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Instructional Science (2005) 33: 137–157 DOI 10.1007/s11251-004-7687-x

 Springer 2005

Academics’ experiences of understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this to their experiences of teaching and learning MICHAEL PROSSER1,*, ELAINE MARTIN2, KEITH TRIGWELL3, PAUL RAMSDEN1 & GILLIAN LUECKENHAUSEN4 1

Institute for Teaching and Learning, The University of Sydney; 2Victoria University; University of Oxford; 4La Trobe University; *Author for correspondence: Institute for Teaching and Learning, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 3

Received: 17 October 2003; in final form: 9 September 2004; accepted: 15 December 2004 Abstract. In this paper we focus on the issue of how academic staff experience the understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this understanding to their experience of teaching. In recent years there has been a substantial amount of research into how academic staff conceive of teaching and learning, how they approach their teaching, and how their approaches to teaching relate to how their students approach their learning. In our present project this research is being extended by looking at the way 31 academics from four broad fields of study experience their understanding of their subject matter and how this relates to the way they experience their teaching. Using a phenomenographic approach we show that academics who experience their subject matter in atomistic and less integrated ways experience their teaching in more information transmission and teacher-focused ways, while those with a more integrated and holistic experience of understanding their subject experience their teaching in more conceptual change and student-focused ways. Keywords: experienced taught subject matter, university teaching, teacher-focus, student-focus, object of study, approach to teaching

Introduction While there has been a substantial amount of research into the beliefs held by primary and secondary teachers about their teaching (Calderhead, 1996), as noted by Quinlan (1999) ‘‘we still know little about the complexities of the educational beliefs that academics bring to their teaching in higher education’’ (Quinlan, 1999, p. 447). One area in which there has been some research has been on how university teachers approach their teaching and on how their approaches to teaching relate to their students’ approaches to learning. In brief, it has been established that teachers hold qualitatively different conceptions of teaching

138 and learning, and approach their teaching in qualitatively different ways (Martin & Balla, 1991; Samuelowicz & Bain, 1992, 2002; Gow & Kember, 1993; Trigwell & Prosser, 1996). The approaches they take are systematically related to the conceptions of teaching that they hold and there is a relationship between the way teachers approach and conceive of their teaching and the way their students experience learning (Trigwell & Prosser, 1996; Trigwell et al., 1999). University teachers conceive of, and approach, their teaching focusing on either their own activities as teachers (teacher-focused) with the aim of transferring information to students, or on what their students are doing in relation to what they, as teachers, are doing, with the aim of developing and/or changing their students’ understanding (student-focused). These experiences are conceived of as relational and hierarchical. They are relational in the sense that teachers may adopt different conceptions and approaches in different circumstances. They are hierarchical in that teachers adopting the more teacher-focused perspectives lack an awareness of a more student-focused perspective in the situation in which they find themselves, while teachers with more student-focused perspectives have an awareness of the more teacherfocused perspectives (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999; Ramsden, 2003). There have also been investigations of what it is that teachers constitute for their students to learn in the classroom (Martin & Ramsden, 1998; Patrick, 1998). It is argued that the same topic, with the same materials and assessments and documented teaching methods, will be represented to students differently by different teachers – different meanings will be constituted in their actions in the classroom. Teachers have different understandings of what knowing a subject involves and consequently represent the subject to students differently. Not surprisingly, a relationship has been established between the way teachers make sense of and present a topic to be learned by students and the way they conceive of teaching and student learning (Martin & Ramsden, 1998; Martin et al., 2000). Finally, and importantly, the relationship between how teachers approach their teaching and how their students approach their learning has been studied. That research shows replicable relationships, with teachers who report adopting more information transmission/teacherfocused approaches to teaching having students who report more surface approaches to study, while teachers with more conceptual change and development/student-focused approaches have students reporting deeper approaches to study (Gow & Kember, 1993; Trigwell et al., 1999, Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). So far, however, there has been little attention paid to the ways in which university teachers understand the subject matter they are

139 teaching and how that relates to their teaching and their students’ learning. In the present study we explore this understanding and examine what it is that teachers experience to be the subject matter of their teaching and how different aspects of the subject matter are structured and relate one with another. Work on approaches to, and conceptions of, teaching have traditionally been undertaken from a phenomenographic perspective. From this perspective the main outcome is an outcome space showing the structure of the variation in the way teachers approach and conceive of their teaching and an associated set of decontextualised categories of description of these approaches and conceptions. The complete set of categories, which is typically between four and eight, map key aspects of the experience of the phenomenon under consideration (Marton & Booth, 1997). The strength of this approach is that it provides an overview of the variation in understanding the phenomenon, the key aspects of variation in understanding and relations between those key aspects within a group of individuals. This approach has been used widely to understand the range of ways students make sense of a phenomenon being taught within a course or topic (Marton & Booth, 1997). What this approach does not do, however, is to consider the richness and variety of individual experience and there has been criticism of this (Webb, 1997; Hazel et al., 1998). In the present study we have also used an analysis of metaphor to capture more of this individual richness. We have invited teachers to talk about three separate but related issues, first, their own understanding of their subject specialism, second, what it is they constitute for students to learn in the classroom (the object of study) and, third, their understanding of teaching and learning. The second of these is, in effect, a replication of Martin et al. (2000), and the third a replication of Prosser et al. (1994). We have linked outcomes from the phenomenographic analysis to results of the metaphoric analysis. The present paper focuses on the results of the phenomenographic analysis, while a related paper in preparation focuses on the results of the analysis of metaphor and its relation to the result of the phenomenographic analysis.

Methodology Data collection We interviewed 31 university teachers with several years of teaching experience on two occasions about their experiences of teaching a topic within a large first-year subject in four discipline areas: social science and

140 humanities (7), business and law (7), science and technology (8) and health sciences (9). The first occasion was in the 2 weeks before teaching the topic and the second was in the 2 weeks after completing their teaching and assessment of that topic. The focus of those interviews was on the teachers’ experiences of their object of study, the teachers’ experiences of their teaching and learning and their experiences of understanding their subject matter. The same semi-structured interview schedule was used on both occasions. During the interviews the interviewees were repeatedly asked to maintain a focus on the topic they were about to teach (first interview) or had just finished teaching (second interview). The two sets of interviews with each teacher – about 10 weeks apart – were designed to investigate change in understanding of subject matter (Trigwell et al., in press). Conduct of the interviews and analysis of the interview data The data were collected by in-depth, semi-structured interviews, which aimed at probing the teacher’s experiences of their understanding of their subject matter, the object of study they were constituting for their students, and teaching and learning in relation to a particular topic they were teaching. In the collection and analysis of the data we were not trying to describe in any objective sense how the interviewees understood their subject matter, but rather how they described their understanding – their experience of understanding. In probing their experience of understanding their subject matter, the opening probes were: • How do you understand hsubject matteri? • How do you see its parts being connected in your understanding of hsubject matteri? • How does hsubject matteri fit into broader field or fields of study? • What do you see as the key influences in the development of your understanding of hsubject matteri? The analysis was conducted in two parts. The first part was to identify the structure of the qualitative variation in the experiences of their understanding of their subject matter, their object of study, and teaching and learning, and to describe this variation in terms of categories of description and the structural relationships between the categories (the outcome spaces). The identification of the categories of description and the outcome spaces involved several sub-stages: • An initial identification, by four of the analysts individually, of a set of categories of description, based upon reading a subset of the full set of transcripts.

141 • Comparisons of the categories of description and an analysis of the structural relationship between the categories independently of the transcripts by the four analysts as a group, resulting in a revised set of categories of description and an initial outcome space. • An iteration between the transcripts, categories of description and the structural relationship, individually and in groups, until a stable set of categories and structural relationships was constituted or given meaning. As a result of this process, the categories of description and the outcome space represents the relationship between the transcripts and the analysts individually and as a group. In the second part of the first stage, the analysis went beyond a strictly phenomenographic analysis by using the categories to classify all the transcripts, with some subsequent adjustment to the categories and their structure to ensure that they captured the full variation represented in the full set of transcripts. In any one transcript, more than one category may be represented. Given that the outcome spaces represent a hierarchically related set of categories of description in terms of increasing complexity, the transcripts are classified in terms of the most complex category represented in the transcript.

Results The phenomenographic analysis of the interview data resulted in the constitution of three sets of categories of description and associated outcome spaces. They were: 1. Teachers’ experiences of their understanding of the subject matter taught in the topic. 2. Teachers’ experiences of teaching and learning in the topic. 3. Teachers’ experiences of the object of study constituted in the topic. The first set of categories and outcome space are new, the remaining two are iterations on outcome spaces identified in previous studies (Prosser et al., 1994; Martin et al., 2000). Teachers’ experiences of understanding their subject matter The set of categories of description identified for the outcome space of teachers’ experiences of the understanding of the subject matter taught in the topic is:

142 Experience A: The understanding of the internal structure of the subject matter is experienced as a series of facts and/or techniques – atomistic in structure. There is an awareness of how the subject matter sits within one or more fields of study but the focus of awareness is on the individual internal facts and processes pertaining to the subject matter itself. Experience B: The understanding of the internal structure of the subject matter is experienced as a series of individual concepts or topics – atomistic in structure. There is an awareness of how the subject matter sits within one or more fields of study but the focus of awareness is on the individual internal concepts and issues pertaining to the subject matter itself. Experience B differs from Experience A in that the focus is on concepts, issues and procedures and not just on facts and techniques. They are both, however, atomistic and focus on the subject matter itself. Experience C: The understanding of the internal structure of the subject matter is experienced as a series of concepts, issues or procedures, which are linked and related to form a whole with a coherent structure and meaning – linked relational structure. There is an awareness of how the subject matter sits within one or more fields of study but the focus of awareness is on the internal structure of the subject matter. Experience C differs from Experience B in that while the focus remains on concepts, issues and procedures, these concepts issues and procedures are seen to be linked or related to form a coherent whole rather than being seen as atomistic. Experience D: The understanding of the internal structure of the subject matter is experienced as a series of concepts, issues or procedures, which are integral to the formation of a whole with a coherent structure and meaning – integral relational in structure. The focus of awareness is on the internal structure of the subject matter and the way the concepts or procedures are related, but there is an awareness that the subject matter is structured according to one or more organising principles within a field (or fields) of study. Experience D differs from Experience C in that while the focus continues to be on concepts, issues and procedures, the concepts issues and procedures are seen to be aspects of an integral whole rather than linked together to form a whole.

143 Experience E: The understanding of the internal structure of the subject matter is experienced as a coherent whole, which is supported by organising theories within one or more broader fields of study. The themes or issues comprising the internal components of the subject matter are experienced as problematic, such as a series of debates, but the focus of awareness is on the ways in which the whole is generalised to a high level of abstraction. Experience E differs from Experience D in that the focus is on the underlying or underpinning theories within which the concepts, issues and procedures are constituted rather than just on the concepts, issues and procedures themselves. With the focus on underpinning theories, the experience shifts in focus away from the subject matter itself to how that subject matter fits into the broader field of study. The structural relationship between the categories of description is summarised in the outcome space shown in Table 1. It should be noted that we have drawn upon ideas from Biggs’ and Collis’ (1982) SOLO Taxonomy in describing the structural relationship between the categories. As this is a new set of categories of description, illustrative quotes for each category are given in Appendix A. Teachers’ experiences of teaching and learning The set of categories of description identified for the outcome space of teachers’ experiences of teaching and learning in the topic is: Experience A: Teacher-focused, teacher activity with the intention of transferring information to the students. This approach is one in which the teacher adopts a teacher-focused strategy with the intention of transmitting information about the discipline. It is presumed that students do not need to be active in the teaching/learning process. The focus of teacher activity is on demonstrating discipline-based facts and skills. Experience B: Teacher-focused, student activity with the intention of transferring information to students. This approach is one in which the teacher maintains a teacher-focused strategy with the intention of transferring information to students. It goes beyond Experience A in that it presumes that students need to be active in the teaching/learning process, but the focus of activity remains on the teacher disseminating discipline-based information with an understanding that different dissemination strategies will assist students to understand the material. Experience C: Teacher-focused, student activity with the intention of students acquiring the concepts of the discipline.This approach is one in

B

Concepts, issues and procedures

Underpinning theories and conceptions

A C

D

E

Extended abstract structure

Integral relational internal structure

Atomistic internal structure

Linked relational internal structure

Relationship between the subject matter and its field of study

Structural: focus of awareness on Internal structure of subject matter

Facts and techniques

Referential

Table 1. Teachers’ experience of the understanding of the subject matter being taught in the topic

144

145 which the teacher maintains a teacher-focused strategy, but with the intention of helping students to acquire the concepts of the syllabus rather than them just being transferred into the students. The focus of activity is on building students’ understanding of the subject matter through working within the predetermined teacher and/or content framework structures and introducing student activity around these structures. Experience D: Student-focused, student activity with the intention of students developing their own conceptions.This approach is one in which the teacher adopts a student-focused strategy, with the focus of the teacher’s attention being on the students as well as on the teacher, with the intention of assisting students to develop their own conceptions of the subject matter. The focus of student activity is on elaborating and extending students’ understanding of the subject matter by employing discipline frameworks of concepts in tasks in which the framework is a seen as a resource. Experience E: Student-focused, student activity with the intention of students changing their conceptions. This approach is one in which the teacher adopts a student-focused strategy with the intention of helping students not only develop but also change their conceptions of the phenomena they are investigating. The focus of student activity is on students’ restructuring their current world view by interacting with subject material in a way that challenges their currently held conceptions, so that they restructure and change these conceptions. The structural relationship between this set of experiences is shown in Table 2. Teachers’ experiences of their objects of study The set of categories of description identified for the outcome space of teachers’ experiences of the object of study constituted in the topic is: Table 2. Teachers’ experiences of teaching and learning in the topic showing referential (indirect object of teaching) and structural (act of teaching, Marton & Booth, 1997) components Referential (Indirect object)

Structural (Act) Teacher focused

Information transfer Concept acquisition Conceptual development Conceptual change

Student focused

Teacher activity

Student activity

A

B C

Student activity

D E

146 Experience A: The object of study is the subject matter of the topic as it is represented in the external world, i.e. knowledge which is given and/or taken for granted. The focus is on that part of the curriculum assigned to that teacher. The teacher will present this topic to the students. Experience B: The object of study is the subject matter of the subject, as a whole, as knowledge which is given and/or taken for granted. The teacher describes what is to be taught in the context of the subject. The teacher will present the topic and draw links between this and other parts of the subject. Experience B differs from Experience A in that while both experiences focus on knowledge which is given and/or taken for granted, Experience B goes beyond focusing on individual topics to focusing on the topics as they are linked to the subject as a whole. Experience C: The object of study is the subject matter in relation to the discipline as a whole, as knowledge which is given and/or taken for granted. The teacher introduces a body of knowledge and the ways in which this knowledge has been developed, is explored and applied. The focus however is still on the subject matter itself, with some atomistic references to its relation to the course or discipline. Experience C differs from Experience B in that while there continues to be an experience of the knowledge as given and/or taken for granted, it goes beyond Experience B by atomistically relating the topic to other parts of the course or discipline. Experience D: The object of study is student understanding of the subject matter in relation to the discipline as a whole and/or the practice of the discipline/profession. It is knowledge which individuals construct and is essentially problematic in nature. The teacher engages the student with discipline knowledge and/or the elements of professional practice. Experience D differs from Experience C in that knowledge is seen as being constructed and essentially problematic rather than being given and/or being taken for granted, while still focusing on the topic in relation to the discipline or practice as a whole. Experience E: The object of study is student understanding that goes beyond the subject matter to focus on the relation of the subject matter to other disciplines and/or the development of lifelong skills. It is knowledge which individuals construct and is essentially problematic in nature. These include analytical skills and a practice of critical thinking, inquiry and reflection through the study of the subject matter.

147 Table 3. Teachers’ experience of the object of study constituted in the topic Referential

Structural Multistructural

Knowledge as given Knowledge constructed/ problematic

Relational

Topic

Subject

Discipline/ practice

A

B

C

Discipline/ practice

Extended Abstract Learning beyond discipline/ practice

D

E

Experience E differs from Experience D by situating the topic in relation to a broader whole, beyond the discipline or practice itself. The structural relationship between this set of experiences is shown in Table 3. Having described the structure of the variation in teachers’ experiences of the three phenomena, we now turn to an analysis of the relationship between these experiences. Relationship between the sets of categories of description The first stage of this analysis was to classify the transcripts in relation to the outcome spaces. Table 4 shows the results of this classification. As the interviewees were interviewed on two occasions – before teaching a topic and after completing the teaching of that topic, the results of the classifications on each occasion are shown. The Table shows the distribution of individual transcripts between the categories of description, based upon the most complex category represented in the transcripts. Table 4 shows that in this sample there is a field of study variation. The distributions suggest that the higher order categories are populated by academic staff from the humanities and social sciences. They also show that there is at least one case from each of the fields of study in the two highest order categories, showing that while the distributions may vary between field of study, the structure of the variation is not just field of study based. It is worth noting that our original hypothesis was that there would be a change in the experience of understanding of subject matter as a result of teaching that subject matter. This analysis suggests that when using this first order approach (describing change in two reported

148 Table 4. Distribution of transcripts in terms of the categories of description by field of study from interviews on two occasions Category of description

Field of study Business and law occasion

Health sciences occasion

Humanities and social sciences occasion

Science and engineering occasion

First

First

First

First

Second

Second

Second

Understanding of subject matter Focus on internal structure of subject matter A 1 B 1 1 3 C 1 1 7 7 3 Focus on relationship between the subject matter and its field of study D 3 3 1 1 2 1 1 E 2 2 1 1 5 6 Teaching and learning Teacher-focused A B C 6 7 Student-focused D E 1 Object of study Multistructural A B 3 C 1 Relational D 2 Extended abstract E 1

1 3 3 1

1 3 3

1 3 3

1

1

1 1

2 3 2

2 3 2

3

3

1

1

2

2

3 3

3 3

1

1

2 1

2 1

1 5

1 5

3 1

3 4

3 4

1 1

2

2

2

1

Second

positions) rather than a second order approach (describing the experience of change from the perspective of the interviewees) there is very little change in the experience of understanding prior to and subsequent to teaching a topic. Indeed only one of the interviewees described a change in their experience of understanding in the process of teaching their topic. This was one of the humanities and social sciences teachers whose second transcript was classified as Category E, while the first was classified as Category D. The relationship between the experience of understanding the subject matter being taught in the topic and the experience of teaching and

149 learning in the topic is shown in Table 5 and between the experience of understanding the subject matter being taught in the topic and experience of object of study constituted in the topic is shown in Table 6. Tables 5 and 6 show close and replicable empirical relationships between teachers’ experiences of understanding the subject matter taught in the topic on the one hand and their experiences of teaching and learning in the topic and object of study constituted in the topic on the other. Table 5 shows detectable (statistically significant) and substantial (Somers’ d ¼ 0.74, p < 0.001; Somers’ d ¼ 0.72, p < 0.001) relationships between experience of understanding the subject matter of the topic and experience of teaching and learning in the topic on both occasions, respectively. (Somers’ d is a measure of association between two ordinal variables that ranges from )1 to 1. Values close to an absolute value of 1 indicate a strong relationship between the two variables, and values close Table 5. The relationship between teachers’ experiences of understanding the subject matter and their experiences of teaching and learning Experience of teaching and learning

Experience of understanding subject matter

Focus of awareness on internal structure

Focus of awareness on relation between subject and field

A

B

C

D

E

First occasion Teacher-focused A 1 B C Student-focused D E

3 1

3 7

4

1

2 1

1 6

Second occasion Teacher-focused A 1 B C Student-focused D E

3 1

3 7

4

2

1

2

1 6

1

N = 31. First occasion: Somers’ d = 0.74, p < 0.001. Second occasion: Somers’ d = 0.72, p < 0.001.

150 Table 6. The relationship between teachers’ experiences of understanding their subject matter and their experiences of their object of study Experience of object of study

Experience of understanding subject matter Focus of awareness on internal structure

Focus of awareness on relation between subject and field

A

B

C

D

E

1 2 1

6 5

2 1

1

4

4

First occasion Multistructural A 1 B C Relational D Extended abstract E Second occasion Multistructural A 1 B C Relational D Extended abstract E

3

1 2 1

6 5

2 1

1

3

5 3

N = 31. First occasion: Somers’ d = 0.69, p < 0.001. Second Occasion: Somers’ d = 0.70, p < 0.001.

to 0 indicate little or no relationship between the variables.) This suggests that academics with more integrated and holistic experiences of understanding the subject matter they are teaching are more likely to be experiencing their teaching and their students learning in more studentfocused ways, and academics with less integrated and atomistic experiences of understanding are likely to be experiencing their teaching and their students learning in more teacher focused ways. Similarly, Table 6 shows detectable (statistically significant) and substantial (Somers’ d ¼ 0.69, p < 0.001; Somers’ d ¼ 0.70, p < 0.001) relationships between experience of understanding the subject matter of the topic and experience of object of study constitute for students in the topic on both occasions, respectively. This suggests that academics with more integrated and holistic experiences of understanding the subject

151 matter they are teaching are more likely to be experiencing the constitution of objects of study for their students in more integrated and holistic ways, and academics with less integrate and atomistic experiences of understanding are likely to be experiencing the constitution of their object of study for their students in less integrated and atomistic ways. An important point here is that 16 of the 31 academics interviewed were experiencing their understanding of their subject matter in atomistic and less integrated ways. It should be noted that while the relationship has been analysed in terms of cross tabulations, the categories of description were not necessarily independently constituted. Indeed the phenomenographic perspective assumes that there is an internal relationship between the outcome spaces, and that peoples’ experiences are holistic. Experiences are analytically separable, but not independently constituted.

Discussion and conclusion The study has identified the variation in the way academics experience their understanding of the subject matter they are teaching. It has also slightly revised, but substantially confirmed two previous sets of categories of description – the experience of teaching and learning in the topic and the experience of the object of study constituted for study – and examined the relationships between the experience of understanding, the experience of teaching and learning and the experience of the object of study. Before considering the categories and outcome spaces, we make some comments on our use of the term ‘‘experience’’, ‘‘categories of description’’ and ‘‘outcome space’’. Here we are using the term experience to denote a second order analysis of the subjective experience of phenomena of those being interviewed rather than first order analysis of the phenomena themselves. Other studies, for example, have analysed the first order experience of the objects of study through observations of class room interactions (Patrick, 1998). Here our focus is on the second order analysis of academics own descriptions of the object of study. The categories of description and outcome spaces are meant to describe the variation in the key ways in which the experiences of the phenomena differ. They are not meant to be rich descriptions of the experiences themselves. They are not meant to describe individual differences in experience. They are not meant to describe the full variation. The categories form inclusive hierarchies, as shown in the descriptions of the structural relationships between the categories. Thus, in the second part

152 of the analysis when we classify transcripts in relation to the categories and outcome spaces, the classification is based upon the highest level of experience represented in the transcript. Thus for a transcript classified low in the hierarchy, the interviewee has shown little or no awareness of the experiences higher up in the hierarchy. We turn now to the categories and the outcome space describing the experience of understanding the topic being taught. These results do not describe how much someone knows about the topic being taught, or how correct is their understanding of the topic being taught. They do describe a structure of awareness of the experience of understanding (Marton & Booth, 1997). They show a structured hierarchy in terms of whole-part relationships, with an increasing sophistication in what is being referred to. Thus at one extreme the focus is on isolated pieces of information (Experience A), while at the other the focus is on underpinning theories and ideas within the broader field of study. While it may seem surprising that academic teachers could experience their teaching in terms of Experiences A, B and C, this does not describe how an individual academic understands his/her specialist understanding of a topic, but rather how the topic being taught is understood. The other two outcome spaces are iterations on, and overall confirmation of, previous findings. The new outcome space for the experiences of teaching and learning in the topic differs from the previously reported outcome space (Trigwell & Prosser, 1996) in containing no teacher/student interaction focused act of teaching. The previously referred to teacher/student interaction focus act of teaching has, on further detailed analysis been shown to be a sophisticated form of the teacher-focused perspective, in which students are active. This is consistent with the results of a recent analysis by Samuelowicz and Bain (2002). Along with the constitution of the new outcome space for experiences of understanding of the subject matter, the other main finding of this study is the analysis of the empirical relationship between the experience of understanding on the one hand and the experience of teaching and learning and the experience of the object of study on the other. That analysis showed that only 1 of the 16 academics whose interviews showed little awareness of how their subject matter related to the field as a whole (Experiences of understanding A, B, C) experienced their teaching and learning from a student-focused perspective (Experiences of teaching and learning D, E), while 10 of the 15 whose understanding showed at least some awareness of how their subject matter related to the field as a whole experienced their teaching and learning from a student-focused perspective. This suggests that while an experience of a higher level understanding of subject matter in terms of the way we have

153 described it is necessary for a student-focused experience of teaching, it does not guarantee it. On the other hand, it suggests that a less integrated and atomistic experience of understanding may restrict the experience of teaching and learning to that of a teacher-focused perspective. It should be noted that a less integrated and atomistic experience of understanding in our terms does not necessarily suggest that the academic does not have a very detailed knowledge of the subject matter, but rather that the teacher is unable to articulate in an interview how that subject matter they are teaching relates to the field as a whole. Similarly, none of the 16 teachers with a less integrated and atomistic experience of understanding the subject matter experienced the constitution of the object of study for the students in a way that showed how that subject matter related to the field as a whole – their focus was only on the elements of the subject matter of the topic itself. On the other hand, 11 of the 15 teachers with the more integrated and holistic experience of understanding experienced the constitution of the object of study for their students in ways which showed how the subject matter related to the field as a whole. This makes logical sense. Academics who show little or no awareness of how their subject matter relates to the field as a whole are most unlikely to be able to constitute an object of study for their students which shows or helps them understand these relationships. It is often argued that the variation identified in studies such as this are a result of field of study variation. While there may be distributional effects due to field of study – and with the sampling procedures adopted in this study it is not possible to explore this – we have shown similar variation within each of the fields of study. A major implication of this work is that if we want to change and develop the ways in which teachers approach their teaching and help their students to learn we need to help them to think carefully about what they are teaching and how it relates to and coheres with the field as a whole. This is a particularly important issue for teachers new to teaching or teaching a particular topic for the first time. We believe these findings have even wider implications. Recently, Meyer and Land (2002) articulated the idea of threshold concepts. These are concepts which, when grasped by the student, lead to a ‘‘transformed view of the subject matter’’. To identify such concepts may constitute the final step in removing barriers to learning. Our thinking about such concepts suggests to us that academics would need the integrated and holistic experience of understanding articulated in this paper to be able to identify threshold concepts, or at least that the threshold concept identified by an academic with an atomistic and less integrated experience of understanding may be different to one identified by an academic with a more integrated and holistic experience.

154 The issue of how academic teachers can develop their experience of understanding their subject matter is one which is raised by this study. One way of thinking about this may be to further consider Boyer’s four scholarships – discovery, integration, application and teaching (Boyer, 1990). We are presently using some of the ideas and findings presented in this paper to further investigate the relationship between teaching and research in higher education. We believe that one way in which academic teachers can further develop their experience of understanding is through their research – the scholarship of discovery. Other ways may be through the scholarship of integration and application. In all cases the academic teacher would need to intentionally engage in scholarship to problematise their understanding of their subject matter. This paper has been based upon a phenomenographic analysis of our data. As explained earlier this leads to decontextualised sets of categories of description, focusing on key differences in ways of experiencing phenomena. In our related paper we use an analysis of metaphor to complement and deepen these decontextualised descriptions and focus much more strongly on describing the individual experiences, in the process providing a richer description of the phenomena we have identified through our phenomenographic analysis.

Acknowledgements We wish to acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council in funding this project.

Appendix A Illustrative quotes for each of the categories of description for the experience of understanding subject matter Experience A ‘It would be technical information, technical information relating to the design of plastic components. There’s information on the ranges of plastic materials that might be available but then there are specific design requirements for those materials, basic things the designer must understand about drafting: how to actually get the plastic part out of a metal tool and how therefore, to design adequately to get that part out

155 of a tool; and what does a split line look for in a complex part. And those type of things that are applicable to a professional designer.’ Experience B ‘Managerial accounting to me is about identifying the relevant information for decision-making and providing decision support to executive management. Whether that be in development of strategy, or whether that be in operational planning, or whether that be in day to day running of an organisation and the feedback which is used to control the organisation … it’s information required for control and strategic strategy development within an organisation. So it’s, whereas financial accounting is geared towards providing information to external users, then Management Accounting is geared more to providing information to internal users.’ Experience C ‘We’re really talking about the whole subject here really, and it’s all part and parcel of what makes things ticks at a molecular level, the understanding of the enzymes and the controls of DNA, how it relates to genetic information transfer. They’re all happening at the same time. Well, sequentially in the sense that you need to understand about proteins to understand about enzymes to then understand about metabolic pathways, so there’s a sequence there. On the other hand, all the stuff with DNA and protein, and the genetic stuff, while it relies on enzymology, it’s something somewhat different again. The biochemical techniques are something different again.’ Experience D ‘Yeah, well, the laws of conservation and momentum and energy are, I guess, part of the foundation. And we would, we would see physics as having a number of foundations which, once you have the foundations allow you to describe almost any system, whatever it might be. Whether it’s light, or particles, whether it’s magnetic, whether it’s at high temperature or low temperature. So, how do they fit in? Well, they are part of this fundamental foundation.’ Experience E ‘How do you see within this subject it’s parts being connected? I don’t usually think of it as parts. I usually think of it as examples. So I see that

156 what we’re grappling with all the time is very complex questions about human behaviour, human interactions, social change. And then in all of the bits that I like to study, because they interest me most, I just see those as illustrations of maybe that bigger theme reflected in different ways, competing pressures. So if you took, for example, the example of euthanasia, in many ways the issues that I would be interested in are the same issues, whether it was abortion or euthanasia, or indeed some kind of regulation corporate crime. So it’s the examples that change, but fundamentally you’re looking at it as a social document.’

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