Disciplinary differences in faculty members' emphasis on deep approaches to learning

Abstract

"Deep learning" is important in higher education because students who utilize such an approach tend to get more out of their educational experiences. As learning is a shared responsibility between students and faculty, it is equally important to examine how much faculty members emphasize deep approaches to learning as it is to assess how much students employ these approaches. This study examines disciplinary differences in faculty members� emphasis on deep approaches to learning. On average, faculty in education, arts and humanities, and social science fields emphasize deep learning more than their colleagues from other disciplinary areas, which is not entirely consistent with findings from a previous study on students.