Development of a model that explains relations between study environments, learners' self-perceptions, and variations in learning outcomes: a systematic review.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to select and meta-analyze literatures that concern with how the Biggs’s 3P Model of student learning has evolved along the lines of explaining the indirect impact of the Biggs’s 3P Model study environment on the learning outcomes through its influence on the self-perception of learners. The method of acquiring information was based on a literature search which was done using electronic databases. Existing studies that explain the relationship between learning environment, self-perception and learning outcomes using the Biggs’s 3P model were searched, selected and meta-analyzed. The electronic databases of Research Gate, JSTOR, and Google scholar were used to search for relevant different articles. There were 50 articles found on this topic, and about 35 articles were found relevant. The major findings from the meta-analysis of the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (RSPQ) of Biggs (1987) are; the Biggs’s 3P (presage, process, product) model is a modification of an original Biggs’s model of 1979 with three independent orthogonal factors (utilizing, internalizing and achieving), which is considered to impact on the choice of learning approaches, experiences and outcomes. The 3P model explains the interlinked system (known as constructive alignment) of all factors in a study environment, which the 3 orthogonal factors couldn’t because they are independent. Thus, the 3P model agrees with the 2-factor model of learning approaches, that is; deep approaches (learning as; understanding, personal responsibility, for social competence) and surface approaches (learning as; increasing knowledge, remembering, reproducing). Studies that used structural equation modeling SEM analysis of data for study of variables being examined in this paper reveal that; a learner with in a motivating study environment will have a positive self-perception with a metacognitive monitoring. And therefore, such a learner chooses a deep approach of learning, compared to one within a demotivating study environment. Such will have a negative self-perception and therefore choose a surface approach to learning over deep approach. Moreover; deep approach to learning is related to qualitative learning outcomes, and surface approach to quantitative learning outcomes.