The deep approach to learning: Analytic abstraction and idiosyncratic development. Paper presented at

This paper summarises previous research into approaches to learning and studying before reporting a small-scale longitudinal interview study of first-year psychology students ’ approaches. This qualitative investigation looked in depth at how students tackled their learning within a single discipline, and created fine-grained categories to describe their approaches. Few students showed marked, overall changes in their learning, although many did make more minor improvements in their skill in carrying out aspects of the approaches. The focus of this paper is on the nature and development of the deep approach. In particular, it considers five students who showed either distinct changes or no development at all. This group is discussed as case studies to explore the influences on, and resistance to, change in study skill. The results are examined in relation to the analytic framework provided, as a general way of describing the deep approach, and to explore why students in this sample showed little obvious progress in developing their approaches during their first year