15 General introduction 1 activities should enable students to construct their own meaning of the content and develop independent creative thinking (see Figure 1.1.B). In addition, they express learning outcomes in qualitative terms (a student will know differently, meaning gain new understandings), believe students’ pre-existing beliefs should be the starting point of an interactive process of learning and teaching, and see learning as oriented towards the reality of the profession. A B Figure 1.1. The relationship between teacher, student, and content, for teaching-centred beliefs (A) and learning-centred beliefs (B). Learning-centred beliefs and their effect on student learning Multiple studies show that educators with learning-centred beliefs appear to make choices in their teaching practice that lead to deeper learning among students.3-6,9-11,51 This is a direct empirical argument for why learning-centred beliefs are preferable in contemporary education. Other studies also provide an indirect empirical argument for why learning-centred beliefs lead to better quality learning among students. This is related to the way the beliefs about teaching and learning are categorised. Learning-centred beliefs are consistently viewed as more elaborate and representing a broader understanding of teaching than teaching-centred beliefs.e.g.12,18,27,36,50,52 For example, while educators with teaching-centred beliefs express the desired learning outcomes in quantitative terms rather than qualitative ones, educators with learningcentred beliefs are aware of both perspectives, and experience the quantitative outcome not so much as wrong but as incomplete. Thus, the indirect empirical argument is that educators with learning-centred beliefs are not only aware of the relevance of the content, but also and above all focus on their students’ learning when designing and implementing teaching/learning activities. This increases
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