ABSTRACT

Higher professional education aims to prepare students for professional practice, for which students will need to develop conceptual understanding. Conceptual understanding requires a synthesis of relevant facts, theories and practices. This research explores what types of change take place in students’ conceptual understanding during a bachelor course. Forty-four senior international business majors in the Netherlands wrote expository essays at the beginning and end of a 14-week course. A rubric was used to grade the essays on six components of conceptual understanding using a 5-point scale. Results indicated five types of change: regressive, minor, modest, substantial and major. The most significant increases in conceptual understanding appeared to relate to context-specific or conceptual knowledge. Results also indicated that individual students’ conceptual understanding changed in different ways, with improvements in some components and deterioration in others, particularly global context. Discussion includes suggestions to account for the different types of change, and curricular implications.

摘要

高等教育旨在让学生为专业实践做好准备，为此学生需要发展概念理解。概念理解需要综合相关的事实、理论和实践。本研究探讨了在学士课程期间学生的概念理解发生了哪些类型的变化。荷兰的 44 名高级国际商务专业在为期 14 周的课程开始和结束时撰写了说明性文章。使用 5 分制评分标准，根据概念理解的六个组成部分对论文进行评分。结果显示了五种类型的变化：回归、次要、适度、实质性和主要。概念理解的最显着增加似乎与特定上下文或概念知识有关。结果还表明，个别学生的概念理解以不同的方式发生了变化，某些组成部分有所改善，而另一些则有所恶化，尤其是全球背景。讨论包括解释不同类型变化和课程影响的建议。