Understanding the experience of independent learning by student nurses: Giving up our love affair with Knowles and adopting a more social constructionist approach to enable a more student centred pedagogy.

Conference: Higher Education Academy's (2017) Annual Conference: Generation TEF: Teaching in the spotligh

Dates: 4-6 July 2017

Abstract:

A basic presupposition of all higher education is that a university education should be both a transformative and edifying experience where undergraduates are encouraged and motivated to pursue knowledge in their own idiosyncratic manner. Indeed, the development and cultivation of independent learning alongside moral citizenship, social responsibility, scholarship and critical enquiry are all highly valued graduate, as well as nursing, outcomes. This session aims to challenge the traditional theoretical defence of independent learning based on Knowles (1998) theory of andragogy that appears prevalent in the extant literature. Instead a more social constructionist and student centred perspective is advanced for consideration.

Source: Manual