Higher Education substantively underplays the role of ontology in shaping student learning. In this speculative paper, we adapt perspectives from Margaret Archer’s realist social theory to develop a theory of student learning that is fully tailored to the context of higher education. We consider specific sets of concerns that students might bring with them to learning, and ways that these concerns might give rise to distinctive patterns of internal deliberation as students respond to given learning environments (socio-cultural structures). In this way we would expect to see variation in the agency that students display in learning, with internal deliberation (conceived more widely than reflexivity) mediating the effect of structure on agency. This paper seeks to pave the way for further empirical research and for educators to imagine teaching and learning in new ways. Presented at: Society for Research into Higher Education Annual Conference, December 2011.

1. Internal deliberation and
learning environments
Peter Kahn
University of Liverpool

2. A theoretical interest ...
• Margaret Archer’s
account of human
reflexivity and social
mobility
– inter-play between
structure and agency in
explaining why an
individual acts ‘so rather
than otherwise’ in a
given social situation.

3. Socio-cultural structures
Concerns → Projects → Practices
Reflexive deliberation
The mediation of structure to agency, after
Archer (2003)

4. • Modes of reflexivity play a key role in Archer’s
account:
– Communicative reflexivity, autonomous reflexivity,
meta-reflexivity, fractured reflexivity.
– Distinctive modes of reflexivity emerge within given
socio-cultural contexts (e.g. on becoming immersed
within a new context)
• Application to professional learning in Kahn et al
(in press)
– also highlights the role of social interaction in the
educational context.

5. Reflexivity in learning
• Triggers for reflexivity
– Entering the unknown (in relation to knowledge,
pedagogy or other aspects of learning);
responsibility to progress a learning project.
• Student concerns
– Relative priority vis a vis other activity; tolerance
of ambiguity; overlaps with characteristic mode of
reflexivity in the more open setting (e.g.
communicating with others).

6. Distinctive modes of reflexivity
• Restricted reflexivity
– Learning projects are closed down through a lack of
tolerance for ambiguity or the inability to find ways
forward.
• Extended reflexivity
– Reflexivity is directly linked to the student’s capacity to
carry out further mental processes.
– Scope is present for different forms and expressions of
reflexivity within the extended mode.
• Fractured reflexivity
– Anxiety emerges as a dominant response (e.g. how do you
pursue a group project where communication is absent or
fractious?)

7. .. and a practical application
• Linking student engagement to structure
– High-impact practices (Kuh et al, 2008); authentic
learning (Stein et al, 2004); powerful learning
environments (Vermetten et al, 2002).
• Accounting for student engagement
– High-impact practices build in a need for extended
reflexivity on the part of the student, with support
also integrated.
– Offers a rich account of why students are engaged,
rooting this in distinctive modes of reflexivity.

8. References
• Archer, M. (2003) Structure, agency and the internal conversation.
Cambridge: CUP.
• Kahn, P.E., Qualter, A. & Young, R.G. (2012) Structure and agency in
learning, Higher Education Research and Development 31(6) pp. 859-71..
• Kuh, G.D., Schneider, C.G. & Universities, A. of A.C. and, 2008. High-impact
educational practices: what they are, who has access to them, and why
they matter, Association of American Colleges and Universities.
• Stein, S., Isaacs, G. & Andrews, T. (2004) Incorporating authentic learning
experiences within a university course, Studies in Higher Education, 29:2,
239-258.
• Vermetten, Y.J., Vermunt, J.D. & Lodewijks, H.G., 2002. Powerful learning
environments? How university students differ in their response to
instructional measures. Learning and instruction, 12(3), pp.263–284.