Learner agency and the curriculum: a critical realist perspective

Abstract

Agency, understood as the capacity to act independently and to make one’s own choices, is considered central to children’s development. Thus, education, and hence education curricula, have a role in the development of learner agency. While curriculum development is a key focus for educational theory, research, policy, and classroom practice, the potential implications of curriculum content selections for learner agency remain underexplored. Theoretically, this paper engages with critical realism, explaining how it can provide theoretical foundation for a more comprehensive view of learner agency and, by implication, more balanced curricula. Empirically, the paper draws on the findings from a content analysis of the national curriculum documents of four countries with relatively high scores in international comparative tables, England, Australia, Hong-Kong, and Canada, to develop a new typology of primary curricula. Based on the extent of emphasis placed on knowledge versus skills, values, and attitudes, three types of curricula were identified: knowledge-based, skills-oriented, and learner-centred. Due to its significant theoretical and practical influence globally, we focus on the knowledge-based model and its likely impact on students’ agency. We conclude by highlighting the importance of making learner agency a key orientation of the curriculum and suggesting directions for future research.     

Structure and agency in learning: a critical realist theory of the development of capacity to reflect on academic practice

Theories of learning typically downplay the interplay between social structure and student agency. In this article, we adapt a causal hypothesis from realist social theory and draw on wider perspectives from critical realism to account for the development of capacity to engage in reflection on professional practice in academic roles. We thereby offer a theory of professional learning that explores how social and cultural structures and personal emergent powers combine to ensure variation in the emergence of such reflective capacity. The influence of these factors on professional learning is mediated through reflexive deliberation and social interaction, with the exercise of one's personal powers specifically identified as a stratum of social reality. We consider further the role of concerns, intention and attention in professional learning, drawing together issues that are rarely considered within the same theory. We thus offer a comprehensive account of professional learning, showing how a focus on structure and agency increases the explanatory power of learning theory.     

Understanding adult education in community contexts: A critical realist perspective

Third-sector community organisations are important sites for learning, especially for the most excluded groups in society. However, scant attention has been paid to the various factors shaping educational provision in community contexts, and how these interact to shape the provision available to marginalised populations. This article presents new evidence addressing this gap, through drawing on interview data from practitioners working in the UK homelessness sector. It identifies a range of factors shaping educational provision in these community contexts. These are: service user need and demand; staff roles and capacity; organisational purpose and structures; national policies; support from other adult education providers; non-governmental finance; and volunteers. With some modification, and placed within an overarching critical realist framework, it is argued that these findings are consistent with Boeren’s comprehensive lifelong learning participation model. The article concludes that so long as government policy and related funding continues to ignore and fails to support educational provision in these settings, it will remain piecemeal and highly contingent on the contribution of volunteers and short-term funding.     

Professional learning and development needs of women teachers in the Republic of Pakistan: a social realist perspective

ABSTRACT

This article, emerging from a wider study on the professional development needs of women teachers working in Catholic convent schools in the Republic of Pakistan, explores the perspectives and experiences of school leaders and Principals who developed professional development programmes. This area, which has been under-researched in the professional development literature, addresses the complexities and contradictions that the glocalisation of professional development can create for women teachers in developing world contexts. A social realist approach, using Archer’s morphogenetic framework, was employed to facilitate an exploration of the varied responses that professional development needs produce. The responses of former Principals and school leaders and their efforts to provide professional development for women teachers was captured, and revealed different agential responses. These responses included an acceptance of the realities of the education system in Pakistan and the role of women in that context, a desire to follow the ethos of the Catholic religious Order which was at variance with accepted educational praxis, and the changing expectations of society within Pakistan with reference to education of children.     

Issues in action learning: a critical realist interpretation

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the perspective of ‘critical realism’ has considerable potential for moving forward the theory and practice of action learning. The paper addresses three questions: (1) Does action learning emphasise the individual or the collective? (2) Can action learning be thought of as critical, but should it also be the subject of criticism? (3) What gets carried forward from action learning by way of learning? Critical realism is argued to be illuminative of these issues; this involves dealing with ontological questions – what is there out there to learn about – as well as epistemological ones – how can this be learned about. It also involves seeing the world as an open system with emergent properties rather than the predictable machine of the positivist approach and the ‘nothing but a sea of meaning’ of the extreme social constructionist approach. The conclusions are that: (1) Yes, it can, and should, focus on both. Individual and organisational foci (one form of the individual-collective question) for action learning are compatible and reconcilable, though often with difficulty. (2) Yes to critical approach of and from action learning, which is its true intent. Suggestions are made on how to do this in an ultimately constructive way. (3) There are several answers to this, the ability to learn, ‘mechanisms’ that can but may not necessarily work in future situations, depending on circumstance and ‘state of play’ information.     

Intelligent design: student perceptions of teaching and learning in large social work classes

Research into the effects of large classes demonstrates that students are disadvantaged in terms of higher order learning because interactions between teachers and students occur at lower cognitive levels. This has significance for social work education, with its emphasis on the development of critical thinking and problem solving, both higher order cognitive skills. This paper reports on quantitative and qualitative research that explored social work students’ perceptions of different teaching and learning strategies in a large mental health course designed with reference to principles of student‐centred learning and constructive alignment. Findings revealed that well‐integrated design, relevance to the real world and teacher enthusiasm were seen as most useful by students, rather than particular learning strategies per se. Higher satisfaction ratings and grades were also associated with this student‐centred course compared with an earlier traditional lecture‐style course. The paper concludes that design based on the interplay between diverse learning activities, including lecture input, strengthened the student‐centred orientation of learning and recommends further research that compares learning outcomes associated with these contrasting approaches to professional education.     

New academics,new higher education contexts: a critical perspective on professional development

New academics entering higher education are especially vulnerable if teaching in a post-colonial classroom is not foregrounded as an explicit part of their professional induction. Drawing on a study of a professional development programme for induction to teaching, this paper explicates how six new academics confront specific challenges of exclusion, marginalisation, and alienation at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Framed by critical and social realist theory, the study uses photo voice methodology to elicit new academics' critical insights in the ‘learning to teach’ frame. The paper asserts new academics must engage in ways that make explicit the racial, gendered and class-based constraints experienced in various university spaces. While the relevance and legitimacy of current professional development programmes depends on their ability to be responsive and socially just, the study also questions whether programmes alone can challenge deep systemic constraints that are reproduced through current university structures and culture.     

Attracting mature students into higher education: The impact of approaches to learning and social identity

This paper reports on data collected during an evaluation of two higher education courses designed to attract mature entrants aged between 21 and 60 to undergraduate degree programmes. Employing an evaluation design informed by a critical realist approach, the study utilised a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the outcomes of the two courses through the participants' constructed experiences. Two factors were inferred as being important in determining whether participants on these courses proceeded to higher education: whether participants adopted a deep or surface approach to learning, and the extent to which the experience of being on the courses had generated a shared social identity. Our analysis draws attention to interactions between (psychological) explanations of variation in learning and (social) explanations of participation.     

20年来国内学习困难学生研究综述

学习困难问题是近20年来国内外心理学者研究的一个热点问题，如何提高这一类学生的学习能力具有重要意义。该文叙述了我国近年来有关学习困难研究的主要特点和主要研究领域，包括学习困难的界定和类型、学习困难的心理特点以及教育干预等方面的成果，在此基础上提出了未来研究要解决的问题。     

A multidimensional approach to examine student interdisciplinary learning in science and engineering in higher education

Preparing science and engineering students to work in interdisciplinary teams necessitates research on teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking. A multidimensional approach was taken to examine student interdisciplinary learning in a master course on food quality management. The collected 615 student experiences were analysed for the cognitive, emotional, and social learning dimensions using the learning theory of Illeris. Of these 615 experiences, the analysis showed that students reported 214, 194, and 207 times on, respectively, the emotional, the cognitive, and the social dimension. Per learning dimension, key learning experiences featuring interdisciplinary learning were identified such as ‘frustrations in selecting and matching disciplinary knowledge to complex problems’ (emotional), ‘understanding how to apply theoretical models or concepts to real-world situations’ (cognitive), and ‘socially engaging with peers to recognise similarities in perceptions and experiences’ (social). Furthermore, the results showed that students appreciated the cognitive dimension relatively more than the emotional and social dimensions.     

A case study of peer learning in higher aeronautical education

In order to improve student learning in an advanced course in aeronautics, lectures are replaced with more student-centred sessions based on peer learning. The course is organised in student teams, with the main task of delivering lecture requests for full class discussions. For the same reason, the written theory exam is replaced by a peer review of student reports. The new approach is found to result in a substantial increase of student–student and student–teacher interaction, leading to observable improvements in the course results. Finally, some feedback from the students is presented, being in great favour of the peer learning approach.     

Dimensions of student success: a framework for defining and evaluating support for learning in higher education

ABSTRACT

The capabilities students need for success during and beyond higher education extend far beyond specific discipline skills to include the development of productive mindsets, the management of life circumstances and the way they relate to others and identify with their profession. The provision of support for these capabilities at university can be both diverse in scope and diffuse in delivery. Consequently, the development of streamlined and integrated evaluation strategies to measure the extent to which these capabilities are being successfully delivered can be challenging. This paper describes how one Australian university used a collaborative process to design an evaluation framework for student learning services. The framework, a first for this university, represents the breadth of student support, including a typology of support for learning: connectedness, mindsets, self-management, professional identity and academic capabilities. These terms, coined as dimensions, form the scaffold of university-wide delivery of support for learning initiatives.     

Enhancing student engagement through practice experience in social work education: the Social Work Studio

It can sometimes be difficult to engage students in ‘real life experiences’ within the classroom. In one Bachelor of Social Work program, the development of a Social Work Studio (the Studio) has provided students with opportunities to engage in simulated social work practice in a safe and supportive environment. This article reports on a small exploratory study of students' responses to a survey that sought their views and reactions to the development of this Studio initiative. Findings were analysed from a sociocultural perspective. They indicate that students' responses to the development of the Studio reflect their emerging constructions of the cultural world of social work.     

The effects of digital storytelling on student achievement,social presence,and attitude in online collaborative learning environments

This study investigated the effects of digital storytelling on student achievement, social presence, and attitude in online collaborative learning environments. Students in one middle school course were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment groups after they received initial general instruction regarding teamwork skills. The “digital storytelling-based online collaborative learning (DST-OCL)” and the “general online collaborative learning (G-OCL)” groups received subsequent associated skills training. The overall results indicated that after each group took part in the treatment during online collaborative learning activities, the “DST-OCL” groups had significantly higher social presence than the “G-OCL” groups. Specifically, using “DST-OCL” strategies was significantly more effective than using “G-OCL” strategies for improving the “online communication,” “interactivity,” and “privacy” components of students’ social presence in online collaborative learning environments. There was no significant difference between the two groups regarding student achievement and attitude. The findings of this study offer an insight into methods for using digital storytelling as an instructional strategy for improving online collaborative learning effectiveness.     

Academic performance and the practice of self-directed learning: The adult student perspective

The practice of self-directed learning is important to adult students as it allows them to learn effectively while juggling work, family and other commitments. This study set out to examine the self-directed learning characteristics present in the adult students’ study process at the case university. The relationship between the adult students’ perceived competence level in self-directed learning and their academic performance was also investigated. In this study, 1695 adult students in the case university participated in a survey that included both Likert-type and open-ended response items. Eleven indicators of self-directed learning were conceptualised and quantified. These indicators included: Goal Setting, Time Management, Procrastination Management, Assignment Preparation, Exam Preparation, Note-taking Capability, Research Capability, Seminar Class Readiness, Technical Readiness, Online Class Readiness and Stress Management. The findings showed that the adult students’ perceived level of competence in the 11 self-directed learning indicators had a direct or an indirect effect on their academic performance. Based on the findings, the case university has conceptualised some new initiatives in the provision of support in terms of self-directed learning to help its adult students to do well in their studies.     

香港地区学生贷款:贷款机构的视角

根据政府对资本市场干预程度的不同 ,香港地区形成了三类教育贷款 ,即政府补贴性贷款、成本回收型教育贷款和盈利性教育贷款。这三类教育贷款在满足不同群体的教育需求上是互补的。香港入息教育款的成本回收率达 71 .4% ,这表明香港的教育贷款已形成了一个良好的资金发放与回收体系 ,1 %的贷款拖欠率亦表明香港已具备了完备的个人信用制度与金融网络体系     

The reverse transfer student: A growing factor in higher education

Study purposes were (a) to identify factors associated with academic performance of students enrolled at a four-year university and a two-year community college; and (b) to determine if students who (1) dropped out of a four-year university, (2) entered a two-year community college, and then (3) returned to the same four-year institution improved in academic performance. The 195 undergraduate subjects began their college careers at a large university and subsequently transferred to a community college, a type of student mobility referred to as reverse transfer student. Following a poor academic performance at the university, the students achieved satisfactorily at the two-year college. Students who later returned to the university improved their grades with each quarter's course work. Factors associated with academic performance at the two institutions were identified.     

Teaching for developmental growth: learning partnerships and student development in graduate education in China

Teaching and learning in higher education can integrate and accomplish student developmental goals in addition to promoting student learning of subject matter knowledge and transferrable skills. Drawn from the theoretical concept of self-authorship, the Learning Partnerships Model was implemented in teaching a graduate-level course on social research methodology. This paper describes the conceptualization and implementation of the developmentally attuned course, and reports a qualitative study that examined student development as its result. Qualitative data were collected from five cohorts of course participants, in the forms of reflective essays, student interviews, and the instructor’s teaching journal. Seven themes were identified that reflected student development throughout the course. The seven themes fall into three dimensions of epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development that are interconnected, and the epistemological dimension stands out as a strong partner among the three. These findings may help university faculty understand and integrate student development into their teaching practices.