Roger Säljö

Learning about Learning.

The aim of this study has been to explore possible developmental differences in conceptions of learning amongst a group of people with very different learning experiences. The data consist of interviews with 90 people concerning their approach to learning. The sample was selected according to two criteria: age (which ranged from 15 years 7 months up to 73 years 3 months) and level of formal education (with a minimum of 6 years and a maximum of 16/17 years).Analysis of the interviews revealed that there are distinctive differences between people in terms of their subjective conceptions of learning, the nature of which has been described elsewhere. In the present article, the focus is on describing what seems to be an important developmental process: for some people the phenomenon of learning has become thematized — it has been made an object of reflection — while for others it represents an activity the nature of which is taken for granted.

Discourse, Tools, and Reasoning: Essays on Situated Cognition

In 1990, we were asked by the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO1 to organize a conference on situated cognition and technologies of learning. In planning the conference, held in Lucca, Italy, in November, 1993, and in recruiting participants, we sought to bring together people from several scholarly disciplines, some of whom might not yet have known each other’s work. We needed to explain to them-and, by extension, to the several scholarly communities of which they were members-what we had in mind and why we thought the effort was worthwhile. The terms in which we did so were these: Recent theories of situated cognition are questioning the view that cognition can be understood independently of the social, organizational, and material context in which it is practiced. Sharing with Soviet-origin activity theory an antifunctionalist point of view in which intentionality and affect are viewed as components of activity, Western European and North American theories of situated cognition challenge the dominant view in cognitive science that assumes a cognitive core can be found that is independent of context and intention. Instead, these theorists argue, every cognitive act must be viewed as a specific response to a specific set of circumstances, and only by taking into account the participants’ construal of the situation can a valid interpretation of the cognitive activity be made.

Digital Tools and Challenges to Institutional Traditions of Learning: Technologies, Social Memory and the Performative Nature of Learning

The purpose of this article is to offer some reflections on the relationships between digital technologies and learning. It is argued that activities of learning, as they have been practised within institutionalized schooling, are coming under increasing pressure from the developments of digital technologies and the capacities to store, access and manipulate information that such resources offer. Thus, the technologies do not merely support learning; they transform how we learn and how we come to interpret learning. The metaphors of learning currently emerging as relevant in the new media ecology emphasize the transformational and performative nature of such activities, and of knowing in general. These developments make the hybrid nature of human knowing and learning obvious; what we know and master is, to an increasing extent, a function of the mediating tools we are familiar with. At a theoretical and practical level, this implies that the interdependences between human agency, minds, bodies and technologies have to serve as foundations when attempting to understand and improve learning. Attempts to account for what people know without integrating their mastery of increasingly sophisticated technologies into the picture will lack ecological validity.

Heavenly talk : Discourse, artifacts, and children's understanding of elementary astronomy

In the literature on children’s understanding of astronomical concepts, such as the shape of the earth and gravitation, the difficulties that children have in conceptualizing these phenomena have been documented in many studies. The purpose of this research is to critically scrutinize these findings by taking a situated and discursive perspective on reasoning (and cognitive development). Instead of viewing understanding as the overt expression of underlying mental models, children’s responses in interview studies should be regarded as situated and as dependent on the tools available as resources for reasoning. By modifying the interview situation through the introduction of a globe as a tool for thinking, the outcomes are radically different from those reported earlier. None of the problems that have been reported, where children, for instance, claim that people can fall off the earth, can be detected. Even among the youngest participants gravitation is often invoked as an explanatory concept. It is argued that the globe in this case serves as an efficient prosthetic device for thinking, and this illustrates the tool-dependent nature of human reasoning.

Word problems and mathematical reasoning—A study of children's mastery of reference and meaning in textual realities

Abstract The mastery of word problems is seen as an important test of mathematical ability. When solving such problems, students supposedly go beyond rote learning and mechanical exercises to apply their knowledge to realistic problem situations in which mathematical reasoning becomes an important instrument for making concrete judgements. Research shows that performance on word problems is often surprisingly poor. Non-realistic, and even logically inconsistent, answers to word problems are often accepted by students, and there are many signs that students seldom make so-called realistic considerations when applying their mathematical knowledge to real world events. The study reported is a follow-up of the work by Verschaffel, De Corte, and Lasure (1994) in which the difficulties students have in making realistic considerations were clearly illustrated. In the present study, students (10–12 years of age) worked in groups, and the tasks given (estimating distances) were introduced as part of a general discussion of how to calculate distances to school. Results show that the participants were clearly able to entertain different assumptions regarding how to measure distances, and they make distinctions between alternative options when discussing, for instance, the distance between two villages as indicated on a road sign on the one hand, and when talking about the shortest possible distance on the other. It is argued that the problem of what constitutes a realistic consideration when solving word problems is far from simple but has to be understood in context.

Taking antihypertensive medication - controlling or co-operating with patients?

Low compliance with antihypertensive drug regimens has been a well documented reason for inadequate control of hypertension. We assessed recent literature regarding compliance from different disciplines to clarify the nature of reported problems on low compliance to prescribed antihypertensive medication. Much research focuses on primary factors for compliance, methods to monitor and measure individual rates and patterns of compliance. From a behavioural oriented point of view, the focus is on understanding why patients act as they do. This review indicates that there is an almost complete lack of knowledge about how the decision making in the clinical practice is organized when prescribing antihypertensive medication and/or when following up treatment from patients already taking such drugs. Since the concrete communication and collaboration between patient and physician in the clinical setting are of prime significance for patient adherence to drug regimens, it is important to shed light on what happens in this critical situation.

Perceived symptoms amongst hypertensive patients in routine clinical practice – a population‐based study

Kjellgren KI, Ahlner J, Dahlöf B, Gill H, Hedner T, Säljö R (Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping; Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg; and Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden). Perceived symptoms amongst hypertensive patients in routine clinical practice – a population‐based study. J Intern Med 1998; 244: 325–332.

Learning, Theories of Learning, and Units of Analysis in Research

Over the past decades research on learning has become more diverse and complex. The concern expressed by Alexander, Schallert, and Reynolds (2009/this issue) is that this diversity of theoretical perspectives has resulted in a fragmentation that is destructive to the field. Although it is important to engage in explicit discussions of how learning is construed in different traditions, Alexander et al. do not give sufficient recognition to the significant epistemological and theoretical differences between traditions; differences that make them incompatible in important respects, for instance, with respect to their units of analysis. An acceptance of incompatibilities in perspectives is not necessarily a problem. In fact, such a situation may, if the debates are grounded in a mutual acceptance of the diverse manners in which knowing and learning may be theorized, give us a richer frame of reference from which to analyze learning in its various manifestations in complex societies.

Learning approach and outcome: Some empirical observations

Various kinds of empirical investigations have shown that differences in learning strategies or approaches exist. In the present study it is argued that in many such studies, in spite of the disparities in the theoretical and methodological frameworks employed, the differences between strategies are often described in rather similar terms. What emerges from such research is quite often a distinction between a memorizing, reproductive strategy or approach on the one hand and on the other a strategy which is characterized as implying a focussing on comprehending main ideas and principles and, in general, on a more organizing and reflective attitude towards the learning material. The results of the empirical study reported here indicate: (a) that a similar distinction exists in every-day thinking about learning, and (b) that whether a person, according to his own spontaneous description, uses one or the other of these two approaches appears to have interesting consequences for the outcome. The main consequence of differences in approach may however perhaps not be found in how much people learn in a quantitative sense, but rather in what kind of information is focussed on and learned. It is argued that a more descriptively orientated psychology of learning is urgently needed, i.e. a kind of research which attempts to reveal what learning in real life is like and which furthermore in a more sensitive way tries to reveal the consequences of differences in strategy or approach for the outcome of learning.

There Is Something About Julia: Symptoms, Categories, and the Process of Invoking Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the Swedish School: A Case Study

The problem of how to handle diversity is a prominent feature of modern schooling. Historical evidence indicates that the explanations of student problems of accommodating to schooling have varied. At present, neuropsychiatric diagnoses such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are widely used as interpretations of what constitutes the background of school difficulties. The aim of this article is to report findings from an empirical study of how and when such categories are introduced in practice. The data have been generated by documenting pupil welfare team meetings (PWTM) during 1 year. The results show that in the context of the PWTM, the ADHD diagnosis is invoked to account for a wide range of problems that are described in contradictory terms by the staff. The category serves as an element in an accounting practice that focuses on the child, and his or her inner characteristics, rather than, for instance, the circumstances, including the pedagogical challenges experienced leading up to the problems observed. It is argued that the category serves as a rhetorical device that creates a common understanding of school difficulties for school staff, parents, and other actors, and that simultaneously transforms multifaceted problems into organic dysfunctions. Key words: institutional discourse, education, communication, learning disabilities, categorization, identity