The Educational Orientations of Lecturers and Their Students: A Case Study of an Australian University

Abstract

The educational orientations of 1,331 internal and external students and 154 staff at the University of New England were investigated using two recently developed U.S. measuring instruments. Significant differences between the views of staff and students were found in the areas of assessment, the role of students in decision-making, and (in the case of the internals) the vocational relevance of courses and the importance of learning for its own sake. The views of the teaching staff more closely corresponded to those of the external rather than internal students. The importance of these findings is discussed in the context of the desirability for our tertiary institutions to adapt to the possibly changing needs of their student bodies.