Different types of learning content

In section 3.1 it was maintained as something quite fundamental that all learning has a content – there is otherwise no point in speaking of learning – and it was stated that the content could, for example, have the character of knowledge, skills, opinions, understanding, insight, meaning, attitudes, qualifications and/or competence. But it can also be seen in a broader perspective and have the character of more general cultural acquisition, or it could be related to the method of working or have the character of ‘learning to learn’, as it is called in more popular terminology. Moreover, important personal qualities such as independence, self-confidence, respon- sibility, ability to cooperate, and flexibility are also elements that to a high degree can be developed and strengthened through learning. But this is something that also involves the two other learning dimensions and which I, therefore, will return to in Chapter 8.

It is at any rate clear that the content dimension of learning goes considerably further than the traditional view has prevailed in educational contexts, where the objective of learning from the point of view of content

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has typically been related to the categories of knowledge, skills and, perhaps, attitudes. For example, as late as 1987 a modern learning researcher such as Peter Jarvis defined learning as ‘the transformation of experience into knowledge, skills and attitudes’ (Jarvis 1987, p. 8), a definition that he has since expanded considerably (Jarvis 2006, p. 13).

It can, naturally, be practical to limit the number of the many different and overlapping terms to a few categories that are important and adequate. But it is a notable reflection of the limited understanding of education that was developed in industrial societies – and it also is connected with the one-sided orientation towards assimilative learning pointed out in the last chapter – that, for example, none of the words understanding, insight, opinion, overview or anything similar is among the three classical peda- gogical aspects – not to mention the more cultural, social or personal qualifications. This does not, of course, imply that an attempt has not been made to give the pupils and students an understanding of the material and personal development, and some might also claim that knowledge in some way or other includes both understanding and personality development. But this is not something regarded as being so central that it has been maintained as independently valuable.

With respect to the concept of ‘qualifications’, which has mostly been used in connection with vocational education, there is linguistic usage which specifically speaks of the ‘hard’ qualifications, i.e. knowledge and skills, and a more modern form that also covers the ‘soft’ or ‘personal’ qualifi- cations (for example, Andersen et al. 1994), thus bringing the term into line with the new concept of ‘competences’. I also return to this in Chapter 8.

Within learning research and learning theory, traditionally there has also been a tendency to regard the content dimension in learning very narrowly as knowledge and skills. With the general interest in discovering a fundamental form of learning or learning process, which was already mentioned in the introduction to this book, the main emphasis has been on acquisition of the simplest forms of knowledge and skills. At the end of the nineteenth century, German learning researcher Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) even went so far as to focus on the learning of meaningless syllables such as nug, mok, ket, rop etc. to avoid any distorting influence that the meaning might have on the learning (Ebbinghaus 1964 [1885]).

Others have, of course, transcended this limitation, and it has been a feature of many of the most important learning researchers that not least the acquisition of understanding and meaning has been at the centre of their work. But the more personal, dynamic, social and societal aspects have often only been included as matters that can influence ‘learning itself ’, which has been understood as the acquisition of knowledge and skills. In the following I will concentrate in particular on learning researchers and concepts that have played a part in taking the content dimension beyond the narrow confines of knowledge and skills – which should,

naturally, not be taken as meaning that I do not consider the acquisition of knowledge and skills as a very important and considerable part of learning. It should also be noted that the previous chapter has already laid an important basis for treating the content dimension with a review of some of Jean Piaget’s most basic assumptions, which are first and foremost relevant for this dimension. In this chapter I will go further with a number of other and largely new researchers who have gone beyond Piaget’s understanding in relation to the content of learning in important areas. 5.2 Kolb’s learning cycle

American psychologist David Kolb is a well-known learning researcher who has taken his point of departure in Piaget, among others. In an article written together with Roger Fry in 1975 (Kolb and Fry 1975), he outlined the learning model that he later developed further in his book Experiential Learning (Kolb 1984). It may be said that the learning theory Kolb developed in this book can seem somewhat problematic in places, with some rather uncertain conclusions on a basis that is not always clearly developed, but it also contains some important elaborations of Piaget’s concept, including a transcending of the limitations that result from Piaget’s restricted interest in learning in formal logic spheres, where it is clear what is right and what is wrong.

There is, however, a vast distance from the certainty of formal logic to the numerous structuring possibilities that exist in other spheres, e.g. in the acknowledgement of the chaotic mass of conditions and impressions that characterise everyday life in a modern society. In concentrating on logical structures, Piaget attempted to get to what he viewed as the core of know- ledge, and was thereby able to uncover some fundamental features in the nature of knowledge. At the same time, though, other features that have far more importance in ordinary life were pushed out onto the periphery or even right out of sight. Kolb’s work can provide a partial remedy to that, and therefore I will here concern myself with Kolb’s theory and concentrate on what I find of significance in order to reach his treatment of the question of the ambiguity and unambiguity of learning.

Kolb starts by referring to Piaget together with the American philosopher and educational theorist John Dewey (1859–1952) (see section 8.2) and the German-American Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890–1947). By transforming the essence of these three learning approaches into three somewhat crude models, Kolb finds that they all understand learning as a process with four stages or adaptive learning modes, which can be inscribed in a learning cycle (Figure 5.1) from concrete experience through reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation to active experimentation, and then back to a new concrete experience (Kolb 1984, pp. 30 and 32–33).

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This juxtaposition and inscription in a common model – which Peter Jarvis et al. have called ‘probably . . . the most well known of all illustrations about learning’ (Jarvis et al. 1998, p. 48) – is undertaken by Kolb on the basis of very different elements in the three theory formations. He refers to the practical process in Lewin’s model for action research and laboratory training (Kolb 1984, p. 21). From Dewey he refers to a very general description of ‘how learning transforms the impulses, feelings, and desires of concrete experience into higher-order purposeful action’ (p. 22). And from Piaget he takes the order of the characteristic learning patterns in the four main stages from newborn to adult from the stage theory mentioned earlier (pp. 24–25) – and thus not at all the single learning process.

From one viewpoint it is not obvious that these three very different elements in the three theories can be taken to express the central themes in the three learning concepts, and Kolb does not discuss this problem at all. However, it can also be seen as an important innovation in Kolb’s work that he was able to spot a parallel not immediately apparent because of the very great differences between the three theorists’ approaches.

At any rate, Kolb’s learning cycle constitutes a systematisation of the learning process which may in some contexts be a valid analytical blue- print, but which also involves a vigorous rationalisation of the diversity of reality. In that way it makes one think of differing scientific method- ological models that produce systematised interpretations of research

processes. But neither learning nor research take place in the real world, according to that kind of logical systematism. In both cases it is more a case that one starts off with what one knows and regards as important or striking, whether it is a question of experiences, observations, knowledge, understanding, conjectures or problems, and from there one attempts to make progress in a combined acquisition and clarification process. This is documented by, among others, another American psychologist and learning theorist to whom I will frequently return, namely Donald Schön (1931– 1997), who has studied how ‘reflective practitioners’ cope with different situations by drawing on, and combining in parallel, the relevant elements that they have at their disposal (Schön 1983 – there is a brief corresponding criticism of this element in Kolb’s theory in Mezirow 1991, p. 103).

The next step in the development of Kolb’s theory that I wish to cover here is that after a lengthy discussion on the nature of learning, he reaches the conclusion that there are two dimensions present in all learning, a grasp- ing, or to use Kolb’s own term, ‘prehension’, and a transformation, in which that which has been grasped is embedded as an element of the learner’s psychological structures. There is a clear parallel between this distinction and my understanding of the two integrated sub-processes of learning (see section 3.1). But there is also a clear difference. While Kolb’s transformation dimension is rather similar to what I term the internal acquisition process, Kolb’s prehension dimension is also a consistently individual matter in contrast to the interaction process with the environment on which I focus. Thereby, according to Kolb learning as a whole also becomes a completely internal phenomenon, while in my understanding it is, at the same time, both an internal and an interactive process. Thus the social dimension is quite absent from Kolb’s learning understanding, just as it is in Piaget.

Thus, the most innovative aspect of Kolb’s work, in my view, lies not in his learning dimensions as such, but in his further analysis of them, for he finds that they each stretch between two dialectically opposed adaptive orientations which, together, are identical to the four stages in the learning cycle. The prehension dimension stretches as a vertical axis in the learn- ing cycle between an immediate apprehension that points towards concrete experience, and an adapted or reflective comprehension that points towards abstract conceptualisation. And correspondingly the transformation dimen- sion stretches as a horizontal axis in the learning cycle between intention, pointing out towards reflective observation, and extension, pointing out towards active experimentation. According to Kolb, the structural basis of the learning process lies in the interaction between these four orientations (Kolb 1984, p. 41). Thus, Kolb develops a learning model that can provide an inspiring picture of the structure of the acquisition process of learning (Figure 5.2).

The two interacting dimensions mark out four spaces or fields within the learning cycle that are filled by four adaptive orientations or basic

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forms of knowledge. In his further work, Kolb drops the problematic succes- sion in the learning cycle and instead concentrates on these forms of knowledge, and it is in this that I regard him as having transcended Piaget. This emerges clearly from the naming of the forms of knowledge as assimilative, convergent, accommodative and divergent knowledge, respec- tively – the assimilative and accommodative concepts are clearly taken from Piaget, while the convergent and divergent concepts come from Joy P. Guilford (1897–1987), the American researcher into intelligence and creativity. Convergent (unambiguous) knowledge concerns concentration on a specific output from a given input, i.e. what we typically call inference or deduction, while divergent (ambiguous) knowledge means the develop- ment of various potential outputs from the same input, i.e. what we typically understand by creativity and diversity (see Guilford 1967, pp. 213f.).

In addition the model indicates the typical conditions for each of the forms of knowledge thus:

• assimilative knowledge typically develops from comprehension and intention;

• convergent knowledge typically develops from comprehension and extension;

• accommodative knowledge typically develops from apprehension and extension;

• divergent knowledge typically develops from apprehension and intention. In comparison with Piaget, it could be considered problematic that the four forms of knowledge in the model are of equal standing. This is not immediately in accordance with Piaget’s theory of equilibrium. But it is still possible to conceive of assimilation and accommodation as the two basic types of processes, and then, on the basis of Kolb’s work, make the important addition that both these types of process can have a nature that to some extent favours the direction of the convergent or the divergent. Thus a very important differentiation from Piaget’s concept emerges, as many relationships in life cannot be interpreted with certainty and with clear criteria for what is right and what is wrong. In addition Kolb’s model to a certain extent – although only on a more theoretical level than in Nissen’s description – indicates which situations tend to advance the various forms of knowledge.