L EARNING AND KNOWLEDGE

Based on the theories of Piaget (1954), and further development by von Glasersfeld (1989), constructivism has held a strong position as the leading epistemological tradition with respect to learning until recent years. Constructivism describes learning as individual construction of knowledge, through reflection on experiences as seen against the backdrop of prior knowledge. In later years, the social aspects of this learning have been increasingly acknowledged, countering some of the criticism (Matthews, 1998) that have been raised against the purely individualist perspective of radical constructivism.

The increasing emphasis on social context as a decisive factor for learning has given rise to new strands in epistemological research. Situated cognition (Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1996; Hennessy, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991), activity theory (Engeström, 1999), apprenticeship (Rogoff, 1990; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) and socio-cultural perspectives (Säljö, 1999; Wertsch, 1985) are all theoretical frameworks that place the learner in a social context. These are highly influenced by – if not directly founded on – the theories of Vygotsky (1978; 1986; Wertsch, 1985), which were made available to the international society in the late 1970s after 40 years under Soviet censorship (Kozulin, 1986). According to these theories, learning cannot be seen as independent of the context in which it occurs. The social setting is not only treated as relevant for the learning process (as emphasised by the social constructivists (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994)), but it is seen as crucial for the learning outcome in general, and the transferability of the resulting knowledge in particular.

One main difference between social constructivism and the socio-cultural perspective is the view of what knowledge is, and accordingly how learning happens.

As already mentioned, all constructivist theory is based on the key assumption that knowledge is individually constructed as mental structures or schemas. This is not to say that students are expected to construct, for example, the laws of physics for themselves from empirical observation. It is rather a statement concerned with where the knowledge resides, and what constitutes the main processes of knowledge construction. In the socio-cultural perspective, knowledge is described as the ability to participate in cultural practices and learning as the acquisition of such ability.

Maintaining the different viewpoints of these theories, it is important to emphasize

that they do not necessarily stand in conflict with each other. Rather, they offer contrasting approaches to the analysis and explanation of learning and knowledge, and may as such even complement each other on some occasions (Sfard, 1998).

Vygotsky introduced the notion of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as the discrepancy between a person’s individual mastery level "and the level he reaches in solving problems with assistance" (Vygotsky, 1986: p187). According to this theory, all learning takes place within the ZPD, preferably in the interaction with a more competent peer (Lave & Wenger, 1991). What can be immediately learned is in other words limited, and the learner will benefit from assistance or guidance in acquiring new skills and knowledge. This is predominantly an interactive process which has been described as cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989). Like other kinds of apprenticeship, the learning activity is based on the participants (i.e.

novices) solving problems under the supervision or in collaboration with a more skilled peer (i.e. expert). This assistance (termed scaffolding by Wood et al. (1976)) can then be gradually removed until the learner has become a competent autonomous participant of the social practice at hand. In the literature characterising cognitive differences between novices and experts, it is indicated that “experts spend years acquiring intuitive specialist knowledge and sophisticated mental models of their domain.” (Hennessy, 1993: p1). The mental models thus created are highly influenced by the social context in which this problem solving takes place. These issues are also discussed in the introductory section of paper 1.

Furthermore, “cultural transmission plays a major role in the construction of expertise.” (Hennessy, 1993: p1). In order for the learner to be able to appropriate the practices inherent in a community, these practices need to be made accessible to the learner, either explicitly or through demonstration and observation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In this way, the proponents of the socio-cultural perspective (e.g. Mercer &

Wegerif, 1999; Säljö, 1998) emphasise that the transmission of meaning is mediated through tools or artefacts (including language).

3.2.1. Distributed cognition

The mediation of meaning through language can also be seen as a way of allocating knowledge by means of a contextual artefact, and thereby making it accessible to, or

indeed distributed across, a whole community. This is a central aspect in the theory of distributed cognition which is described below.

Salomon (1993) discusses to what extent there is room for considering individual cognition within a distributed cognition perspective. I will start by asking the same question the other way around. Given that we accept the existence of an independent ontological reality, and that we acknowledge the existence of individual knowledge as mental representations of this reality, can we still take a distributed or socio-cultural perspective on knowledge? To answer this, I need to distinguish between two different understandings of the term knowledge. On the one hand, there is the cognitivist and individual focused understanding of knowledge as individuals’

cognitive representations (Piaget, 1954). On the other hand, one can consider knowledge as referring to “the sum of what is known to people, the shared resources available to a community or society (as in ‘all branches of knowledge’)” (Mercer, 2000: p8). Knowledge in the latter sense exists mainly in the form of written or spoken language. As such, it cannot be attributed to any particular individual, nor can it be divided between the individual members of a community. A distributed view of knowledge does not, in other words, mean that cognitions are shared between the individual participants so that each member of a community holds their individual part of an aggregated body of knowledge. It is rather a question of cognitions that are

“stretched” over the group, and in that sense only exist as an integrated part of the whole that cannot be divided into their individual components (see e.g. Salomon, 1993).

From a socio-cultural perspective, I have described individual knowledge as the ability to participate in cultural practices. Building on this, distributed cognitions imply that knowledge is seen as the community’s ability to perform social tasks and to engage in these practices. The appropriation of competencies of a community is manifested by the ability of the participants to collaboratively utilise the tools available to them. This claim is best understood within a cultural-historical frame. At different times in history, people as members of communities of practice have gradually appropriated new skills and taken new tools into use for solving various tasks (Säljö, 2000). This has lead to a higher need for specialisation (division of labour (Engeström, 1999)), while the collected body of knowledge (i.e. accumulated set of skills and abilities) has increased immensely.

This brings me back to Salomon’s question of whether there is room to consider individual cognitions within a distributed cognitions perspective. According to Salomon (1993) cognition cannot be exclusively described as being either collective or individual. Rather, the collective and individual cognitions must be understood and examined in interaction. For instance, the ability to couple a semiotic symbol (e.g. a term) to a semantic meaning must in some way be coupled with the individuals’

minds as discussed in section 3.1. Speaking of collective cognition in this respect must therefore be limited to the individual members of a cultural group arriving at compatible meanings when individually interpreting a semiotic representation. This is closely related to the concept of common knowledge or common frame of reference (Edwards & Mercer, 1987).

I have already adopted the theories of Vygotsky to account for the importance of the social influence on the learning and concept building processes of children. Yet, to talk of the social interaction as an influence on knowledge construction implies the acknowledgement of such a thing as individual knowledge construction in the first place. “The development of nonspontaneous concepts must possess all the traits peculiar to the child’s thought at each developmental level because these concepts are not simply acquired by rote but evolve with the aid of strenuous mental activity on the part of the child himself.” (Vygotsky, 1986: p157). Vygotsky, like Salomon, thus acknowledges the mental activity of the individual as key to conceptual development.

Maintaining a predominantly socio-cultural perspective, Mercer also admits to the significance of individual cognition and some form of mental representations theory.

He suggests that “communicative activity, and individual thinking have continuous, dynamic influence on each other.” (Mercer, 2000: p9). He argues that taking such a position invites studies of the joint creation of knowledge, as well as the interrelationships between individual and collective forms of knowledge.

In order to be able to address the research questions presented in chapter 2, I will base my discussion in this thesis on a dualistic or pragmatic view of knowledge, allowing for the consideration of both individual and collectively distributed cognitions. While some of the analyses presented are partly rooted in a cognitivist tradition, focusing on mental representations of individual students (i.e. paper 3), other discussions more clearly take a socio-cultural or situated cognition perspective as their theoretical point of departure.