Student perceptions of information system subject learning in hospitality management degree programmes : A study of contexts for “deep learning”

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate whether students adopt a “deep” approach to learning, i.e. “seeking meaning”, in the context of the subject of information systems (IS) and hospitality management degree programmes. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire that covers the key constructs, i.e. teaching, feedback, assessment, student autonomy and deep learning, is administered to two samples of final year students. Statistical tests indicate the significant differences between the two samples and the relationship between students' perception of their learning environment and “deep” learning in IS. Findings – Results show that, even though there are some significant differences between the two groups, particularly in items of teaching methods, feedback and assessment, “deep learning” is acquired in both contexts. Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to a comparative study of two institutions and further research is recommended to discover constructs and contexts particular to the hospitality sector. Practical implications – These results reveal that “constructive alignment” of teaching and learning priorities is needed with resource and training implications for both teachers and educational establishments. Originality/value – This research investigates information systems subject learning in hospitality management programmes (and the need to see an information system as an integrated, social system). It examines “contexts” as part of the learning environments: this is new. It also marries two different learning measurements (those of ETL and Cope) to quantitatively examine the phenomenon of “deep learning” in the hospitality IS subject context.