Recognising and overcoming dissonance in postgraduate student research

This essay in the leading HE journal reports an action research study 1998- 2003 and continuing for which Gina Wisker is the principal investigator, which uses JHF Meyer, Vermunt et al’s theories of variation in learning to focus on the identified dissonance between postgraduate students’ approaches to learning, their motivation for learning , how they know they have learned, and learning outcomes they wish to achieve. It indicates how quantitative research methods involving the Reflections on Learning Inventory(Meyer and Boulton Lewis 1997) can identify dissonance between accumulative learning approaches and transformational outcomes at PhD and continues with data on research development programmes and PhD achievements indicating how some students overcome such dissonance during their PhD study. It contributes new knowledge about dissonance at PhD level.