14 Chapter 1 Beliefs about teaching and learning Beliefs versus conceptions Within the higher education research literature, ‘beliefs about teaching and learning’ and ‘conceptions of teaching and learning’ are the most common terms used to describe ideas or convictions that educators hold about teaching, learning, and knowledge. There is an overlap in how these two terms are described in the literature.12 We have chosen the term beliefs about teaching and learning as the basis for this research for the following reasons. First, the two models that we use in our research both use the term beliefs rather than conceptions.16,28 Second, studies that use the term (change of) beliefs more often emphasise the importance of affect and emotion in the process of teaching and learninge.g.39,40 than studies that use the term conceptions. We anticipate that, in addition to cognitive aspects, affective aspects are indeed significant in the convictions that medical educators hold about teaching and learning, and aim to explicitly explore these affective aspects. Beliefs about teaching and learning in higher education research literature University educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning have been the subject of many studies over the past three decades.2-5,11,12,15,16,23,27,39,41-50 Most studies have in common that they consistently (though not uniformly: Pratt47 is an exception) distinguish between teaching-centred and learning-centred beliefs. Learningcentred beliefs are also described as student-centred or learner-centred beliefs, and teaching-centred beliefs as teacher-centred beliefs. The description in Samuelowicz & Bain’s 1992 study15 clearly summarises the common findings and illustrates the distinction between teaching-centred and learning-centred beliefs which aligns well with the definition of learning-centred education versus teaching-centred education that we provided. They state that educators with teaching-centred beliefs view teaching as a one-way transmission of content information and believe that the content, by which is meant the knowledge, skills and attitude students need to acquire, is the content transmitted by the teacher. They see knowledge as ‘factual’ and as obtained from outside, and do not focus on the direct interaction between the content and the student (see Figure 1.1.A). In addition, they express learning outcomes in quantitative terms (a student will know more), do not take into account the students’ pre-existing conceptions, and see learning as oriented towards the content of a course. In contrast, educators with learning-centred beliefs view teaching as an activity aimed at changing students’ beliefs and conceptual understandings through a reciprocal teacher-student interaction to negotiate meaning. They see knowledge as constructed and personalised through experience, and are convinced that their
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