Levels of experience: an exploration for learning design

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an organizer that I developed while working at the Institute for Educational Research in Jyväskylä, Finland.1 While I have referred to it in an earlier paper (Bopry, ), I have not formally described it in a published article. The organizer is based on my understanding of second order cybernetic theory, in particular the enactive theories of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. It has helped me analyse instructional situations and has informed my practice. My task in this paper is to describe the organizer, relate it to the theoretical framework from which it has emerged and provide a warrant for its use in the field of educational technology. While I shall provide examples of how the organizer has been used, an extensive elaboration of its potential for learning design will appear in a second paper.

Les niveaux d’expérience: une exploration visant à l’apprentissage du « design »

Le but de cette étude est de présenter un organiseur que j’ai mis au point pendant que je travaillais à l’Institut de Recherche Educative de Jyväskylä en Finlande.1 Academy of Finland grant no. 37189. Je l’avais mentionné dans un article précédent (Bopry, 1998) mais je ne l’avais pas décrit de façon formelle dans un article destiné à la publication. Cet organiseur se fonde sur ma compréhension de la théorie cybernétique du deuxième ordre et en particulier des théories d’accomplissement de Humberto Maturana et de Francisco Varela. C’est ce qui m’a aidée à analyser des situations pédagogiques et à enrichir ma pratique. Mon rôle dans cet article est de décrire l’organiseur, de le relier au cadre théorique d’où il est issu et de fournir des garanties pour son usage dans le domaine de la technologie éducative. Ici je fournirai des exemples de la façon dont cet organiseur a été utilisé et une étude plus vaste de ses possibilités en matière de design pédagogique paraîtra dans un deuxième article.

Erfahrungsniveaus: Eine Untersuchung für Unterrichtsentwürfe

Mit diesem Beitrag soll ein Organisator vorgestellt werden, den ich entwickelte, als ich am Institut für Bildungsforschung in Jyväskylä, Finnland arbeitete.¹ Während ich schon in einer früheren Arbeit (Bopry, 1998) darauf verwiesen habe, fehlt noch eine formelle Beschreibung in einem veröffentlichten Artikel. Der Organisator basiert auf meinem Verständnis der “second‐order cybernetic theory”, vor allem der “enactive theories” von Humberto Maturana und Francisco Varela. Er hat mir geholfen, Unterrichtssituationen zu analysieren und hat meine praktische Arbeit geprägt. Meine Aufgabe in diesem Papier ist, den Organisator zu beschreiben, ihn auf den theoretischen Rahmen zu beziehen, in dem er entstanden ist, und eine Anleitung zu seinem Gebrauch im Bereich der Bildungstechnologie zu liefern. Während ich Beispiele dafür beifügen werde, wie der Organisator verwendet worden ist, erscheint eine umfassende Darstellung seines Potentials für Unterrichtsentwürfe in einem zweiten Papier.     

Towards a Richer Conception of Vocational Preparation

This paper identifies the key assumptions underpinning current arrangements in vocational education and training (VET) in the UK. These assumptions, and the idea of vocational capability they denote, are rejected in favour of a more coherent conception—a conception centred not on the traditional dichotomy of 'knowing how-knowing that' but on what I refer to as the 'constitutive understandings' from which both practical and theoretical capabilities can be seen to derive. It is argued that an account of vocational capability in these terms suggests a far richer conception of vocational preparation than current arrangements are able to admit.     

On the functions of a system of vocational qualifications

While acknowledging that a system of vocational qualifications might be perceived as having any number of possible purposes, this paper identifies three primary functions that any vocational qualification must fulfil by dint of being a vocational qualification. It is argued that current arrangements are unable to fulfil these essential functions due to certain intrinsic and irremediable conceptual difficulties with the National and Scottish Vocational Qualification (N/SVQ) system. The practical implications of this are illustrated through an account of little documented events in the 1990s when many of the UK’s major companies found it necessary to abandon the UK’s system of N/SVQs in favour of an alternative system precisely because of concerns that the N/SVQ did not fulfil the functions required of a vocational qualification. Of particular significance is an apparent inconsistency between the N/SVQ system and health and safety law: the so-called ‘competence’ assessment procedures of the N/SVQ being seen to be methodological at odds with the legal requirements for competence.     

Maximum oxygen uptake and body composition of healthy Hong Kong Chinese adult men and women aged 20 - 64 years

The aims of the present study were to assess the maximal oxygen uptake and body composition of adult Chinese men and women, and to determine how these variables relate to age. The cross-sectional sample consisted of 196 men and 221 women aged 20 - 64 years. Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) was determined by indirect calorimetry during a maximal exercise test on an electrically braked cycle ergometer. The correlations between VO2max and fat mass were -0.52 in men and -0.58 in women. Linear regression defined the cross-sectional age-related decline in VO2max as 0.35 ml kg(-1) min(-1) year(-1) in men and 0.30 ml kg(-1) min(-1) year(-1) in women. Multiple regression analysis showed that more than 50% of this cross-sectional decline in VO2max was due to fat mass, lean mass, and age. Adding fat mass and lean mass to the multiple regression models reduced the age regression mass from 0.35 to 0.24 ml kg(-1) min(-1) year(-1) in men and from 0.30 to 0.15 ml kg(-1) min(-1) year(-1) in women. We conclude that age, fat mass, and lean mass are independent determinants of maximal oxygen uptake in Chinese adults.     

Researching Early Schooling: poststructural practices and academic writing in an ethnography

Locating oneself as a poststructuralist not only emphasises multiple readings of texts, but generates data comparable with this location. This article considers some possibilities in researching everyday happenings at primary school. Reading and producing discourses, rather than texts only, involves bringing into play our own subjective understandings. Writing differently then becomes a methodology for the analysis of what we have recorded as research data. For the study of sites and events, one possibility is for deconstructions to follow a form of ethnography. However, with poststructural theories and their related academic practices, the research choices are different. An effect of this difference is that the timings and resolutions of gathering, presenting and analysing data are dislocated. These dislocations may be read as an enactment of a radical philosophy. They may also be read as a puzzle to be resisted, but which is nevertheless constructed to match today's cultural shifts and to challenge the nature of researching.     

Untangling the conflation of ‘young adults’ and ‘young people’ in STI and sexual health policy and sex education

Young adults, aged 18–30 years, are disproportionally mentioned in sexually transmissible infection surveillance data both in Australia and internationally. This contributes to categorising young adults as an ‘at risk’ group in health policy. How young adults are framed in policy, and what informs this, have direct implications for policy priorities and responses, including the development of health promotion programmes. In this paper, we provide a case study of Australia’s National Strategies for Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections from 2005 to 2017. We identify how ‘young adults’ as a population are masked by, and subsumed within, the broader category of ‘young people’ within these strategies. As a result, young adults become framed by default as a ‘risk category’ that requires education to correct its deficits, regardless of personal experience. For health promotion to advocate, mediate and enable better sexual health outcomes, a policy environment is needed that reflects the changing social and cultural contexts and sexual independence that young adults experience. Sexual health policies should reflect the complexity and opportunities of young adulthood if we are to offer an enabling policy environment for innovative and nuanced health promotion strategies, including adult appropriate health education.