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Learning as acquisition
or learning as participation?
Ove Sandell
The
metaphors we choose and use can shape as well as reflect
our perceptions (Reddy, 1978). I was curious, therefore, to learn
more about how students accounts of their learning would relate to
metaphors commonly used in the professional literature to describe
learning. My interest was sparked, in part, by an ongoing debate in
the professional literature about the relationship of two seemingly
distinct metaphoric representations of learning: learning as
acquisition and learning as participation. Although these metaphors
are prominent in the literature, I wondered if they would be evident
in the way students framed their discussions of learning. I was also
interested in whether these metaphors reflect contradictory and
incompatible views of learning (and thus imply different actions and
behaviors), or whether they can be productively integrated to offer a
more richly informative perspective on the complexities of learning
as actually experienced.
To
explore these questions, I undertook a research assignment at
Oestfold University College in Norway that enabled me to interview 24
pupils aged 16 to 20 about their school stories. In selecting
participants, I sought those who indicated they had experienced,
either presently or in their past, difficulties with reading and/or
writing. My assumption was that such students would be more likely to
have reflected on my questions than those who had never struggled
with learning…
During our conversations, all
informants received the following questions:
· How would you
describe your school history?
· How would you
describe good education or good learning situations?
· How do you learn?
· What characterizes good instruction?
· What characterizes a clever teacher?
This
article presents the theoretical background and methodical
considerations for the study and a summary of how 24 pupils,
classified on the basis of their responses into two groups, answered
the presented questions. The underlying goal of this study was to
obtain information that would help me evaluate whether it is
worthwhile to promote conceptual unification between cognitive and
situated theories of learning.
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Learning as Acquisition or Learning as Participation?