In his review of studies on learning and teaching in higher education which dated back to the end of the ‘70s and were done especially in the United Kingdom and Sweden, Richardson (2005) highlighted three prevailing approaches to learning in higher education: a deep approach, based upon meaning-making of course materials; a surface approach, based upon memorizing course materials for the assessment purposes; and a strategic approach, based upon achieving the top grades. They are determined partly by individual factors such as personality, motivation and study skills, and partly by contextual factors such as learning task, attitudes and enthusiasm of teachers, and forms of assessment (Beattie, Collins, & McInnes, 1997). Hence, the choice of one favourable approach to learning differs, depending upon those (Richardson, 2005) among which the methods of assessment have aroused our wonder with a statement in our minds that “the quickest way to change student learning is to change the assessment system” (Elton & Laurillard, 1979, p. 100). However, it should not be neglected that any educational change will not be effective in changing students’ approaches to learning unless they also cause changes in their perceptions about assessment (Richardson, 2005) which stand for views on, attitudes toward, and preferences of assessment (Birenbaum & Rosenau, 2006) since students’ perceptions of assessment were found to significantly influence their approaches to learning, and vice versa (Struyven, Dochy, & Janssens, 2005; Thomson & Falchikov, 1998).

Relationships between approaches to learning and assessment preferences have been studied so far, but some of the studies have limited approaches to learning only to two learning approaches, namely, deep and surface learning approaches, and have ignored strategic approach to learning (Baeten, Dochy, & Struyven, 2008; Gijbels & Dochy, 2006; Scouller, 1998) whereas some (Dogan, Atmaca, & Aslan-Yolcu, 2012; Furnham, Batey, & Martin, 2011; Thomson & Falchikov, 1998) have considered strategic learning approach as well. Besides, some have been interested in students at higher education level studying office management (Baeten, Dochy, & Struyven, 2008), social and management sciences, publishing, and engineering (Thomson & Falchikov, 1998), criminology (Gijbels & Dochy, 2006) whereas few have paid attention to those studying education (Birenbaum & Rosenau, 2006; Scouller, 1998).

The current study, in this respect, can be anticipated to be a contribution to the literature, probing possible relations of pre-service teachers’ approaches to learning to their assessment preferences which, but not their relations to learning approaches, have been investigated before (Bal, 2012; Buyukozturk & Gulbahar, 2011). Hence, this study can shed light on several implications for teacher educators to consider while assessing pre-service teachers’ performance.

Regarding all mentioned, the research question addressed in this study was as follows: What is the relationship between learning approaches and assessment preferences among Turkish pre-service teachers?

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