The phenomenology of ‘approach to studying’: the university student's studies within the lifeworld

The Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) was based on qualitative research by Marton and Säljö, which established ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ approaches to study. This article attempts a new qualitative explication of the meanings of study. A heuristic due to Husserl is employed which distinguishes between the ‘noema’, the subjective object of awareness, and the ‘noesis’, the manner of mental activity in which the object is grasped. It is argued that previous work on approaches to learning focused exclusively on the noesis. In‐depth interviews with university students show that approaches to studying, in their full meaning within the student lifeworld, are much richer than can be encapsulated by noetic descriptions of ‘depth’ or ‘superficiality’, even when elaborated as in later versions of the ASI or in phenomenography.