It is now well established that students can hold differing, but readily identifiable, conceptions of learning. This study attempted to discover whether parallel conceptions of teaching can be identified and, if so, whether they are related to student learning outcomes. Initial investigation was through semi‐structured interviews with lecturers at a polytechnic. Constructs identified from the interview transcript were transformed into scales for a questionnaire. Different sets of polytechnic lecturers responded to trial and final versions of the questionnaire. Analysis of the final version of the questionnaire identified two main orientations to teaching — learning facilitation and knowledge transmission — made up of five and four subscales respectively. Mean scores for the two orientations were then computed for 16 departments in two institutions. The departmental scores were found to correlate with data on student learning from longitudinal surveys employing repeated applications of the Study Process Questionnaire. Departments with high scores on knowledge transmission discouraged students from adopting a deep approach to study. Departments in which learning facilitation predominated seemed less likely to induce surface approaches.

There is general consensus in the literature that the goal of education is to increase the students' capacity to learn, to provide them with analytic skills and to increase their ability to deal with new information and draw independent conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the extent to which higher education does promote these abilities which can be summarised as independent learning. Quantitative data from the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) and qualitative data (semi-structured student interviews) from a tertiary institution in Hong Kong are compared with similar findings from institutions in other parts of the world. The relationship between demographic variables and the SPQ sub-scales appears to follow a pattern consistent with results from elsewhere. As students become older they are less likely to adopt a surface approach and more likely to adopt a deep one. However, there is a decrease in the use of a deep approach from first to third year of a course, suggesting that education at this tertiary institution does not promote independent learning. Possible explanations are derived from the literature and the student interviews. Implications for the structure of tertiary education in Hong Kong are discussed.

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