Learning through work: Exploring instances of relational interdependencies

This paper provides an account of the inter-psychological processes that constitute learning through work. It does this by drawing on deliberations about the relative contributions of the immediate social world (i.e., workplace setting) that individuals encounter and the personal premises for individuals’ learning. This account is realised through analyses of workers’ experiences of working and learning in both large and small enterprises. Together, these premises and their contributions are used to elaborate how learning through work proceeds as a process of relational interdependence between the affordance of the workplace and the engagement of workers. This relational process is evident in work of different kinds, from the labours of coalminers through to the entrepreneurial activities of small business operators. Instances of learning through work are elaborated through studies that identify how workplaces’ affordances—those that invite workers in particular ways to participate, access support and reward—are generated and projected. These contributions to engaging in and learning through work can be conceptualised as the immediate social contribution or experience that is shaped by cultural and situational factors and the social legacies that shape how individuals construe, engage in, and learn through those practices. It concludes by discussing issues related to both the inter-psychological process and outcomes (e.g., inter-subjectivity) arising from learning through work.     

The Contribution of Attentional Control and Working Memory to Reading Comprehension and Decoding

Little is known about how specific components of working memory, namely, attentional processes including response inhibition, sustained attention, and cognitive inhibition, are related to reading decoding and comprehension. The current study evaluated the relations of reading comprehension, decoding, working memory, and attentional control in 1,134 adolescent students. Path analyses were used to assess the direct and indirect effects of working memory and aspects of attentional control on reading comprehension and decoding. There were significant direct effects of working memory, sustained attention, and cognitive inhibition on reading comprehension, but not decoding. There was a significant direct effect of working memory and response inhibition on decoding, but not comprehension. These results suggest that different aspects of attentional control are important for decoding versus comprehension.     

Navigating social partnerships: central agencies–local networks

This paper considers the way social partnerships tend to be represented as either horizontal localised networks or neo‐liberal policy instruments. Building on two empirical studies of partnerships, we argue that partnerships cannot be understood in either/or ways but are negotiated at the interface between central agencies and local networks. They are mediated by networks operating through the partnership and through government and community, and by the different organisational logics of agencies. These complexities challenge our ways of analysing and representing partnerships, and justify further research.     

Developing biology teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge through learning study: the case of teaching human evolution

This work explores how pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) on evolution was modified by two biology teachers who participated in a professional development programme (PDP) that included a subsequent follow-up in the classroom. The PDP spanned a semester and included activities such as content updates, collaborative lesson planning, and the presentation of planned lessons. In the follow-up part, the lessons were videotaped and analysed, identifying strategies, activities, and conditions based on student learning about the theory of evolution. Data were collected in the first round with an interview before the training process, identifying these teachers’ initial content representation (CoRe) for evolution. Then, a group interview was conducted after the lessons, and, finally, an interview of stimulated recall with each teacher was conducted regarding the subject taught to allow teachers to reflect on their practice (final CoRe). This information was analysed by the teachers and the researchers, reflecting on the components of the PCK, possible changes, and the rationale behind their actions. The results show that teachers changed their beliefs and knowledge about the best methods and strategies to teach evolution, and about students’ learning obstacles and misconceptions on evolution. They realised how a review of their own practices promotes this transformation.     

Science Teaching and Argumentation: One-sided versus dialectical argumentation in Chilean middle-school science lessons

Since the late 1990s, there has been consensus among educational researchers that argumentation should play a central role in science education. Although there has been extensive relevant research, it is not clear enough how oral argumentation spontaneously occurs in science teaching. This is particularly important with regard to the empirical evidence suggesting the effect of discussion of contradictory views on scientific learning. In order to contribute to the research on argumentation in science teaching, we conducted a study that aims to sketch a panoramic view of the uses of oral argumentation in Chilean middle-school science teaching. A total of 153 videotaped science lessons were observed, involving students aged 10–11 and 12–13. Whole-class argumentative discourse was analysed as a function of thematic episodes and teachers' and students' utterances. Results suggest that argumentative discourse in which contradictory points of view are discussed is scarce but when it occurs it does so predominantly within discourse among students. On the contrary, argumentation aimed at justifying points of view is widely used, even more so when students are older.     

Personal epistemologies and older workers

This paper evaluates the need and prospects for older workers to develop and deploy effective and critical personal epistemologies in order to maintain workplace competence, successfully negotiate work transitions and secure ontological security in their working life. Furthermore, it addresses different ways of reflecting by workers, which types of reflection are appreciated by workplace managers and how these relate to the work situation and other contextual factors. A personal epistemology is an approach to and a practice of learning directed by individuals, often for purposes that are important for them. This seems particularly salient for older workers as both the institutional and brute facts (Searle 1995 Searle, J. R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality, London: Penguin.  [Google Scholar]) that comprise workplace affordances and maturation factors, respectively, may not be supportive of their attempts to maintain competence in their working lives. Instead, as both individual agents and parts of collective actions, the exercise of personal epistemologies premised on critical reflection stands as a means for older workers to understand and respond to the changing requirements of work life. These propositions are introduced and elaborated using a study of older workers’ capacities to be critically reflective of their practice and enact workplace change.     

READING MATHEMATICS REPRESENTATIONS: AN EYE-TRACKING STUDY

We use eye tracking as a method to examine how different mathematical representations of the same mathematical object are attended to by students. The results of this study show that there is a meaningful difference in the eye movements between formulas and graphs. This difference can be understood in terms of the cultural and social shaping of human perception, as well as in terms of differences between the symbolic and graphical registers.