Surface Learning vs. Deep Learning Approach
                     Surface Learning vs. Deep 
Learning Approaches – The 
Difference Between A Deep 
Learning Approach and A Surface 
Learning Approach.
The Difference Between A Deep Learning Approach and A Surface Learning Approach. Let us hear from 
some of the brilliant minds in the education industry.Surface Learning vs. Deep Learning Approaches
Deep and surface approaches to learning are approaches that students themselves and research, way back 
in the 1970s, actually told us those are terms of students in the research used. It’s not something that 
professors and, you know, educational theorists came up with. Let us know about the difference between 
surface learning and deep learning approaches from Joy Mighty of Carleton University.
The students have told us that they adapt their learning and approach to 
learning based on their learning context and their perception of the learning 
environments.
Surface learning is when they take a very rote approach to learning. They’re 
not interested in meaning and understanding. They want to give back to the 
instructor, perhaps what they think the instructor wants them to give.
It’s a question of learning by root memorizing, paying very little attention to, 
you know, challenging situations. Just make. The minimum effort, but you 
can get through the course in the minimum effort.
A deep approach to learning is when the student is motivated to go to the 
meaning to understand what they’re learning. It’s not simply a question of 
memorizing.
They ask questions about things that they’ve encountered in the learning 
process. They are interested enough to realize that a deep approach requires 
them to be actively involved in the learning process, participate by asking 
questions, seek answers themselves, and look for deeper understanding.
The same student can sometimes take a surface approach in one course and one 
professor and a deep approach with another. It is because of the environment that 
they perceive exists in each of those courses. So how you design a course is critical.
If you design a course where the learning outcomes are not explicit, it does not allow 
the students to immerse themselves in the process.
Also, the assessment is an important part of the design. 
We know how important assessment is to students. It’s one of the first questions they 
ask “how are we going to be evaluated in this course?” They can, very early in the 
course, based on how you’ve designed the assessment, recognize what it is you 
want from them: are you seeking a demonstration of learning, or are you seeking 
regurgitation of information that you have provided.
So how you design the course, the kinds of activities that you engage the students in 
the kinds of assessment you let you develop for the course would impact the 
students’ choice about what approach use it’s a choice, and they make that choice 
based on their life.
How would you distinguish deep and surface approaches of learning?
Maureen Connolly of Brock University is a big believer in associative anchoring.Deep learning is 
anchored in Association. She will always go for understanding over memory, always. She will privilege 
understanding over memorization, and quite frankly, in the online education environment, 
memorization doesn’t make much sense to her anyway.She does privilege comprehension, 
understanding application over memorization fact-based discrete types of pieces of evidence. However, 
she understands that we need to use discrete evidence early to get more complex and consolidated 
evidence later. 
The difference between deep learning and surface learning.
From Carleton University, Samah Sabra says something really interesting.
She thinks that in education theory, this distinction is made between deep and surface 
approaches to learning. The idea is that with surface approaches, learning often it’s this 
kind of, you know, cram for the exam or the assignment or stay up all night getting the 
paper in. Then you don’t remember it beyond that, right?
You’re just sort of in the same way that an iceberg just has this tip that sticks out, but then 
there’s this whole bigger piece below that you don’t see! When students are engaged or, 
you know, any of us are engaged in surface approaches learning, we’re just getting at that 
very tip of the iceberg, and we’re not getting at all of that really rich and powerful stuff 
that’s below.
It is a very predictive scale that he has found in many cases that you know as a basic 
indicator. If you want to predict marks, this scale predicts them very well. Those with a 
deep approach learn much better and get much better marks.
Once again, it provides a tool, and then when he tries to do things like even the example of 
turning reward contingencies in the flirting or something like that, you can get a sense of 
whether that makes people approach the material more deeply. You can look for changes 
in the orientation of the scale as a function of the assessments you use. So once again, 
it’s another good formative tool, something he thinks every good instructor should be 
keeping an eye on as they make changes to a course.