PH.D. STUDENTS' EXPERIENCES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING AT A UNIVERSITY IN MUMBAI

Since the mid-1970s, there has been a large number of studies deriving from the work of Marton and his co-workers (Marton & Säljö, 1976, 1997). There is now a set of concepts used to suggest a framework of influences on the quality of learning, some of which stem from the student’s own experience, while others describe aspects of the teaching-learning environment being provided by staff. There would not be general agreement about which concepts to include, several probably would attract broad support. Students’ prior educational experiences are reflected in their conceptions of learning (Säljö, 1979; Marton & Säljö, 1997) or epistemological beliefs (Perry, 1970; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997), and also in their reasons for studying and learning orientations (Beaty, Gibbs & Morgan, 1997). Early work on the influences of the contexts within which learning takes place showed that a deep approach was related to what students perceive as ‘good teaching’ and ‘freedom in learning’ (choice in what and how to learn), while a heavy work load was linked to a surface approach. It has subsequently been established that multiple-choice questions and short answer tests tend to induce surface approaches (Scouller, 1998), and it has been suggested that some more open forms of assessment (certain types of essay, authentic problems and project reports) encourage deep approaches, although systematic investigation of these effects is still lacking. But it is students’ perceptions of the teaching and assessment procedures, rather than the methods themselves, that affect student learning most directly (Ramsden, 1997; Entwistle, 1998 a, b). The effects of different forms of teaching and assessment led researchers to investigate differences in the ways in which university teachers describe their teaching and carry it out. From similar research came a set of concepts paralleling the work on student learning