Learning. Students’ Learning Conception at the Bacherlor’s Degree in Educational Sciences in Four Latin-American Universities

Abstract

A phenomenological research method has been adopted to investigate students’ learning conceptions at the Bachelor’s Degree in Educational Sciences/Pedagogy at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro, Universidad de Colima and Universidad Estadual Paulista. The objectives are: 1. To characterize the phenomenon in students attending the same course of studies in different universities; 2. To observe if there are elements distinguishing the conceptions of learning in students attending the initial/final section of the course of studies; 3. To identify common and idiosyncratic aspects according to educational context and section by means of the system of analysis developed ad hoc; 4. To determine if students’ concept of learning is cross-sectional to different populations. From the methodological perspective, with the use of a qualitative approach, the respective categories are extracted into a corpus of 264 written productions, they are analyzed by university and educational section, and the results are related to previous theoretical developments. Findings, 1. Our results partially confirm those obtained in previous studies; 2. The analysis by dimensions shows differences that in other studies go unnoticed; 3. The distinctive aspects according to educational contexts and sections condition the possibility to generalize the learning conception to other populations; 3. Our results partially confirm those obtained in previous studies. 4. Students’ ideas on learning provide input material to reflect on the educational trajectory at university.