Education | Thesis

Research on students' approaches to learning in higher education has consistently demonstrated a range of influencing factors. This Masters research used interviews on the basis of an investigation of the factors influencing learning from a sample of postgraduate students in a New Zealand university. The findings from this study showed that the influence of students' prior knowledge and learning orientations was important and this supports the literature in this field. The contextual factors, which include lecturers, choice and integration of courses, and assessments were found to affect students' approaches to learning and were responsible for the variability of learning orientations.