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Three theses on teaching and learningin higher educationEva Hagström a & Owe Lindberg ba Next Generation Learning Centre , Dalarna University , Falun ,Swedenb School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences , ÖrebroUniversity , Örebro , SwedenPublished online: 02 Jul 2012.

To cite this article: Eva Hagström & Owe Lindberg (2013) Three theses on teachingand learning in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 18:2, 119-128, DOI:10.1080/13562517.2012.694097

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Three theses on teaching and learning in higher education

Eva Hagstroma* and Owe Lindbergb

aNext Generation Learning Centre, Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden; bSchool of Humanities,Education and Social Sciences, Orebro University, Orebro, Sweden

(Received 25 November 2010; final version received 13 April 2012)

In our article, we explore the possibility of formulating theses about teaching asone way to use research as a basis for educational action. The theses areformulated from current educational research on teaching and learning in highereducation. We also explore the potential for action and the consequences derivedfrom the theses. With our theses, we criticise less complex ways of using researchfor educational purposes. Through theses we can suggest directions for actionwithout prescribing certain methods or procedures and provide answers withoutreducing the teachers’ possibilities for choice or diminishing their responsibilityfor their actions. Our exploration is an invitation to a collaborative exploration oftheses on teaching and learning in order to broaden and deepen our shared basisfor educational action.

Keywords: higher education; teaching and learning; educational research;educational action; pragmatism

Introduction

It is generally held that teaching in higher education should be underpinned by

research. However, the relation between educational research and teaching is not a

simple and straightforward one. Depending on what basic philosophical and

theoretical positions we take, teaching, educational research and the relation between

them can be understood in different ways, or to put it even stronger, they can be said

to constitute different phenomena.

In this article, we argue for one way of dealing with this issue. Our main vehicle

for doing so is the formulation of three theses on teaching and learning.

Making use of educational research in teaching � two approaches from the literature

The first part of our article gives an outline of two different ways of making use of

educational research for teaching and it forms the background for our main

undertaking, the exploration of theses about teaching and learning in higher education.

Teaching as implementing good practice � focus on teachers’ actions

A common way to underpin teaching with educational research is to turn to studies

on what works, and from the increasing demand for evidence based practice or best

*Corresponding author. Email: ehg@du.se

Teaching in Higher Education, 2013

Vol. 18, No. 2, 119�128, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.694097

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practice it seems that many place their hopes for the future in this kind of research.

In the UK, much of the discussion has centred around Hargreaves’ (1996/2007) call

for evidence-based education in his 1996 Teacher Training Agency-lecture (TTA).

One important provider of inspirational material for evidence-based practice is theUS Department of education’s website What Works Clearinghouse.

The implicit rationale in research about evidence-based practice can be under-

stood as an idea wherein educational situations are similar. Prescriptions for

successful action are made on the basis of generalisations drawn from outcome

studies, which deal with specific educational tasks and challenges. Within such

rationality, both education and educational research become rather simple and trivial

activities and the relation between them becomes one of straightforward application.

The efforts to make teaching an evidence-based practice have consequences notonly for the teaching practice and educational research but also for the meaning of

the teacher. It tends to turn teachers into technicians. We consider this way of

apprehending education and thereby also educational research an over-simplistic

answer to a complicated question. (See Berliner 2002; Biesta 2007; Elliot 2001;

Lindberg 2004; and Popkewitz 2008 for detailed � and differing � discussions about

the difficulties with this approach.)

Another version of good practice is using educational research to give guidelines

for action. One example is the guidelines from Chickering and Gamson (1987). Theyadvocate contacts between students and faculty, reciprocity and cooperation among

students, active learning techniques, prompt feedback, time on task, high expecta-

tions, respect for diverse talents and ways of learning.

These statements are intended as guidelines rather than prescriptions for actions

and they give teachers an active role. Guidelines for educational actions are not as

simplistic as ‘what works’ but still not sufficient as a basis for educational action as

they highlight certain actions as better than other, regardless of circumstances. There

is nothing wrong with these advises per se, but even when they are helpful, they tendto narrow rather than broaden the perspective. (See for example Edwards 2001, 22,

for a detailed critique of the technical approach to teaching.)

Principles for teaching � focus on students’ learning

Many researchers have made a turn from focusing on teachers actions to students’

learning. The phenomenographic tradition plays an important role in this turn, with

their ambition to join teaching and learning, but it is not restricted to them.Ramsden (1992/2003) presents three theories of teaching: teaching as transmitting

knowledge, as organising student activity and as making learning possible. Biggs and

Tang (1999/2011) discern three levels of thinking about teaching, each with its own

focus: what the student is, what the teacher does and what the student does. These

categorisations criticise simpler ways of perceiving of teaching, where the teachers’

actions remain the focal point, and thus advocate students’ actions and the teachers

as facilitating partners in learning. Martin et al. (2000) show how teachers’ intentions

about what students should learn and about how they will learn, influence theirteaching and the students’ learning, more than the teachers’ skilful use of certain

teaching strategies.

Quite a few researchers who focus on students’ learning have formulated

principles for good teaching. Ramsden (1992/2003) condenses educational research

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into six principles: interest and explanation; concern and respect for students and

student learning; appropriate assessment and feedback; clear goals and intellectual

challenge; independence, control and active engagement; and learning from students.

Trigwell (2001), Bain (2004) and Entwistle (2009) use similar strategies to outline

principles for good quality teaching without exactly prescribing how to teach.

The principles are dimensions against which teachers can try to understand and

qualify their actions. They are context sensitive as they apply to a wide range of

settings and take into account that there are differences between subjects. Thisapproach to underpin teaching with educational research is more open than the good

practice approach and thereby more likely to broaden the basis for action. It relies on

research about learning, and this, we take to be the reason for the more complex

content of the approach. However, questions of value, epistemology, gender,

multiculturalism and the role of education in society (the list is not exhaustive) are

not tackled, and we take these issues to be of vital importance for education.

Theses on teaching and learning

In this section, the main part of the article, we undertake to examine the possibility

of formulating theses for teaching and learning in higher education as a third way to

underpin teaching with educational research. Our focus is on exploring rather than

proving our theses.

We do not claim that these theses are the only possible ones, or the most fruitful

ones, or that we have made a complete exploration of possible theses. Our

exploration is an invitation to a collaborative exploration of theses on teaching

and learning in order to broaden and deepen our shared basis for educational action.

Thesis 1: the content of teaching is chosen, not given

There is no discipline, area of knowledge or other basis for the construction of

courses or programmes that is not broader, deeper and more complex than the

course or the programme. Therefore, content has to be chosen. It has to be chosen in

relation to ‘what we can know and what is worth knowing’ (Lundgren 1979, 16, our

translation). Since our conceptions of what is possible to gain knowledge about and

what is worth knowing change over time, the issue of content can never be decided on

once and for all.As Bridges (2000, 41) argues, ‘we are faced with some very practical as well as

philosophically grounded questions as to what selection of knowledge should be

represented in the university and how that should be constructed (epistemologically

and from the perspective of learners)’. In the same spirit, Knight (2001, 369) shows

that the basic complexity of content in higher education is today accompanied by the

expectations of higher education institutions to promote ‘. . . a host of skills and

qualities as well’, that is, communication, information technology, willingness to

learn, self-management skills, action planning and coping with uncertainty.

Discussions on good practice do not attempt to take on the question of the

content of education and that is one reason why we find them inadequate as bases for

educational action. Even though many researchers focusing students’ learning deal

with the choice of content as an important question for teachers, they do so without

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entering into the more philosophical discussions and without really giving the issue

the importance that it deserves.

Consequences

If we accept that the content of teaching is chosen, not given we need to engage in

discussions and collaborative reflection on what should be taught and why, regardless

of what subject we teach, in what country or at what university.Secondly, discussions and collaborative reflection cannot be limited to bits and

pieces; they have to include the whole subject/discipline/area of knowledge. That is to

say that the content of any education needs to be discussed in relation to the

discipline as a whole, including both practical and philosophical questions.

Thirdly, in that process the content of higher education needs to be related to

society, as for example Knight (2001) and Bridges (2000) show. However, their main

problem is that society has a growing impact on the university curriculum. From our

vantage point society has a legitimate interest in higher education and it is notinappropriate to raise questions about the ‘mission’ of higher education or what the

contribution of higher education to society as a whole could be. Such questions also

have the potential of highlighting the moral aspects and dimensions of the content of

higher education.

Thesis 2: learning and the use of language are inseparable

According to Tight’s (2003) research survey, research on learning in higher education

is still dominated by the results of the phenomenographic research on learning

(Marton, Hounsell, and Entwistle 1984). The phenomenographic way of describing

learning in terms of deep and surface approaches is by now part of many educational

researchers’ standard vocabulary.We would like to describe what Marton et al. did as changing the way of

apprehending the direction of learning. Learning had earlier been considered as

knowledge entering the minds of students. The direction was knowledge coming

from outside the learners to their insides. Marton et al. describe learning as a change

in how learners conceive of what they are learning. The direction of learning is

thereby a question of the learner ‘looking out’ at the world.

Marton et al. did not discuss the role of language but we claim that the use of

language is crucial for their theory of learning. The shift from surface to deepapproaches presupposes a shift in the use of language. Surface approaches to

learning have much to do with memorising facts. Students using a surface approach,

therefore, do not use language actively � they merely repeat words, facts and what

others have said or written. Students using a deep approach to learning look for

meanings and for an understanding of the content of the course. To gain a deep

understanding requires making sense of the content, which can never be done simply

by repeating what others have said. A deep approach can only be reached when

understanding makes it possible for students to reflect, take stands, compare, analyseand draw their own conclusions. This, they must do for themselves by using language

in communication with the text and with others.

According to the sociocultural perspectives on learning, language is an

important, maybe the most important, tool for learning. For some sociocultural

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researchers, language holds the role of the tool by which we make our thoughts clear

and available for ourselves and others (Goodman and Goodman 1990/1992;

Wertsch, del Rıo, and Alvarez 1995). Others have made the linguistic turn claiming

that the world is constituted by language (Saljo 2002). Regardless of thesedifferences, all sociocultural researchers state the importance of language for

learning.

Two important theories on learning thus show us that there is a strong

connection between language and learning, explicitly in the sociocultural perspective

and implicitly in phenomenography. Following this, we formulate our second thesis:

Learning and the use of language are inseparable.

Good practice does not seem to consider the role of language for learning. Many

researchers focusing students’ learning are part of the phenomenographic traditionand therefore this connection between learning and language is, albeit implicitly,

present in their work.

Consequences

If we believe that learning and the use of language are inseparable, the obvious

consequence is that teachers should plan courses that give students opportunity to

communicate. Examination by questions that have one right answer should be

replaced by questions or themes that require a deep approach. Moreover, there has to

be opportunities for students to reflect on the content of the course, in writing or

through discussions. This implies that courses need to be allotted enough time so that

students can meet for discussions and can work on their written assignments.The teacher must give up the idea of transmitting knowledge by lecturing or by

prescribing books to be learnt. However, this is not to say that teachers must give up

lecturing. As any other method, it needs to be used intelligently. Course literature is

to be chosen so as to promote reflection rather than the memorising of facts.

Phenomenographic and sociocultural research have inspired educators all over

the world to give multiple examples of how to emphasise deep approaches to learning

and the use of language in education.

There is a moral aspect of this as well. Communicative ways of learning makeeducation a joint project for teachers and students. Teachers retain main responsi-

bility for the content through choosing literature, methods and assignments even if it

is done in collaboration with students. Students’ responsibilities for their own

learning grows when they are expected to study with a deep approach that will

change the way they conceive of the world around them, rather than just memorising

what others have said or written. Finding the right balance between freedom and

control is the important task for the teacher (Dewey 1938/1997) � preferably

performed in communication with colleagues (Bowden and Marton 1998/2004).

Thesis 3: educational processes can never be completely prescribed

For a number of reasons, educational processes can never be completely prescribed.The reasons are philosophical as well as theoretical and empirical. Let us start by

saying that human interaction and communication within educational settings are

far too complex to be prescribed. Still there is, from time to time, a strong wish to

find educational theories, teaching methods and prescriptions for action that

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override the complexity of educational processes (as shown in the good practice

discussion earlier).

We propose another vision for educational research, one which puts the

judgement of the teacher at the centre of the research process (Biesta 2006; Elliot

2001). Hereby we also attribute a meaning to the teacher as one who is capable of

making judgements. If educational processes cannot be (completely) prescribed, the

ability to make judgements must by necessity be a key characteristic of a good

teacher.

One important assumption in the sociocultural perspectives is that knowledge is

formed contextually (Schoultz, Saljo, and Wyndham 2001; Wertsch 1995). There is

no knowledge as such, only knowledge in context. From that follows that there can

be no definite and general knowledge about how or what to teach.

Bowden and Marton (1998/2004) also mention the context of learning as one

factor that makes the prescription of some infallible methods an impossible task.

Their main point, however, is that knowledge and the world wherefrom knowledge

comes and where it will be used, are constantly changing. In consequence, there can

be no universally valid ways of teaching when knowledge, society, students and

teachers exist in an ever changing world. Does this then lead to a standpoint where

teaching or deciding how to teach, becomes a hopeless endeavour? Not at all: When

many standpoints meet, a ‘collective understanding’ can be formed.

The ‘collective understanding’ of teaching demands that teachers discuss their

actions with other teachers. In accordance with Bowden and Marton, we assume that

these discussions are aimed at questioning what is done, rather than finding the right

methods. Change is the keyword in their understanding of knowledge, and change

must, therefore, also be the keyword for teachers preparing to teach. The pre-eminent

way of how to teach eludes us, but even so, research about teaching and learning is

useful and necessary for teachers’ discussions on how to promote better teaching.

Change was also a keyword for William James. According to James we cannot

find words that conclusively describe how things are:

Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest. We don’tlie back upon them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over again bytheir aid. Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories, limbers them up and sets each one atwork. (James 1907/1975, 31�32)

For James, theories are not the solution, but a hint about how things can be changed.

He describes theories as instruments that can help us bring about change, rather than

as a final solution to some problem. Theories are not things to know about, but

things to use in order to change something. For education, we take it that this means

that theories about teaching and learning are not supposed to be applied to a

practice � rather they are supposed to be instruments for changing that practice.

Theories provide motives for further work.

Dewey (1938/1997) gave a central role to experience in his writings on education.

Experience is, in a Deweyean sense, a perpetual transaction between the person who

is experiencing and that which is experienced � be it an interaction with other

persons, reading a book, or using a theory about education. In this transaction, both

the person experiencing and that which is experienced are changed. The experience

of education thus means that both teachers and students are changed in the process.

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Teachers are involved in the moral project of changing students’ lives (Biesta 2006).

Therefore, teaching must be taken on with caution and not light headedly. Constant

change, together with a strong belief that we have a possibility to act opens for

freedom in a challenging way (Dewey 1931/1982).

Aims are the guideline for our actions. People chose the actions that they believe

will lead to their aims and the consequences of the actions show whether the choices

were fruitful or not. The consequences show if the appropriate actions were taken

(Biesta and Burbules 2003; Cherryholmes 1999). Cherryholmes writes that actions

are chosen based on the ‘conceivable practical consequences’ that we imagine at the

moment. Making better choices then becomes a question of expanding the

alternatives. Biesta and Burbules (2003) state that research cannot improve education

in the sense that it gets better and better. What educational research can do is to

come up with resources that will expand the possibilities for problem solving.The most important consequence of research for education might be that

teachers can use it to improve their capacity to trace out more and more possible

consequences of actions (Cherryholmes 1999). Through researching, through reading

research, through teaching and reflecting on teaching, teachers learn how to improve

their teaching by imagining more and more consequences and seeing more

alternatives for action.If educational processes could be completely prescribed, teaching would be a

routine activity from which teachers could not learn anything and this seems to be

what ‘what works’ and other simplistic models are looking for. With Ramsden (1992/

2003), we hold teachers learning from their students as one of the prerequisites for

good teaching. This may seem trivial but that is hardly the case. Planning often has

the implicit aim of keeping the power with the teacher by excluding influence from

the participants whereas to plan for an educational process that brings in voices from

the participants, changes the conditions for the process in a profound way.

Consequences

If we accept the thesis that educational processes can never be completely prescribed,

how can the thesis help teachers in their everyday teaching practice? The simple, and

yet complicated, message is that there are no ready-made solutions but together we

can work it out.

There are no given methods that will guarantee success. Teachers are in other

words free to choose the roads that seem most reasonable given time, place, content

and participants. Teachers are under the constant obligation of making choices.

If the educational process cannot be forced in specific directions through careful

planning, teachers should not act as if this was possible. Given our thesis, that would

be planning for failure. Put differently, efforts to prescribe the outcome in a strong

sense restrict input from the students to a minimum. Their interaction and

communication does not influence the educational process beyond the limits of

the teacher’s imagination in the planning process � and this is the opposite of what

we look for with our third thesis. Moreover, the wish for exhaustive planning collides

with the Deweyan way of describing transaction as a process whereby both parties

are changed. Seen from that perspective even a plan that successfully prescribes the

outcome of the educational process can be characterised as a failure.

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Our thesis has implications also for the evaluation of education. If teachers are to

learn from students they need to pay attention not only to how and how well they

managed to achieve the stipulated goals but also to how they came to do things they

had not planned, and learned things they had not thought of beforehand. In parallelto the discussion earlier, we could say that the potential for learning through

evaluation lies in observation of and reflection on unplanned processes and

outcomes.

Research and theories about teaching and learning do not provide true answers

about the right practice but they do provide useful instruments for teaching. These

instruments can be used for teachers’ discussions on their practice in order to make

their professional decisions informed decisions. Educational processes can never be

completely prescribed because teachers, students, knowledge, context, aims and so onare continually changing and, therefore, the appropriate actions will have to be

adjusted. However, educational research can help teachers make better choices.

Moving ahead with the theses

Often the last section of an article is a conclusion. There is no conclusion to our text

on theses because they are not final. We have found several discussions that spring

from our theses � three will be reflected on here. To us this is a sign that our theseswork the way we intended them to. They are not solutions but instruments to use for

further thought.

Three themes are intertwined through the theses: communication, ethics and

action. In all our theses communication is necessary. When choosing content teachers

need to take part in discussions on what is worth knowing. These discussions span

from planning a single course element to discussions within disciplines and the

research community at large. Communication is the backbone of our second thesis

on the inseparability of learning and the use of language. Our third thesis craves thatteachers communicate between themselves and with students about educational

processes. When definite answers on how to do elude teachers, the need for an

ongoing discussion on what to do, and how, rises.

Ethics are also present in all three theses. If the content of teaching is chosen and

not given, someone has to choose. Who is this someone? There are power structures,

or discourses, that give some the right to influence whereas others are left to accept.

This is an ethical and political question that must not go unnoticed when education

is discussed. In our second thesis, learning is described as a potential for new ways ofunderstanding the world, that is, students are changed in the process, which implies

the ethical aspect of who students are and who they become. Students’ responsi-

bilities for their own learning, and teachers’ responsibilities for students’ learning and

thereby their change, are ideas that we connect to both the second and the third

theses. Teachers’ responsibility to make sound judgements about what to teach, how

to do it and how to use research when doing it are part of the challenging ethical task

of teachers.

The third theme that we see in all our theses is action. This might seem banal butwe regard it as a most important factor for education. If content has to be chosen,

the act of choosing becomes vital for any education as there is no content unless

someone makes a choice. The way we conceive of learning implies acting teachers

and acting students. Knowledge cannot be transmitted so teachers must make

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learning possible and students must learn. If, as we believe, research cannot prescribe

with accuracy how teachers must teach, then teachers have to teach after careful

consideration and partake in serious discussions on what knowledge is and can be

and what education should be about.

Finally, we would like to highlight some aspects of educational research in

relation to our three theses. Research that is driven by the quest for evidence for what

works cannot promote intelligent educational action since it neglects the complexity

of educational processes. Guidelines for action are more complex but their narrow

perspective hides the many different contexts that exist in higher education.

Principles, such as Ramsden’s, as well as much of the writings in the students’

learning tradition, are well in line with our theses, but at the same time different.

They are enclosed in their own starting points and therefore limit the scope of

possible action and they are specific by highlighting some parts of the educational

landscape while others remain in darkness. Our theses are not final, but they aim at

bringing in the whole educational landscape and they open for aspects and questions

that were not thought of when the theses were formulated.

It is not research about how things are that is most needed but research about

how things could be. What we need is educational research that aims at exploring

possible actions in educational settings, research that merges questions of educa-

tional action with philosophical questions of teaching, including language and ethics.

Research that takes into account that the content of teaching is chosen, that there is no

learning without the use of language and that educational processes never can be

completely prescribed.

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