STUDAXOLOGY - THE EXPERTISE STUDENTS NEED TO BE EFFECTIVE IN HIGHER-EDUCATION

Students in higher education have to develop two types of expertise; t he first refers to the mastery they want to acquire within a well defi ned occupational or disciplinary domain; the second relates to the dee p level learning needed to achieve that mastery as an expert student o r studax. Research has indicated that in solving a problem any expert simultaneously has to draw on four types of knowledge. Where the perso nal organisation of these four leads to effectiveness, this brings abo ut the quintessence of expertise - experiencing problem solving behavi our as intrinsically motivating, or rewarding in itself. This intrinsi c motivation integrates experiences of competence (through declarative knowledge), causality (through procedural knowledge), creativity (thr ough situational knowledge) and self regulation (through strategic kno wledge). The same will then necessarily hold for the student who prove s, by experiencing this very same effectiveness, to be the studax or d eep level learner higher education needs. This paper describes a theor y - shudaxology - which explains to the student, on the basis of what is being experienced while studying, how to become organized as a pers on within the study environment, so as to succeed in the required task . Studaxology's core is a 3 x 3 matrix of study experiences, based on that number of sources of variance, empirically identified by means of factor analysis of Likert-type items in study inventories. Its centra l experience of intrinsic motivation brings together four pairs of com plementary experiences (ability vs. difficulty, effort vs. relevance, intention vs. demand and time perspective vs. discipline), with each p air constituting a basic component of intrinsic motivation, and as suc h reflecting a specific form of metacognitive knowledge. Adequate inte rpretation and use of the 3 x 3 scores on a similar study inventory en able the studax effectively to meet deep level learning that optimal f unctioning in higher education demands. Factor analyses of students ev aluations of lecturing behaviours can also be fitted into a 3 x 3 matr ix equivalent to that of the studax. It is argued from these analyses that the essential prerequisites for achieving studaxological expertis e stem from an appropriate initial vocational choice (which will help to produce an internally well-cohering 3 x 3 matrix of experiences) an d are further enhanced by an equivalent matrix of lecturing behaviours designed to support students' own study experiences.