Student Understandings of Information Systems Design, Learning and Teaching: A Phenomenography Approach

Phenomenographic studies have shown clear links between the approach students take to learning and the achievement of deep versus surface learning outcomes in higher education. The context in which learning takes place is a key factor in these studies. The purpose of this research is to discover the conceptions of learning, teaching and information systems design held by a diverse group of 60 second-year university students and to determine whether there are differences between field-dependent and field-independent students. Our context-dependent findings on student conceptions of teaching and learning are descriptive in nature. These findings were integrated into an outcome space of student conceptions of information systems design, which is interpreted with respect to existing theory on differences between field-dependent and field-independent students and the cognitive demands of learning information systems design. The results have implications for teaching practice and further research on the effects of qualitative variations in student conceptions on the achievement of deep versus surface levels of learning about information systems design