Perception vs Facts | Does it matter for teaching and learning in HEIs?

Perception plays a vital role in determining our life-satisfaction and the way we tend to live in real time. Our decisions are strongly influenced by our perception irrespective of the facts of life. Does this also happen in teaching and learning in higher educational institutions (HEI)? The evidences tend to suggest that perception of teaching by faculty do influence their teaching style and decision on pedagogy, while the perception of learning by students tend to affect the learning outcomes. Read more to know how and why…

Try answering this question without taking much of your time: Here is a ball and a bat. The combined price of ball and bat together is Rs.110. If the price of the bat is Rs.100 more than the ball, what is the price of the ball?

Did you get Rs.10 as your answer? Sorry, you may be disappointed but it is a wrong answer. However, do not worry too much about it. You are not an exception; neither is it a reflection of your low cognition. In a repeated trial with my audience, ranging from CEOs, MDs and VPs from the corporate world to the group of highly accomplished faculty, HoDs and Principals and to students from various streams, I found Rs. 10 as the answer provided by almost all. Exceptions were very few who could quickly calculated it to be Rs.5. Most of those who got it right were either working in accounts department or had background related to day-today calculations. Is this surprising? At least not to the science of human behavior, which would account it to ‘perceptional bias’. We live by ‘reaction’ rather than ‘response’ and most of our reactions are perception based. When we tend to take a back seat and do some facts checking, reality tends to take over our perception.

Behavioral science is becoming unescapable

Behavioral science is making inroads into almost every field of studies and all lifestyles. Way back in 1996 when I submitted my Ph.D. dissertation on consumption patterns in urban India, I was overwhelmed by the array of models and theories. I was more interested in finding out household specific factors affecting consumption. The macroeconomic data on household consumption obtained in family survey by national sample survey organization was not allowing me to get to the micro specific behaviour. Finally, I was exposed to Angus Deaton’s almost ideal demand system (AIDS) and his idea of understanding macro behaviour using micro observed data. I changed my approach and resorted to primary information collection and was finally able to achieve the objectives of looking at socioeconomic factors affecting consumption. It also allowed me to bring out the difference in impact of rise in income on consumption across different income and socioeconomic groups. Indeed the similar amount of rise in income is not going to bring similar enhancement in consumption across all types of income groups, neither its impact on family health and education would be similar. 

The short term and long term perspective of consumption as advocated in macroeconomic models specify consumption smoothening as something determined primarily by long term perspective on consumption. The various phases of business cycle is likely to bring focus more on income volatility rather than consumption volatility. Deaton advocated and showed consumption is more volatile than income over cyclical periods. In long-term perspective, therefore, income is smoother than consumption.

Micro behaviour can be captured by digging in data at individual level rather than aggregate or average level. Average may not be a true representative of reality. By doing so, Deaton has opened a new vista in understanding linkages with welfare, poverty, and living standards. Too many assumptions in model building might conceal reality, evidence based theorisation definitely serves better.

Perception affects life-satisfaction

Quality of life is comprised of getting right on both perception as well as facts. If the fact of life is poor and the perception of life is good, it might be a case of ‘false consciousness’ or at best it might also lead to adaptive strategy. On the other side, if the fact of life is good and the perception of life is bad, it will create great dissonance. People evaluating their life as poor and miserable in spite of being rich is a typical case of dissonance. This situation sometime is dangerous as it might as well lead to fatal consequences. Such a situation indicates that life’s perception is critical irrespective of whether fact of life is good or bad.

Learning perception of students

Though students join HEIs for learning, yet there is an overwhelming demand for degree as the end-result. This is, perhaps, the reason that the students’ perception of learning inside the classroom and outside the classroom differ considerably. Learning gets better when students are engaged in collaborative lessons in self-learning mode. Lecture is a passive mode of learning and it does not enhance the learning beyond certain limit unless students are made to engage in post-class exercises. Tools of active learning are mostly self-directed in nature where students have to drive it themselves. Expectantly, students’ perception of learning in self-learning mode should be stronger than in lecture mode. However, it has been found that students hold a contrary view. Based on our observation and interactions with students, scheduled lecture-based classes are the place where they supposedly ‘learn’. Self-learning exercises outside the scheduled classes fall outside the purview of their perception of learning. Such observations have also found empirical support. In a recent study by Deslauriersa, McCartya, Millerc, Callaghana, and Kestin (PNG, vol. 116, no. 69, September 24, 2019); available as open access, authors conducted controlled experiments and compared  students’ self-reported perception of learning with their actual learning under controlled conditions and compared– active instruction and passive instruction. The study found that students in active classrooms learned more, but their perception of learning, while positive, was lower than that of their peers in passive environments. This also means that if a super professor who is also a master of language and knows the art of communication delivers the lecture, students will tend to perceive it as ‘subject learnt.’ Invariably, the feedback students give for their faculty is largely based on such perception of learning. If we overlook such perceptional imbalance, it will undermine the effort towards active learning.

To quote the study, as cited earlier:

“As the success of active learning crucially depends on student motivation and engagement, it is of paramount importance that students appreciate, early in the semester, the benefits of struggling with the material during active learning. If students are misled by their inherent response into thinking that they are not learning, they will not be able to self-regulate, and they will not learn as successfully.”

Learning perception of faculty

The narrative “I had a wonderful class today”, may inherently be guided by the faculty’s perception of students learning. A wonderful class is faculty’s own perspective and it does not necessarily mean students have learnt. One possible way to count it as a ‘wonderful class’ is that the faculty is able to deliver well, able to make an impression on the class, and able to finish the content well within the time. All these are self-gratifying and represents ‘teacher-centric’ mindset rather ‘student-centric’ teaching. In these circumstances, it will be difficulty for the faculty to drive students towards self-learning mode; rather it will promote ‘oratory excellence’ as the yardstick of learning success. It can so happen that a faculty gets the best feedback from students; however, the students did not learn much.

Where shall thou meet?

For the success of the student-centric teaching-learning process, it is important that the perception of learning and actual learning shall meet. It shall match both for the students and for faculty. The mismatch is likely to give rise to several challenging situations.

What are the lessons?

• The pick of pedagogy and teaching style by faculty tend to match their own perception of learning rather than the actual learning by students.

• Students are likely to value lecture more over any self-driven active learning method, if their perception of learning is higher for the former than later.

• The inferior (passive) pedagogical methods are easily promoted in case the decision is based on perception of learning by faculty as well as students.

• How we start the teaching and how we take it forward with the students is likely to make a difference. Students tend to value active learning once they are acclimatized to it.

To quote from the study (Deslauriers et al, 2019; as cited earlier in this write up):