Customising educational approaches to the needs of students: but how well do we know our students’ needs?

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 32: The Student Experience

July, 2009, 715 pages
Published by
Helen Wozniak and Sonia Bartoluzzi
ISBN
0 908557 78 7
Abstract 

How much do teachers in tertiary education know about the values, attitudes and dispositions of their incoming students, and if this knowledge were to be available, how could their educational approaches and the resulting student learning experiences be customised in relation to it? Tertiary education institutions internationally are involved in various ways in promoting sustainability through education; an activity that in many cases is designed to influence students’ affective attributes. In New Zealand, Otago Polytechnic has committed itself to the goal that ‘every graduate may think and act as a sustainable practitioner’.

Polytechnic staff has teamed up with researchers from the University of Otago to benchmark the sustainability world view attributes of an incoming cohort of Otago Polytechnic students. The research was designed to support academic staff in Polytechnic departments who need to know more about the sustainability interests and characteristics of their students, so they may provide appropriate educational programmes to support the students’ needs. The research was also designed as the first stage of a longer term programme to evaluate the impact of institutional changes on how students transform during their tertiary education experience.

The data demonstrates that even before students start to study in the institution, they have different sustainability values, presumably related to their different interests and previous experiences that may have led them to choose particular programmes. This in turn may influence the nature of the learning programme that the teachers in each setting may wish to devise.

Keywords: first year students, affective attributes, sustainability.