Purpose, process, place, pedagogical affordance and product (5Ps) of student learning in higher education: beyond Beckers

Purpose Universities are investing billions of dollars in building infrastructure, with the design of learning spaces driven by technological developments and long-standing changes in pedagogical theory and practice. The aim of the study is to investigate the alignment between pedagogy and space by responding to a single research question: What is the relationship between the purpose, process, place and product of student learning in higher education? Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Beckers et al.’s (2015) purpose–process–place framework, the study uses an online survey and photo elicitation method to gather perspectives from educators and students in one Australian university about their learning spaces. A hybrid approach consisting of inductive and deductive coding to thematic analysis was used to find repeated patterns of meaning. Findings A total of 24 images of learning spaces were received from 8 educators and 16 students. Thematic analysis of the images and responses by participants highlights the importance of the pedagogical affordances of the learning environment and the product of learning, which are aligned to the purpose–process–place of learning. Research limitations/implications This study provided a robust approach grounded in data to understand the alignment between space and pedagogy. Articulating students learning as an output of the alignment between space and pedagogy has important implications for the design of learning spaces and pedagogical practices in higher education. One limitation to the study, however, is noteworthy. The surveys had limited responses. Whilst the small response rates may not necessarily lead to biased results, it is acknowledged that a larger sample is likely to give more reliable results to enable the theory to be generalised. Originality/value The study’s findings extend the purpose–process–place framework to include pedagogical affordances and the product of learning. The purpose, process, place, pedagogical affordance and product framework posits that pedagogical affordances within a place must be deployed in such a way so that teaching and learning processes can contribute to enhancing educational goals or purpose to improve student learning outcomes, i.e. product. This framework provides a context for understanding the relationships between pedagogy and space in higher education.