KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS - UNDERSTANDINGS CONSTITUTED THROUGH INTENSIVE ACADEMIC STUDY

A small-scale interview study is used to explore a new idea about the ways in which students experience the development of academic understanding within a degree course. Initial analyses had established differences in both the students' intentions and the process by which they developed understanding during revision for final examinations. These distinctive approaches were called forms of understanding, and were found to differ in terms of breadth, depth and structure. A re-analysis of sections of the transcripts has now been used to explore students' experiences of the outcomes of their learning - the understandings that were constituted in the process of intensive study. Students' descriptions of their experiences as they brought together substantial amounts of revision material suggested that they had created entities which were 'perceived' as knowledge objects. Students showed an awareness of a tightly integrated body of knowledge, aspects of which were reviewed through visualisation but were more commonly described in terms of quasi-sensory experiences. Students used revision notes to cue up additional material, showing an awareness of unfocused aspects of knowledge. Individual differences in the way knowledge objects were developed varied from surface to deep based on the extent to which students related their knowledge to the real-life phenomenon. Parallels with descriptions of scientific intuition given by Nobel laureates suggest that the phenomenon is not restricted to the revision process. The concept of a knowledge object provides a way of describing aspects of memory processes and understanding which is not reductionist.