when will you start that?

On the whole we found that many of the students were positive about an introduction to studies in higher education, and perceived that the course had given them useful knowledge for future studies such as library information and information and presentation technology. They also found it positive to learn the basics of scientific methods and reading scientific articles. As for the group work, they found it positive to work in groups, especially using the discussion groups on the LMS system. Using an LMS system created a new dimension that fused the groups together. How well this made a change to their learning styles is yet to be

54 J. Hultberg et al. seen, but that it started reflective thinking on their own learning is one important finding. On the negative side many students found it hard to study in parallel with other courses and lacked a clear understanding of their own subject area to use in cooperation with other students. This points to the contextual issues of identity. Identity is the central issue; to have something to relate to. Students all attend programmes that lead to a profession and this is their focus of attention. An important finding here is to make the introductory course a part of their programme in order for them to reflect on their professional identity also. Many teachers experienced that it was very helpful to attend a course themselves, to gain tools to use in the tutorial groups. It also raised issues on what a tutor is, and gave a base to reflect on their own engagement. One of the teachers expressed the idea that the course differed from other courses in that it gave them as both students and tutors a more central role, and made them take responsibility not only for their own learning but for the whole group. One teacher wrote: When one attends a course one sometimes feels more or less satisfied with oneself which can depend on many factors, factors within oneself, in the environment, or that the course is not what one has anticipated. That’s how it often is. What makes this course special is that it to a high degree is a commitment and that I now feel such a responsibility for more than my own study.

Another teacher wrote: After having written a reflecting journal I feel safer in the role as a tutor/teacher. I can now more clearly see where I am in my own learning process. Moreover, I have come to understand that you do not become a good teacher overnight, but that the teaching role is a lifelong developing process. Now when I feel safer in my role as a teacher I believe I have also become more calm and perceptive towards my students. In addition I have started to more critically see how I teach, and what assumptions I make. In the future it will be hard for me not to reflect over how I act as a teacher. I am stuck in the reflecting process!

Being both a teacher and a learner raises new questions for tutors and focuses their attention on pedagogical issues, enhancing their reflective practice. Conclusions and reflections on the future of the LearnAble project Overall, the transition process can be seen as a rite of passage, but it is not the only one a student passes through in his/her academic career. The transition process must be regarded in a context with several different actors, and with a differing situation. One important actor is the teacher, with his/her long experience and background, well grounded in the academic culture. As for students, starting a longer professional programme is different from taking shorter courses. There is also the diversity of students’ previous experiences and backgrounds, as well as their expectations. The third important part is the setting. The way students are received tends to establish their understanding of academic life. Therefore we must understand who the student is, his/her background, previous experience, and expectations. With a heterogeneous background, cultural aspects must also be considered. Some tutors faced significant challenges in developing facilitation skills, found it difficult to engage in reflective inquiry, and preferred an instructional approach from senior staff and a teacher-centred approach. Perhaps more emphasis should be placed on encouraging the teachers to adopt the model of reflective practitioner scaffolded by a programme about scholarship of teaching. When it comes to

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learning activities we suggest it would be valuable to keep a reflective journal for the different programmes involved also after the course and to identify reflective questions regularly. Programme standards should also be developed based on the concept of the scholarship of teaching. Tutors’ development should be further developed by an inquiry process into their teaching equivalent to inquiry in their research discipline by observing other tutors’ tutorial groups, giving effective feedback to each other, and writing a reflective philosophy statement about their teaching practice. As we have noted, students valued working in groups and using a LMS. The social context of learning from each other worked well, as well as the flexibility of the LMS through access to online forums. Writing a scholarly paper, together with presenting it, gives the work a real touch and makes the students more aware of the research process. It also connects well to the ideas of reflective learning processes. Thus group work should be promoted. It is important that students receive effective feedback from tutors. What we found in this project was that an introductory course must give students a foundation for further studies based on the structure of higher education, its goal, and the different way of assessment, together with a reflective attitude towards one’s own learning with the aim of scaffolding students for self-directed learning. These issues are not only important in the first semester but should also be utilized when moving into the second or third cycle of higher education (as defined by the Bologna process). This active learning (Graffam 2007) project ought to be further developed. The rapid increase of knowledge in pedagogy as well as in other disciplines requires competence in order to incorporate learning into one’s career plans. Educational research has a big challenge to improve learning methods/tools to gain the most from studies in higher education.

Acknowledgement The study was supported by a grant from the Council for the Renewal of Higher Education, Sweden.

Notes on contributors John Hultberg, PhD, is senior lecturer in Theory of Science. Presently he is responsible for the quality assurance at the Sahlgrenska Academy. His research has been focused on the development of new disciplines within higher education and first year experiences. Kaety Plos, PhD, is senior lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Health and Care Sciences at the Sahlgrenska Academy at Go¨teborg University. She is a coordinator for the student course in the LearnAble project. Graham Hendry, PhD, is senior lecturer in the Centre for Innovation in Professional Health Education and Research at the University of Sydney. He coordinates tutor development and Masters units of study in problem-based learning and educational evaluation, with research interests that include student learning and academic staff development. Karin Kjellgren, RN, PhD, is associate dean for undergraduate studies at the Sahlgrenska Academy. Dr Kjellgren coordinates the educational development of the 18 degree programmes in health sciences.

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