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Internal deliberation and learning environments
The document discusses Peter Kahn's exploration of reflexivity within learning environments, emphasizing the interplay between socio-cultural structures and individual agency as described by Margaret Archer. It outlines various modes of reflexivity, including restricted, extended, and fractured reflexivity, and highlights their relevance in educational contexts and student engagement. The application of these concepts to professional learning underscores the importance of social interactions and high-impact practices in fostering deeper student reflexivity.
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Internal deliberation and learning environments
- 1. Internal deliberation and learningenvironments 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 ofreflexivity 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 ofreflexivity • 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 apractical 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.
Editor's Notes
- #2 My role is Director of Studies for the fully online professional doctorate in HE at the UoL.This mirrors the underlying concern with structure and agency in the context of learning (suggesting that agency is manifested through thinking(!) and structure through the learning environment.
- #4 The pursuit of specific projects ensure that an individual engages with social constraints and enablements. Archer emphasises how reflexive deliberation drives the concrete specification courses of action; but in educational settings, where a significant proportion of practice is negotiated and agreed at the level of the programme or department (but not all) – then social interaction plays an important role too. This affects the dynamic of individual (or primary) agency. We see here some points of contact between structure and agency. Communicative reflexives – share their deliberations with others before deciding on a course of action.Autonomous reflexives – prioritise performance in the face of contextual discontinuity.Meta-reflexives – prioritise social ideas in the face of contextual discontinuity.Fractured reflexives – deliberation intensifies personal distress.
- #6 This is like moving into a new town as a young person, and needing to think through how to operate, and what to prioritise, what to commit oneself to. Education as an arena for reflexive deliberation.This is more directly at the heart of Archer’s account – that it is through one’s reflexivity that structure affects agency.Easy to become fixated on the ambiguity itself – research is conducted from the perspective of one who is (relatively) certain about what is being taught/learnt. Finding a way forward - knowing in advance the direction that one will travel. A concern to know the direction of travel.
- #7 I am proposing to characterise how reflexivity works in the educational settings, in light of these considerations, with strcuture impacting on the student through their reflexivity and the shape that that reflexivity takes.We are looking here at student responses to uncertainty and responsibility, and the affect that this has on their reflexivity. Intention to understand – what does this mean in terms of the actual thoughts that will go through a student’s head in relation to how to direct their learning?Medical Education study – I saw this also with tutors in a medical education study. If a student is unable to see a way forward then this can result in fractured reflexivity (or in turning to others for help or in simply persevering regardless, and holding the discomfort in check)Further mental processes – this is why I have emphasised internal deliberation, although this was more the case in the submittted paper than in subsequent analysis, as this does remain a key way for the influence of structure to impact.Perceptions of the learning environment are known to affect performance. But these are not inert (as with conceptions or beliefs about oneself as a learner) but rather dynamic. Different expressions of reflexivity – professional contexts particularly may require a student to address concerns typical of meta-reflexives, autonomous reflexives and communicative reflexives within the given professional setting.Conclusion: Responses to learning are underpinned by the subject’s rich reflexive life. Going straight to a solution vs tolerating the idea that you need to do something but need not know that it is the perfect thing to do, as often there will be no single way forward.
- #8 Causal accounts are weak, especially when relying on survey data to establish connections, but this can make it harder to develop new forms of high impact practice or authentic learning. Some of the usefulness of theory is evident in explaining how learning occurs, as Paul Ashwin argues for in his 2008 study in the Int J of Educational Research. Vermetten: An answer may be found in the literature about conceptual change and metacognition(e.g., Vosniadou, 1994). In this literature, the importance of metaconceptualawareness and reflection is stressed as a requisite for major (conceptual) changes.This involves the explicit evaluation of one’s thinking processes (Donald, 1992) andthe observing and reflecting upon one’s own learning in order to (re)conceptualizeand redirect it. To improve the quality of student learning, instructional measuresshould address the conceptual domain of learning conceptions and beliefs, of whichstudents have to become aware, and which they have to develop, for example bymeans of critical reflection (e.g., Mezirow & Associates, 1990). In these processesthe role of social interaction and motivational factors is an essential one. The presentstudies have mainly been cognitively oriented, but in future research social andmotivational variables should be included.