Does the implementation of innovative/learning-centered methods in teaching and assessment improve the learning approaches of university students? This is the research question that guides our work.

There are several studies which confirm, at the university, the survival of the traditional model, also known as the knowledge transmission model, teaching centered model, teacher centered model, but also the presence, in crescendo, of the student’s learning centered model also called constructivist model, student centered, learning paradigm) (Attard, Di Iorio, Geven &  Santa, 2010, Biggs, 2005; Kember, 2009; Monereo &  Pozo, 2003; Samuelowicz &  Bain, 2001).

This is the model advocated by the Bologna process of convergence, to which many European countries are committed for the purpose of getting higher quality training in our university students. The model presents as relevant elements the innovative teaching -using different methods propitiatory of active learning: cooperative work, problem-based learning, project teaching methods, teaching self-regulated learning, etc.- all of these compatible with the expository method of quality (Zabalza, 2012)-, the use of a meaningful evaluation, raised as a learning opportunity, using different sources of data collection, which returns feedback to students (Hernández, 2012) and which gives them the opportunity to participate in the process -for example by choosing ways and products to show the acquired-learning-, and which also encourages the learning of the self-assessing process in the student (Hannafin, 2012), etc. (Attard & al., 2010).

In this paper the impact of innovative/learning-centered methodologies on learning approaches will be discussed. These methodologies were implemented by three professors teaching in Pedagogy and Social Education degrees at the University of Valencia.

Learning approaches are consistencies that refer to the way students face an academic task, and stem from both the perceptions that a student has of the task and his/her characteristics (Biggs, 1993; Entwistle and Peterson, 2004). Learning approaches are based on motives and use certain strategies (McCune & Entwistle, 2011). The typology which we endorse is that which postulates that there are two approaches: deep and surface (Biggs, 1993; Entwistle, 1995).

The relevance of the matter derives from the impact that learning approaches have on academic achievement. There is information deriving from different research works in different countries: Valle et al. (2000), Biggs  (1987), Zeegers (2001), Muñoz and Gómez (2005), Gargallo et al. (2006), De la Fuente, Pichardo, Justicia and Berbén (2008), and Bliuc, Ellis, Goodyear and Muntele (2011), among others.

The role that students play during the teaching-learning process can be modified by innovative learning-centred methodological considerations (Gargallo, 2008). In fact, teachers have always had the conviction that their students will learn in a given manner depending on how they teach and evaluate.

If innovative and learning-centered methodology helps students to improve their learning approaches, as we think, we will be able to offer to other Spanish and European universities relevant data and training proposals of interest. To check this question we are collecting data from students in three universities of the city of Valencia (Spain) and we present results from a three-year research whose objectives obviously are broader[1].

Therefore, the objective of this work is to verify if the implementation of innovative/learning-centered methods by university professors improve the learning approaches of students from the selected simple.

[1] It is the "Learning-centered methodologies at the university. Design, implementation and assessment”, approved by the Spanish Economy and Competitiveness’ Ministry into the National Basic Research Program, 2001 (2013-2015) (Financing Plan E, PGE), directed by Professor Ph.D. Bernardo Gargallo (code EDU2012-32725).

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