The impact of curriculum change on health sciences first year students’ approaches to learning

Abstract

This study aimed to use a learning inventory (the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students, ASSIST) to measure the impact of a curriculum change on students' approaches to learning in two large courses in a health sciences first year programme. The two new Human Body Systems (HUBS) courses were designed to encourage students to take a deep approach to learning. ASSIST was completed by 599 students enrolled in a biology class in 2006 that was part of the old curriculum, and by 705 students at the beginning and end of the new HUBS courses in 2007. Changes in students' approaches to learning over time were examined. The ASSIST scores for both HUBS courses reflected the dominance of a surface approach, followed by a strategic and then a deep approach. However, by the end of the year, students were taking a deep and strategic approach to their studies to a greater extent, and a surface approach to a lesser extent. Moreover, students enrolled in the new course adopted a deep approach to their studies to a significantly greater degree than those studying the old curriculum. Despite the predominance of a surface approach, the results suggest that it is possible to bring about small but significant positive changes in students' learning behaviour in a very large class through curriculum change. The proportion of students preferring a surface approach, and results showing that high performance on the final exam was significantly correlated with a surface approach, probably reflected contextual factors, including assessment, and is the focus of ongoing curriculum development.

Changes in approaches to learning over three years of university undergraduate study

“…Some studies report a positive effect of learning outcomes with an increase in a deep approach to learning (e.g., Entwistle, Tait, & McCune, 2000;Diseth & Martinsen, 2003;Diseth, 2007). However, Diseth and Martinsen (2003) reported that deep approaches did not predict achievement in a cohort of undergraduate psychology students, and our own study of first-year science students showed that a surface approach correlated with achievement (Walker, Spronken-Smith, Bond, McDonald, Reynolds, & Martin, 2010). As Entwistle (2000) stated, "A deep approach to studying is generally related to high levels of academic achievement, but only where the assessment procedures emphasise and reward personal understanding" (p.4).…”

“…In a previous study we reported that a cohort of first year health science students was initially more likely to take a surface approach to learning, but a statistically significant move to a deeper learning approach was developed over one year of study (Walker et al, 2010). Further, there was a significant positive correlation between the extent that students adopted a surface approach to learning and their final grade (Walker et al, 2010).…”

“…We previously reported that there was a significant decrease in surface score for a larger cohort of first year students during their academic year (Walker et al, 2010), and this trend appears to continue to a minor extent into the students' third year, but is not a statistically significant decrease. Closer analysis shows that the subscales moved in different directions.…”

“…2). Non-normalised scores were used for this analysis, similar to our previous analyses (Walker et al, 2010). Use of deep and strategic approaches to learning remained high for those students with relatively high use of deep and strategic approaches at first year, but students who reported low use of these learning approaches at first year reported greatly increased use of deep and strategic learning strategies at the end of third year (Fig 2A, B).…”

“…Further, there was a significant positive correlation between the extent that students adopted a surface approach to learning and their final grade (Walker et al, 2010). At that time we hypothesised that workload pressure and parts of the assessment, by necessity, were rewarding a surface approach, preventing further development of a deeper approach to learning.…”