Learning spaces in higher education: an under-researched topic
by Paul Temple
Introduction
The organizational context of higher education space
Can campus design help teaching and learning?
A community space
Form and function in learning spaces
The need for new design approaches
Technology and learning
Some problems with research on learning spaces
Conclusions
- how space can support the development of a university community, the needs of specialist spaces, and the impact of technology on space use. Space issues are central to the operation of universities, and further research is needed to illuminate the connections between space and institutional effectiveness.
Introduction
- In work which specifically highlights ‘space’ or ‘environment’, the meaning is usually related to the ways in which teaching and learning are conceptualized or organized, rather than to do with physical arrangements. Instead, consideration of space in higher education has commonly taken place either in the context of space planning, or as part of campus master-planning and architecture, rather than being seen as a resource to be managed as an integral part of teach- ing and learning, and research, activities
The organizational context of higher education space
- the straightforward aim of maximising space use quickly runs into conflict with a range of other institutional objectives, notably those to do with teaching and learning, but also with research and the provision of internal and external services. Settling these conflicts is an unglamorous but essential management task throughout higher education
- space management is certainly related to teaching and learning, in that priorities are set, explicitly or implicitly, for certain teaching and learning uses as against others, in terms of the type of space provided, its location, and the time when it is made available (if it is made available at all). There is, however, little evidence that such decisions are usually informed by an understanding of the relationships between space and the teaching and learning that will go on within it (Barnett and Temple 2006, 11).
Can campus design help teaching and learning?
- thinking about spaces specifically to meet teaching and learning needs appears generally to be hidden from view in most accounts of campus design. Edwards argues that twentieth-century British campuses reflect a struggle, not between different views about teaching and learning, but between ‘place making and the expression of rational, technologically pure architecture’ (2000, 37) – the 1960s campuses of Sussex and York Universities being presented as examples of the former and latter tendencies respectively.
- A critical analysis of American campus design (Whisnant 1971, 88) comes closer to asking questions about how the spatial organisation of the campus affects learning, arguing provocatively that campuses are, in effect, designed to exacerbate ‘division, tension, alienation and strife’ – though these comments relate mainly to inter-departmental rivalries. While Whisnant (radically, for the time) advocates giving students greater autonomy in organising their learning, his proposals for physical changes to improve learning focus on breaking down barriers between the campus and the ‘uncampus’ outside, and mixing teaching, research, administrative and social spaces within it to create a better sense of community.
A community space
- ‘Institutions of higher education are not merely places of instruction. They are communities’,
- How do ideas of community and participatory governance in higher education relate to teaching and learning, and to space? This is an under-researched, but potentially important, field.
- It has been proposed that the physical form of the university is important in supporting its integrated nature, intellectually and socially, and that it is ‘the preservation and development of this integrated form, with its dense network of connections, that provides many of the management and planning challenges in higher education’ and which supports institutional effectiveness (Temple and Barnett 2007, 7). Physical space and intellectual space may, then, be connected through the operation of social networks.
- what university leaders and their architects think people think about their buildings also seems largely unsupported by evidence. When university staff members and students are actually asked about the impressive new buildings in which they are working, their responses tend to fall short of ringing endorsements (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment 2005). We may also note that it is surely the case that, around the world, the vast majority of university buildings are simply functional standard units, constructed to the designs and standards of other comparable buildings of their place and time; they have no grand message to send.
- on ‘flexible’ learning spaces – spaces in which different groups may be undertaking different activities simultaneously and which lend themselves to a variety of uses (Chism 2006; Joint Information Systems Committee 2006) – has suggested how campus and building design can be used to facilitate learning, particularly informal learning. On the basis that much effective learning takes place as a result of interactions between students, designs need to provide a variety of spaces for them to work and socialise in together (Kuh et al. 2005, 206).
- The importance of creating human-scale learning environments features in the literature. ‘Through buildings, signs, and the landscape of the campus, the physical environment communicates messages that influence students’ feelings of well-being, belonging, and identity’ – and so aids learning (Kuh et al. 2005, 106).
- is students’ learning perhaps helped by their involvement in the creation of social capital, and their uses of it? It seems plausible that one of the influences at work on students, if only to a modest extent, is that of their physical surroundings: Rutter et al.’s 1979 study of secondary schools argued for a link between well-kept buildings, the school as an effectively functioning social institution, and improved learning outcomes.
- I have found no convincing studies on this interplay between physical and social capitals, and learning. We propose that this is an area worthy of further empirical examination.
Form and function in learning spaces
- It is libraries (or learning resource centres, or information commons) which have received most consideration in the literature in terms of their changing roles in enabling learning. The library has traditionally been thought of as being at the heart of a university – and often placed there physically. Despite some predictions that the growth of on-line services would lead to a reduced demand for physical libraries, their development continues (King 2000).
- It is generally recognised in the literature that laboratories, workshops, studios and so on should be seen as spaces with important social dimensions, and that their designs should facilitate social interactions, as well as meeting standard operational requirements. Providing ‘an island of reflection’ in a central atrium, perhaps, or forming an internal ‘street’ linking related spaces, are possibilities that may support social interactions in new or remodeled buildings (Edwards 2000, 100).
- A move towards larger, open-plan laboratories with shared facilities, rather than separate labs for each research team, with adjoining clustered staff offices, is another proposed way of stimulating this type of interaction (Guterman 2004).
The need for new design approaches
- Discussions of a student-centred approach to university design have naturally tended to focus on issues of pedagogy and the curriculum, rather than on the physical environment. Some writers have, however, noted that changed approaches to teaching and learning, including the need to respond to the demands of students from a wider variety of social and educational back- grounds, should carry with them new approaches to design – and that, in particular, teaching and learning should drive design, rather than vice versa (Jamieson et al. 2000; Jamieson 2003).
- It remains the case that a room, with tables and chairs, and a means of displaying information for all to see, remains the basic non-specialist teaching space in higher education. In some cases, a simple change in the layout of the chairs and tables in the room is proposed to facilitate a group discussion, rather than the ex cathedra layout of a lecturer at the front with ranks of students laid out before her or him – while acknowledging that large- group teaching may in fact demand this ‘sage on a stage’ layout. Preferences of both students and teachers seem to be rather similar: comfortable seating, convenient furniture layouts, temperature control and pleasant outside views feature strongly (Douglas and Gifford 2001; Scott-Webber 2004).
- Alexi Marmot Associates architectural practice and the haa design consultancy (Scottish Funding Council 2006), argued that seven types of learning space could be identified in further and higher education. These space types were for:
● group teaching and learning, where flexible furniture arrangements were needed to accommodate groups of varying sizes, using varying layouts, preferably in square rather than rectangular rooms (the former being more adaptable);
● simulated environments, where practical learning can take place in technological subjects or nursing, say, and requiring space for observation as well as for performing the task in hand;
● immersive environments, such as ‘HIVEs’, highly interactive virtual environments, with advanced information and communications technology, possible in many subjects but more likely to be found in scientific or technological ones;
● peer-to-peer environments, where informal learning can take place, in cyber cafés, for example;
● clusters, where student group work can take place, for example in learning centres;
● individual work, in quiet areas;
● external work – areas outside the building suitable for individual or small group activity.
Technology and learning
- Technological advances have been presented as ways of improving pedagogy and/or reducing teaching costs for much of the twentieth century, but actual pedagogic practice has been stubbornly resistant.
- Kress argues that in this ‘new media age’ the screen has replaced the book as the dominant medium of communication. New media make it easy to incorporate multiple communication modes (image, audio, video), and these modes are ‘governed by distinct logics [which] change not only the deeper meanings of textual forms but also the structures of ideas, of conceptual arrangements, and of the structures of our knowledge’ (Kress 2003, 16).
Some problems with research on learning spaces
- As learning is a social activity, campus designs are needed that create welcoming, informal spaces for people to meet and talk, and perhaps to work in small groups.
- One suggestion is that learning is helped by providing students with possibilities for a ‘socially catalytic’ ‘third place’, neither where you live nor work, a place to ‘hang out’, where new relationships may be explored and existing ones deepened (Strange and Banning 2001, 146).
- The conclusion from the literature points to the link between space design and learning outcomes being weak at best, and it may often easily be masked by a number of other factors. A high proportion of the literature makes unsupported, or anecdotal, claims about the benefits of new designs or new configurations of existing space. Where they are presented, empirical findings are usually flawed, as they either tend to report changed student attitudes (rather than learning outcomes), or where learning outcomes are reported, they fail to take account of observer effects of various kinds.
- other work in higher education suggests that students are not overly concerned about the spaces in which they work: ‘it is clear’, reports one recent study, ‘that many of the physical aspects of the University services are not important with regards to student satisfaction’ (Douglas, Douglas, and Barnes 2006, 261). Other studies (for example, Watson 2000, 76; Wiers- Jenssen, Stensaker, and Grogaard 2002; MacDonald 2004) have similarly found that most students place emphasis on the teaching abilities and subject expertise of the staff, tutorial support, library and information technology facilities, and other matters directly related in students’ minds to teaching and learning, rather than on physical facilities.
- recent studies suggest that findings showing that students give a low priority to space issues may have quite wide international validity. In a large-scale survey in a US public university, ‘faculty preparedness’ was found to be the key predictor of student satisfaction, and that ‘different perceptions of campus facilities and services have relatively little affect [sic] on the varying satisfaction of students’ (Thomas and Galambos 2004, 266).
- As with the findings from schools, then, the link in higher education between the physical environment and learning is a complex one, tied up with many other aspects of being a student and a member of an institutional community. But it seems reasonable to conclude that a good standard of basic building care and maintenance is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of good learning outcomes.
Conclusions
- Understanding the university space is an important element in understanding how universities work – in terms of teaching and learning, but also more broadly. This is a methodologically difficult area, but one that needs more attention.
- campus and university building design needs to give more consideration to the social underpinnings of learning. Providing welcoming and flexible spaces, including informal meeting spaces, should be seen as part of the support to learn- ing through developing the wider learning landscape. The role that such spaces can play, and the most effective design ingredients for them, need further study. Clear technical recommendations are needed on the best ways of providing such spaces in different university settings.
- certain design features can encourage new ideas and creativity. No evidence is available to support this claim, but further research should be encouraged.
- efforts should be made to conduct evaluations of new learning spaces, in order to provide guidance as to the learning benefits, and financial and other costs, associated with them.
- We need a better understanding of the role of space in the dynamics of creating more productive higher education communities and its connections with learning and research. This should be the subject of further research.
- he implications for the design of learning spaces seem to be limited, however; flexibility in space design should be the priority. The rapid (and unanticipated) growth over the past few years in the use of wireless-enabled laptops using broadband networks has meant that the need for specialist information technology spaces may be declining