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Different meanings of deep and shallow learning

Slides, reading list and other material associated with it are available here.

Speakers

Steve Draper, Dept. of Psychology, University of Glasgow
and
Gregor Kennedy University of Melbourne.

Time and place

5pm, Wednesday 12 Jan 2003.
Centre for Science Education, room 375, St.Andrews Building (11 Eldon Street)
(How to get there: words.) (How to get there: a bad map.)

Abstract

We will discuss some of the different meanings attached in the literature to "deep and shallow" learning. Some of the kinds of contrast or tension between different pieces of work in this area are:

Narrow information processing view (e.g. Craik & Lockhart), where shallow is processing only the sensory features (e.g. lines, brightness), and deep is processing the meaning of a sentence; versus a general broad educational view where shallow is learning to pass an exam, and deep is learning to understand.
Scope or scale: how to design whole courses to promote deep or shallow learning; vs. Saljo's work on students' comprehension of short passages of text; vs. Craik & Lockhart's scale of single words or sentences.
Deep and shallow as different motivations (of a learner), or as different methods (or study skills or strategies).

In addition, we hope to mention the issue of students' expectations and methods of judging their own learning progress. This is probably best viewed as an aspect of their study methods or strategy. However it links to issues such as that raised by Bill Byers in the previous seminar, with how students often complain if material is left out and are happy if it seems complete, yet this has no effect, or a negative one, on their actual learning. That is, students' idea on monitoring progress by "Can I follow that?" is a poor indicator of other (exam) measures of their learning (such as "can you apply that to this problem?"). In fact, we could try out the idea that there is a shallow-to-deep sequence here too: Following what is said, reproducing it, applying it to new cases, ... understanding what its limits and the problems with it might be.

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