Challenging Learning Myths through Intervention Studies in Formal Higher Education

The introduction of open and networked learning practices in formal higher education regularly collides with the personal beliefs and convictions that students hold in relation to their own capacity for learning and the structural and procedural conditions that they expect to be met in such settings. A series of systemic intervention studies at Tallinn University highlighted the disabling role that these personal learning myths can play when students are confronted with practices that promote a new culture of learning. This paper offers some selected examples from a qualitative data analysis and discusses the possibility to embrace personal learning myths as a core concept for further research and the development of more effective intervention instruments and approaches.