Exploring teachers’ and students’ conceptions of learning in two further education colleges

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Exploring teachers’ and students’conceptions of learning in two furthereducation collegesCarl Towler a , Pam Woolner a & Kate Wall aa Education Communication and Language Sciences , NewcastleUniversity, King George VI Building, Queen Victoria Rd, Newcastleupon Tyne, NE1 7RU , United KingdomPublished online: 29 Jul 2011.

To cite this article: Carl Towler , Pam Woolner & Kate Wall (2011) Exploring teachers’ andstudents’ conceptions of learning in two further education colleges, Journal of Further and HigherEducation, 35:4, 501-520, DOI: 10.1080/0309877X.2011.590582

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Exploring teachers’ and students’ conceptions of learning in twofurther education colleges

Carl Towler*, Pam Woolner and Kate Wall

Education Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, KingGeorge VI Building, Queen Victoria Rd, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UnitedKingdom

(Received 18 March 2010; final version received 12 August 2010)

The Learning to Learn in Further Education Research Project (L2L) iscoordinated by the Campaign for Learning and run by researchers atNewcastle and Glasgow Universities. The project involves teachers attwo further education (FE) colleges, Lewisham and Northumberland,using practitioner enquiry methodologies to explore and share whatworks in learning and teaching in their context.This article uses data collected as part of the larger project to explore

how the combination of societal, political and economic forces that haveshaped provision in this sector impact on students’ and teachers’ viewsof learning when compared with the compulsory sector. The authorssought to establish whether factors such as an ethos of performativityand instrumentalisation of the curriculum were indeed at play in shapingunderstandings of teaching and learning, and what it means to learn inan FE context.Telephone interviews with 16 teachers provided evidence that such

pressures were impacting on teaching despite the ambitions of the teach-ers that their practice be responsive to student need rather than curricularimperatives. Involvement with the university and the L2L project wasseen by many as a way of countering perceived constraints on their free-dom to exercise professional judgement. Face-to-face mediated inter-views with 64 learners drawn from a number of qualification routesrevealed a simplistic model for learning based around listening and thepractising of skills. The authors discuss the extent to which studentsappear to understand this as building the necessary foundations for later,more sophisticated learning rather than as requirements of their coursesper se.

Keywords: Learning to Learn; practitioner enquiry; further education

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Journal of Further and Higher EducationAquatic InsectsVol. 35, No. 4, November 2011, 501–520

ISSN 0309-877X print/ISSN 1469-9486 online� 2011 UCUhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2011.590582http://www.tandfonline.com

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Introduction

The Learning to Learn in Further Education project (FE project) is a two-year project coordinated by the Campaign for Learning and run by a teamof researchers at the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching at Newcas-tle University and Glasgow University. The project runs in parallel with,and is complementary to, the Learning to Learn in Schools projects (Wallet al. 2009; Wall et al. 2010). These projects aim to develop understandingsof progression in Learning to Learn (L2L) – knowledge, skills, dispositionsand the development of learners’ autonomy – and to further recognise therole of enquiry in teachers’ and students’ learning. In particular, the FE pro-ject intends to explore the transferability of professional enquiry (Baumfield,Hall, and Wall 2008) into this arguably very different sector and to furtherdevelop and contextualise understandings about learning.

The project began in September 2008 and involves two colleges locatedin two very different areas of England – one urban and one rural. This arti-cle aims to document the initial perspectives of the participant FE teachersand students as regards what counts in learning. In particular, we are inter-ested in understanding commonalities and differences in the conceptions oflearning held across the FE and school sectors. The cross-sector element ofthe L2L projects is still at an early stage, but so far we have found similari-ties across teachers from the various sectors in their motivations forresearching their own practice, in the overarching interests they have inlearning, and in the concerns they have for their learners (Wall et al. 2010).

Yet it is also clear that the FE sector is a very different context for learn-ing and teaching. Even though our FE colleagues might share with theschool teachers similar aspirations and overviews of education, the demandsof college learning, catering for such a range of student needs, may have animpact on beliefs held by students and teachers about learning in general orabout learning in college specifically. In this study we have identified varia-tion within the FE project between teachers’ and students’ beliefs aboutlearning and teaching. This leads to discussion of the potential impact ofL2L on FE-sector conceptions of learning.

The further education context

To a certain extent FE colleges, more than schools and universities, areexpected to be all things to all people. In comparison with schools and uni-versities, they deliver a wider range of education and training programmes(Salisbury, Jephcote, and Roberts 2009). A policy move towards wideningparticipation has meant an increasingly complex mix of entrants, includinghigh numbers who are unfocused, low in confidence and burdened with dif-ficult home circumstances (Edward et al. 2007). Given that learning inde-pendently may be in part dependent on an individual having personalambitions for the future (Broad 2006), scaffolding the skills for lifelong

502 C. Towler et al.

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learning in FE may thus present a particular challenge over and above thatencountered in other educational phases (Amalathas 2010). The directiontaken at policy level has been to streamline the remit and functioning of thesector in order to make it more responsive to the needs of society and moremanageable in terms of measuring and controlling its impact. Two forces inparticular, having their origin in government ambitions for FE, seem to beat play: the instrumentalisation of the curriculum; and a culture of perform-ativity in teaching practice. Both are potential factors that impact on the nat-ure of the Learning to Learn in FE Project, and therefore act to distinguishit from its sister project based in schools (Higgins et al. 2007; Wall et al.2009).

Recently there have been calls for FE to carve a unique niche for itselfin the education marketplace. In the eyes of some, this is a matter of priori-tising the societal need which the sector is primarily geared to serve:

To achieve the positive vision set out in this report, the FE college of thefuture must be clear about its primary purpose: to improve employability andskills in its local area contributing to economic growth and social inclusion.(Foster 2005, 38)

Possibly as a result of this, subtle differences now exist between how learn-ing in schools and colleges is defined at policy level. Two definitions of life-long learning are shown below. The first, relating to the learning of primaryage children, connects skills to the spheres of thinking and learning as wellas to personal and social development. The FE equivalent, shown under-neath, leaves this open to interpretation but frames it in a discourse heavywith references to employability and qualifications.

Essentials for learning and life [in primary schools] - The essentials forlearning and life are literacy, numeracy, information and communication tech-nology (ICT) capability, learning and thinking skills, personal and emotionalskills, and social skills. The essentials for learning and life are designed to beembedded and developed across the curriculum. (QCDA 2009, 3)

Learning [in FE] - Attainment of learning goals, including qualifications;development of skills; gaining knowledge and understanding, including infor-mation and advice on learning, and development and employment. (Ofsted2009a, 10)

Under this model, the effectiveness of education is measured in terms ofeconomic indicators, such as rising youth employment, as well societal indi-cators, including increasing access to higher education. Globalisation andthe consequent need for a creative, highly skilled and flexible workforce,allied with the recent economic downturn, have intensified pressure oncolleges to make a measurable contribution towards the achievement ofworld-class skills by 2020 (Ofsted 2009b). Although these pressures are

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understandable, there is the potential for an emphasis on quantifiable outputsto distort learning in FE to the extent that arguably much of importance isset aside (James and Biesta 2007). Particularly vulnerable, perhaps, are thenotions of developing effective learning lifelong and lifewide (Amalathas2010) and seeing the potential of the learner ‘as a whole’ (Pring 2008), thathave been highly valued in the L2L schools project (Higgins et al. 2007).An emphasis on performance indicators in education not only sidelines themore intangible aspects of learning and development but, potentially, leadsto the conclusion that the hard to measure either does not matter or does notexist (Reeves 1995, cited in Wallace 2002). The end result, it seems, is ‘animpoverished curriculum for the majority of school leavers and adults enter-ing further education’ (Ecclestone 2008, 10). This is a charge that has beenlevelled against the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in particular –a qualification principally geared towards meeting the needs of employers.When compared with A/AS level courses and the recently introduced VCEs,the NVQ system presents a prescriptive model of learning that places heavyemphasis on competence and performance of discrete skills at the expenseof creativity and problem-solving ability (Ogunleye 2006). Instrumentalisa-tion of the curriculum, in other words, is in danger of disenfranchisingteaching professionals from the deeper aspects of learning processes (e.g.creativity, critical thinking) that are essential if students are to acquire a gen-uine ‘learner voice’.

Given current fiscal constraints and the importance placed on FE as avehicle for social and economic growth and development, it is to beexpected that successive governments will seek to put their stamp on thewhat and how of learning in colleges. However, under New Labour, the sys-tems by which provision was planned, funded and audited have been com-pared, by some, to the former soviet GOSPLAN system for economicplanning (Keep 2006). An unfortunate side effect of this has been theincreasing performativity that characterises professional practice in colleges,whereby it is sometimes more important to know who might blame you forfailing to implement changes than it is to know who has introduced themand with what warrant (Edward et al. 2007). As a result, professional auton-omy, creativity and the ability to respond flexibly in the face of individualneed is subordinated to the need for consistency and compliance with quali-fication requirements:

It has been argued that the swing in policy to include creativity/creative learningcontrasts with former (and continuing) audit-culture and performative policieswhich imbue low trust in professional judgement, in favour of technician-ori-ented pedagogies and technicist-oriented curricula. (Craft and Jeffrey 2008, 579)

Under such conditions, FE practitioners can find that supply side consider-ations involving recruitment, retention and funding are driving provision


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whilst learning, despite its centrality to college mission statements, is almostentirely absent from discourse within the culture (Salisbury, Jephcote, andRoberts 2009).

Learning to Learn in Further Education

The development of Learning to Learn and associated pedagogies has, tosome, been a substantial part of the backlash against the performance-domi-nated rhetoric of the education system in general. Approaches that privilegethe learning process, progression and skills have become increasingly com-mon in schools and latterly in policy documents (e.g. Taylor 2005). Extend-ing this standpoint, the wide-ranging remit of the Teaching and LearningResearch Project (TLRP) emphasised the need for conversations about learn-ing and effective pedagogy to extend across all sectors, age phases andtypes of education (James and Brown 2005). Yet, for many reasons associ-ated with the discussion above, the participation of the FE sector in suchdiscussions remains relatively muted. While the Learning to Learn inSchools Project is entering its tenth year (Rodd 2001; Rodd 2002; Higginset al. 2007; Wall et al. 2009; Wall et al. 2010), the identification and devel-opment of a similar focus in FE is relatively new and in an embryonic state(Finlay et al. 2007), although from our experience to date, it is no lessenthusiastically embraced.

This article asks whether the tensions within the FE sector, discussedabove, are reflected in the beliefs and conceptions about learning expressedby learners and teachers at the start of the Learning to Learn in FE Project.Teachers who have chosen to involve themselves in such a project might beexpected to be more able to resolve these dilemmas and find space to dis-cuss pedagogy as well as performance, but we would still expect their com-ments to provide some suggestion of these pressures if they are as markedas other researchers have claimed. A potential overview with which tounderstand perspectives of both the learners and the teachers in FE is sug-gested by the work of Hadar (2009). His analysis of secondary school stu-dents’ ideas about learning proposed a distinction between ideal learningand the learning that is practised, assessed and valued in a school context.Hadar found that these two types of learning rarely, if ever, co-existed in theschool students’ day-to-day experiences, and suggests two possible reasonsfor this:

� The school context, characterised by curricular demands and policyrequirements, enforces a notion of learning centred on compliance thatis not ‘ideal learning friendly’.

� The students, although aware of what ideal learning comprises, are notyet ready to take responsibility for self regulating their own develop-ment.


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These first of these suggestions resonates with the concerns discussedabove relating to performativity in FE, while the latter hints that studentsmay be complicit in enacting an instrumentalised curriculum that places fewdemands on their intellect. We wanted to see if students and staff at bothcolleges exhibited similar patterns of thinking to those reported in thisstudy.

Method

Teacher interviews

Semi-structured interviews were carried out by telephone with a total of 16teachers, nine from Lewisham College and seven from Northumberland Col-lege, within the first few months of their involvement with L2L. Included inthe sample were practitioners in basic skills, hair and beauty, travel and tour-ism, and building and construction, as well as staff charged with ensuringquality of provision. The interviews aimed to provide an insight into theteachers’ initial perceptions as to what participation in L2L would mean forthem, their college and their learners. The questions were structured aroundthe following prompts:

� What does L2L mean to you?� What do you think are the 3 key things that a L2L college does?� What do you think are the 3 key things that a L2L teacher does?� What do you think are the 3 key things that a L2L learner does?� What do you hope to gain through your involvement with L2L?

The interviews were tape recorded, anonymised and then transcribed beforeanalysis. The resulting transcripts were explored for common trends usingan iterative process of theory and construct generation (Glaser 1992).

Learner interviews

Interviews were completed face to face with 64 learners from both colleges(see Table 1) in November 2009.

The interview was designed to explore the types of learning that studentsthemselves prioritised against those that they felt the college privileged. Inparticular, we were interested in whether there was a perceived difference inthe way ‘ideal’, ‘shared’ and ‘school’ learning concepts were valued by stu-dents themselves and by the college. The interview was mediated by meansof a diamond ranking exercise (e.g. Connor 1991; Aspinwall, Simkins, Wil-kinson, and McAuley 1992) using nine cards marked with descriptors drawnfrom the Hadar (2009) study (see Figure 1). The students were first asked‘What is the learning that is valued in college?’ and then arranged the cardsinto a diamond shape (see Figure 2). Afterwards, they were required to


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repeat the process in response to a second question: ‘What is the learningthat is important for you and your life?’ Learners were then encouraged toexplain the reasoning behind each formation and, where possible, commentswere recorded and transcribed for analysis. A minority of learners werehappy to be interviewed individually, but most preferred to carry out thetask in pairs or small groups.

Analysis of the mediated interview was undertaken in two forms. First,the results of the diamonds were calculated based on the rank given to eachof the nine statements. Second, the rationales given by the students for theirranking were considered, through reference to notes and recordings of someinterviews. Through both approaches, the intention was to investigate

Figure 1. Descriptors of school, ideal and shared learning used in the diamondrank exercise.

Table 1. Students interviewed and number of diamonds created.

Course N No. diamonds

NVQ Beauty Therapy (BT) (N) 6 3Diploma Travel and Tourism (T&T) (N) 16 8Hair and Beauty (14–19 Diploma) (H&B) (N) 11 4Youth Entry to Further Education (YEFE) (L) 2 2Youth Entry to Higher Education (YEHE) (L) 5 5Adult Learners (Full Time) (ALFT) (L) 8 2Adult Learners (Foundation) (ALF) (L) 10 2Art and Design BTEC National Diploma (A&D) (L) 6 2

Total 64 28

(N=Northumberland; L=Lewisham)


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understandings of learning across the sample of students, particularly look-ing for differences in individuals’ ideas about ‘lifelong’ and ‘college’ learn-ing. We were also interested in any patterns of understanding expressed bystudents from different colleges or taking particular courses.

Results

Teacher interviews

Given the very different contexts in which they work, the consensus in theresponses of teachers was surprising. Teachers from both colleges, for exam-ple, made reference to the low expectations that students have of themselveson entry to college in terms of their responsibilities as learners. A numberof comments expressed concern that learners came to college expecting tobe spoon fed and were not well equipped to think for themselves:

We look after the 19-year-olds who, for whatever reason, aren’t able to exitschool. We have certain expectations that they will be motivated towardssecuring their place, which they think is fine, and this is not what we find.They aren’t really interested in opting in. (Teacher 14, Lewisham)

You get vocational teachers who are very enthusiastic and want to impart theirknowledge but are surprised and amazed at the lack of common sense. (Tea-cher 8, Lewisham)

The first years all sit there and they nod and they want to please, and if theydon’t want to please they do nothing. (Teacher 13, Northumberland)

They literally come in and they are not aware – they are just told what to do.They are never asked what they would prefer. (Teacher 15, Northumberland)

The last of the above quotes suggests that, in part, the perceived ambiva-lence of students towards their role may originate in the didactic nature of acurriculum, experienced previously at school or whilst at college. Comments

Figure 2. Diamond rank format and descriptors used to rate importance.


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describing the need to move away from a qualification-driven deliverymodel of teaching would appear to corroborate this and lend weight to thenotion that student passivity may be co-constructed by learners and teachersalike, albeit reluctantly on the part of the teachers:

I think that we are falling in to a trap again and teaching towards a test, so itis about throwing all that out and thinking how students retain the things thatwe are supposed to be doing. (Teacher 1, Lewisham)

And I thought that the learners’ needs were often overlooked. It’s about get-ting them through frameworks and getting what the employer wants, butdoesn’t always help the students. I’ve learned that. (Teacher 6, Northumber-land)

Looking at learning differently and it not being outcome based. (Teacher 13,Northumberland)

However, the following teacher felt that allowing students more say in theirown learning may not be enough in itself. According to her, movement isneeded in terms of students’ readiness to participate and carry their share ofthe load that comprises college learning:

However, I want to see that turn around where they are not saying ‘learn me,teach me’ but they are saying ‘I want to learn that’ or ‘What about that’ andthey are picking the learning rather than me just delivering. (Teacher 11, Lew-isham)

A perceived central function of Learning to Learn in these colleges, there-fore, appears to be to investigate ways of breaking such a cycle and scaf-folding the skills and confidence needed by students to reflect upon andthink critically about their learning from the outset.

A Learning to Learn College is about learners taking responsibility for them-selves, having an integral part in the shaping of the curriculum. (Teacher 6,Northumberland)

I think learners sometimes feel that they can’t do something. Lack belief, firstof all, a lot of students have a lack of belief in what they can and can’t do.(Teacher 7, Lewisham)

There was a recognition that a shift away from delivery models ofpractice would place considerable demands on teachers’ existing peda-gogic knowledge. Instead of simply relaying content, teachers saw theirrole as becoming more complex and reflective, with tacit knowledgeon student capability being used to inform finely tuned judgements onpractice.


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Learning to Learn teachers are passionate about learning, not about their sub-ject area. They’re passionate as much about the learning as about their subject.It’s not a nine to five thing, you sort of live it, don’t you? (Teacher 5, North-umberland)

Being more aware and making the students aware of what they can achieve –what they could achieve rather than just going through the motions. (Teacher15, Northumberland)

Staff reflecting on whether certain techniques are working as well as theyshould and reflecting on what students are telling us. (Teacher 4, Lewisham)

Practitioner enquiry has perceived importance in the L2L project, withresearch seen as a means for teachers to regain the initiative and create thediscourse necessary for this transition to take place. In the opinion of thefollowing teacher, this means that practice can develop to reflect a growingunderstanding of how students learn rather than be made to fit acceptednorms and rules:

The beauty of this is that for it to be really successful, the organisation takessome risks and reacts to what it is given rather than fit the learner voice into ahypothesis that the organisation already had. (Teacher 8, Lewisham)

Learner interviews

When responding to the prompt ‘What is the learning that is valued in col-lege?’ the FE learners, as with the school-aged subjects in the Hadar (2009)study, placed high importance on surface-level conceptions of learning, suchas practising, remembering and, in particular, listening, with less emphasis

Figure 3. Diamond ranking results from prompt: What is the learning that isvalued in college? (X-axis labels relate to the first word in each descriptoridentified in Figure 1).


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on ‘ideal’ definitions such as ‘Putting together what you know and seeingsomething new’ (see Figure 3).

Given the different catchments served by the colleges and the differencesin the samples of students interviewed for this study, one might haveexpected to see a noticeable difference in their respective responses. Asshown in Table 1, the Northumberland college participants were enrolled onvocational routes, whilst those at Lewisham were predominantly attendingcourses providing access to future study. In addition, the Northumberlandcontingent comprised a significant number of school-aged learners (11 stu-dents studying hair and beauty), whilst 18 of the learners from Lewishamwere adult learners, aged 19 and over. However, once again, there was asurprising level of consistency in the comments of students across the twocolleges. Both samples rated listening as most important (68% of Lewishamdiamonds rated it high or top, against 95% of those from Northumberland),with remembering (30% Lewisham versus 33% Northumberland), practising(30% Lewisham versus 46% Northumberland) and adding new knowledge(30% Lewisham versus 35% Northumberland) as the next most prominent.

The expressed views of the learners cast some light on why this mightbe (brackets after quotes refer to the course attended by participants asshown in Table 1). One comment from a learner suggests that the perceptionthat colleges prioritise listening as an important attribute may have its rootsin the behaviour management expectations of teachers at the college:

For the college, listening to what you are being told is the key. Most of ourteachers explain to us that we should listen to what they are saying, be quietin the class and learn from listening rather than talking that much – but obvi-ously expressing your ideas is important as well. (YEHE student ‘D’)

However, more common amongst vocational students was the view that col-leges exist not simply to educate, but to instil professional standards andknowledge. Several learners expressed the view that, to an extent, collegelearning is necessarily didactic because of the nature of its mission – toshow students how to ‘get it right’. Yet the way that this was expressedthrough the diamond ranks seemed to depend largely on the nature of thecourse and the type of experience the learners were engaged in at the time.For example, the beauty therapy students, whose course was at the timeemphasising mastery of practical skills, placed listening and practising ashaving high importance for college learning, whereas the travel and tourismlearners felt listening, but not necessarily practising, was privileged:

I think that this is important at college – you have to listen – it’s got to bedrummed in. We know ourselves, over the past few months, there’s been a lotof repetitive work and it’s been drummed in. It’s getting you to rememberparts of the coursework that you’re doing so that you can do the job basically.That’s why it has been that repetitive. (T&T pair 2)


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You have to learn your manicures first and get assessed on that and then yourfacials. You have to keep doing them until you pass. (BT pair 2)

A noticeable difference between the colleges is evident in the rating givento the ideal descriptor ‘Finding ways to apply knowledge in real situations’by Lewisham students (53% top or high at Lewisham versus 7% Northum-berland). In other words, more than half the diamonds produced at Lewi-sham placed this skill higher in the ranking than either practising orremembering in terms of its value for college learning. The following com-ments suggest that, ironically, vocational routes may be perceived as offer-ing little permission for younger learners to tentatively apply newknowledge early on in their studies. Older learners, or those on routes intohigher education, on the other hand, seem able to connect learning with theirexperiences more easily and, hence, may not suffer the same inhibitions.

This [finding ways to apply knowledge] is at the bottom because you need toknow all the knowledge before you can do it in real life. (T&T pair 5)

You need to know that you are doing it properly and you can’t hurt anybody.(BT pair 3)

I’d say that this [finding ways to apply knowledge] is quite low down becausewe are early on in the course at the moment. They are still helping us todevelop our skills so that we can use them in a final project where we canuse all our skills together. (A&D group 2)

College learning is like business – it is like what I would do in an office. Youare training and learning at the same time. (ALFT group 2)

College is different from schools in Jamaica – there I didn’t use my ideas asmuch – you write about what’s given you. Here you need to add. (YEHE stu-dent ‘S’)

The main difference between our findings and those of Hadar (2009), how-ever, lies in the learners’ expressed notions of lifelong learning. Unlike theaforementioned study found, there is no clear unequivocal contrast betweenthe priorities for learning promoted by the college and those that studentsvalued from the point of view of their own lifelong’ learning agenda (seeFigure 4). Hadar’s study would predict that students would place ‘ideal’concepts (Finding ways to apply knowledge; Putting together what youknow; Developing your own view) higher in the ‘lifelong’ diamond rankthan in the ‘college’ rank, but this appears not to be the case. Conversely,simplistic approaches such as practising and remembering would beexpected to feature lower down the diamonds in the ‘lifelong’ condition but,again, their status remains more or less unchanged. There was a markedreduction in the importance assigned to listening by students in comparison


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with that assigned to it by college, but despite this, it still emerged as theattribute most highly rated.

To some extent, this can be explained by the motivation for attendingcollege which, particularly in the case of vocational courses, is governed bythe need to enhance employability. In this respect, the students are happy tocomply with a delivery model of skills development because, as clients, thatis the service they want most from the college:

That’s why you come to college, so that you can learn skills that you areprimed for in your job. (T&T pair 2)

However, many students, both vocational and non-vocational, talked aboutorganising the cards, not in order of importance necessarily, but in a tempo-ral sequence, whereby knowledge first had to be received and practised so itcould be remembered and added to what was already known. Only after thishad been accomplished could the higher-order skills of applying new learn-ing to practical situations and forming a personal view be attempted. Formany, especially those embarking on a new course of study, listening is thestarting point for this process regardless of the prior knowledge and exper-tise that they bring to their studies:

We thought about the here and now and we thought that listening, absorbingand understanding are more important than voicing your opinion and thinkingabout what’s in the future. You are foundation level here, where you arebuilding up your skills, so it is more important to listen and absorb than it isin 5 years’ time when I can say ‘Yes, I’ve got the paperwork to back it up’ –I’ve passed the course and now can go out into the real world and adapt whatwe’ve learnt. It’s building on your skills till you are comfortable enough totake it to the outside world. (ALF group 1)

Figure 4. Diamond ranking results from prompt: What is the learning that isimportant for you and your life. (X-axis labels relate to the first word in eachdescriptor identified in Figure 1)


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This is in the middle because if you don’t listen then you aren’t going to learnanything. You could come to college and do what you already know and getby, but you need to listen to get new stuff. (A&D group 1)

If you don’t listen you can’t know what to do. If you don’t listen you won’tknow where to start from. (YEHE student ‘T’)

Listen and then you practise and then you put together and find out ways andthen add new knowledge and develop your own view so you can see howideas are connected. (ALFT group 1)

A sequential link between practising and remembering was made by someas a way of embedding new knowledge gained through listening:

You need to listen first then practise then you can remember it. (YEFE student‘T’)

It’s near the top because if you don’t constantly practise something, you willnever learn or remember it. But then again, if you haven’t learnt something youcan’t practise it... how do you practise something you don’t know - you have tolearn something first. (A&D group 2)

Although the importance of higher-order skills related to applying newlearning and connecting ideas were recognised by some, they were seenmore as end points in the learning process – something that should beattended to later, once the received knowledge has been fully assimilated:

It’s near the bottom because you don’t need to know why they [ideas] areconnected straight away. That all comes at the end of the course. (BT pair 3)

This [using skills in a different situation] happens later, in the future, whenyou adapt what you have learnt [at college] in the real world. (ALF group 1)

This [understanding how ideas are connected] is at the bottom because all theideas you have to learn and practise [first] so that you can put them alltogether and connect them. (A&D group 2)

Across both colleges, the conceptions of lifelong learning expressed areheavily influenced by, and almost indistinguishable from, those perceived asimportant to pass a given qualification. However, there were dissentingvoices, and these tended to come from the Lewisham sample, many ofwhom rated ‘shared’ and ‘ideal’ attributes as more important for lifelonglearning than their Northumberland counterparts (Finding ways to apply newknowledge –52% top or high at Lewisham versus 20% Northumberland;Understanding how ideas are connected – 45% Lewisham versus 7% North-umberland). These figures suggest that older learners, or those opting forroutes into higher education that are not defined vocationally, may have a


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more developed personal theory of how learning unfolds and take their cuefrom this rather than the structure of a course per se. This is a tentative sug-gestion, but is supported by comments such as the ones below.

You have to figure out how ideas are connected in order to learn. If you don’tunderstand, you ain’t learning really. (YEHE student ‘D’)

This is my first priority. Learning doesn’t mean that what I learnt in the past Ihave to neglect – I have to add it to the new things that I have been told. Ihave to put the past one and the new one together and make a new knowl-edge. (ALF group 2)

Surprisingly, across both colleges, only one learner made reference to learn-ing outside of the college context, expressing the view that ‘real-life’ learn-ing is tacit in nature and therefore is harder to pin down:

In college it’s more explicit. Outside college it’s just your life. (YEHE student‘R’)

Discussion

It’s important to remember that there was wide variation in the data we col-lected, reflecting the way that FE colleges cater for a wide range of studentswith very different needs. The students we interviewed varied in age (fromschool age to adult learners [19+]) and in previous educational experience,as well as in current route through college. The students we met held quitevaried views, both about learning in general and about the characteristics oftheir college learning. This makes it difficult to identify a definitive FEvoice or, for that matter, to draw unequivocal comparisons between the col-leges. However, there are some important consistencies between the ideasstudents appear to have about college learning and those expressed by theteachers that are suggestive of the role L2L may play in the future develop-ment of both colleges.

Our teachers expressed concern that many learners arrive at collegeexpecting to contribute little to sessions, and this is borne out by commentsfrom some learners laying heavy emphasis on the need to listen as opposedto think and understand. These findings echo Wallace’s study into the per-ceptions of students held by newly qualified teachers in FE:

It was for me strange to see how difficult this freedom seemed to be for them.They were relatively happy copying the style of a given newspaper but lostwhen it came to creativity. Is this the result of present education policy? Per-haps they just need more time to think. (Wallace 2002, 84)

Our data suggest that the answer to the above question may be that both theproffered hypotheses apply. First, they suggest that learner apathy stems


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from a co-constructed culture of performativity. Comments from both teach-ers and learners in our study point to a tendency towards didactic pedago-gies as a source of student passivity. Several of our teachers expressed theview that their hands were effectively tied by the stipulations of the qualifi-cation routes on which they taught, and that this narrowed the scope forlearning afforded by their practice. Students, in their turn, seem to use quali-fication stipulations as a substitute for a personal model of learning anddevelopment either because they see other ‘ideal’ conceptions as a distrac-tion or because they are unsure of what ‘ideal’ learning means. Thus itseems that, to an extent, teachers’ and learners’ identities within collegeinteract to produce a resulting discourse limited in critical thinking and inthe development of deep understanding. This was the finding of a study byJessen and Elander (2009) exploring the different conceptualisations oflearning held by FE and higher education (HE) practitioners. They foundthat FE teachers’ perceptions of what constituted ‘demonstrating understand-ing’ or ‘critical evaluation’ in essay writing were comparatively restrictive,and concluded that the differences between FE and HE students’ learningcould not just be put down to their differing abilities or dispositions. Thisseems to echo Ecclestone’s point regarding the sometimes limited scope forlearning offered by some vocational qualifications in FE:

Assessment has replaced learning as the major function of vocational educa-tion. As a result, students are ‘achieving’ more but learning less. (Ecclestone2008, 11)

Second, though, our results bear out the possibility that ‘time to think’ forboth staff and students is a crucial factor determining the quality of learningthat is possible in FE. Both groups made reference to the need for the skillsnecessary for independent learning to be scaffolded and developed graduallyover time. Several learners seemed to have constructed their own models forprogression whereby ‘school’ concepts such as listening and remembering laidthe foundation for higher-order constructs such forming a point of view andputting ideas together to gain new insight. Learners in our sample were some-times clear as to the value of such skills but, as with the teachers, were lesssure as to how or where such approaches might be filtered into their courses,if at all. Jessen and Elander (2009) make reference to this problem in theirarticle and discuss the extent to which developing more analytical or creative,HE-type thinking might be counter-productive for FE students engaged in A-level and access courses which are ‘mainly content-driven’. They suggest thata delivery mode of teaching may initially be necessary, in order to provide ‘aplatform on which deeper learning can be built’ (378) at a later date.

Significantly, as with Broad’s (2006) study, few if any of our studentsmade reference to learning outside the college gates, supporting the teachers’perception that learning is seen largely as the responsibility of staff at the


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college. Broad also raises the question as to whether the ranking of conceptsabout learning says more about what the students feel they can control thanit does about their perceptions of what is important. Given this, it is possiblealso that our learners prioritised listening not just because it is important asa starting point but also because it was easier to understand than other moreabstract learning processes of which they may have little prior experience.

Conclusion

Perhaps more than any other provider within the education sector, there is anexpectation in FE that learners’ needs and desires will not only be heard, butwill also be acted upon at an institutional level. The current inspection frame-work (Ofsted 2009a) stipulates that this process should be systemised andshould exist as a strategy itemising how and to what level students can influ-ence the planning, management and provision of learning. The impetus forthe democratisation of FE has its roots in a drive for social justice as well asin the perceived need to improve the responsiveness of providers in the faceof a rapidly changing, and now rapidly shrinking, labour market. There is,however, the potential for iniquity in this redistribution of power. Jephcoteet al. (2008) term learning interactions within colleges as ‘negotiated regimesof learning’ over which the opinions and aspirations of learners hold consider-able sway. The downside of this, they point out, is that students bring learneridentities to college settings that are often impoverished and primitive whencompared, for example, with those found in higher education. Adult learnersreturning to education can lack confidence in their abilities, whilst someentrants coming directly from school are known to find the transition to col-lege norms of study problematic (Lumby 2007; Salisbury and Jephcote2008). Balanced against this are the muted concerns of members of a profes-sion who are denied a corpus of pedagogic theory during training (Harkin2005, 172, cited in Salisbury, Jephcote, and Roberts 2009), who express gen-eralised ideas about how learning occurs (Ecclestone 2009), and who work inhigh-stakes accountability structures governed by success rates and retentionof students. As a consequence, Jephcote et al. (2008) claim that the pedagogi-cal strategies of teachers are in danger of being subverted so that, rather thanscaffolding the development of learning for life, they are pressured instead tocompensate for the absence of such abilities in students in order to achieveresults efficiently. The comments of the staff and the responses from the stu-dents in both colleges support this view and suggest that, despite aspirationsto the contrary, management, staff and learners co-construct a culture wherebythe practising of skills and remembering of information predominate, whilstmastery of ‘ideal’ learning concepts is postponed or left to chance.

Our findings corroborate the view not only that the sort of complex andcreative thinking deemed by government to be essential in a twenty-first-century globalised workforce needs to be scaffolded for learners in FE but,


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more importantly, that the process of scaffolding itself needs to become afocus for organisational learning in its own right. Salisbury, Jephcote, andRoberts (2009) ask whether a limited framework within which staff canunderstand and interpret their practice is necessarily a bad thing. Without adiscourse amongst practitioners, facilitated by enquiry and centred around acritical debate as to what constitutes learning in FE, it is difficult to see howthe twin constraints of instrumentalism and performativity can be countered.

There are encouraging examples in the literature that point to potentialfuture directions for the Learning to Learn in FE partnership with respect topractitioner enquiry. In a study geared to supporting the development of crit-ical thinking in vocational students, Andersone et al. (2001) found that acombination of scaffolding and structured peer interaction proved successfulin increasing the propensity of participants to reinforce judgements on exem-plar project proposals with supporting evidence. They concluded that overthe 10 weeks of the programme it had been possible to improve the com-plexity of learners’ thinking through guided practice, although this was qual-ified by uncertainty as to whether similar results would be possible if theprogramme were run by FE teachers themselves, and about the level of pro-fessional development that would be needed for this to happen. Evans,Guile, and Harris (2008) conceptualise the central problem in vocationaleducation in FE as one of recontextualisation – that is, the process by whichknowledge valued by employers can be translated effectively into curriculaand pedagogic strategies. They suggest that success depends on the plannedand gradual release of knowledge from teacher to learner across two axes:predictability and time. As learners progress through a qualification route,they move from predictable to more unpredictable tasks where real-life com-plexities are drip fed into the learning sequence. An example they give is inthe field of aircraft engineering and involves three stages:

(1) Learning of relevant knowledge (the relevant laws of physics)(2) Practical application (applying the laws to aviation technology)(3) Systems and skills (learning in an operational environment)

A central tenet of L2L is that members self-select topics for enquiry thatrelate to their own context, proclivities and professional aims. As with theschools project, the case studies produced by the teachers are anticipated toencompass a disparate range of subjects. However, it is the resulting dia-logue and critical reflection on what constitutes learning that remains theoutcome most prized by university and FE colleagues alike.

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank the students and teachers at Northumberland andLewisham Colleges for participating in these interviews and for their hard work andenthusiasm as part of the Learning to Learn in Further Education Project.


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Notes on contributorsCarl Towler is a teaching fellow in the School of Education Communication and LanguageSciences at Newcastle University, and formerly research associate in the research centre forLearning and Teaching. His research focuses on the ways in which talk can frame andpromote different kinds of learning.

Pam Woolner is a research associate at the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching atNewcastle University. Her research interests centre on understanding and developing thelearning environment, including how visual techniques, such as photo elicitation andmapping activities, can facilitate participation by teachers and students in its design.

Kate Wall is a senior lecturer in the School of Education Communication and LanguageSciences at Newcastle University and partnership director of the Research Centre forLearning and Teaching. She has a research interest in visual methods and the developmentof tools to support teacher enquiry.

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Documents

Exploring teachers’ and students’ conceptions of learning in two further education colleges