Epistemology – Constructivism

Situated Learning

4.2 Theoretical perspective Interpretivism

Symbolic Interactionism

4.3 Research Methodology Case Study

4.4 Research Participants Two Cases

Key Stakeholders

4.5 Data Collection Methods Semi-Structured In-depth Interviews

Focus Group Discussions Story Telling Participant Observations Field Notes Documentary Analysis The researcher 4.6 4.7 4.8 Data Analysis

Validity & Trustworthiness Ethical Considerations

4.1 Epistemology – Constructivism

Reform of basic eduction in elementary and primary schools in Papua New Guinea has placed new expectations for the national curriculum to focus on understanding content, curriculum, performance, life long and opportunity-to-learn standards. These expectations are based on changes in the educational processes instigated by reform agendas (NRI & NDOE, 2001). This study provides the opportunity to deeply explore issues and factors relating to performing national standards. These expectations will be understood by exploring factors within the current learning environments and teachers’ ability to promote authentic learning in schools. Hence, constructivism and situated learning perspectives will be useful to this study.

Constructivism

human beings can individually and collectively interpret or construct knowledge through various experiences such as language and social context (Schwandt, 2000, p. 197). Human beings invent concepts, models and schemes to make sense of experience, continually test and modify these constructions in the light of new experiences (Schwandt, 1997).

From a constructivist viewpoint, knowing and reality are dependent human practices as constructed through interactions between fellow humans and their world (Crotty, 1998, p. 42). Knowledge and truth is created in the mind, not discovered (Schwandt, 1994).

Constructivists do not believe that the criteria for judging either reality or validity are absolute (Bradley & Schaefer, 1998). They consider knowledge as a product of a learner’s activities (von Glasersfeld, 1991). Knowledge is directly associated with the individual learner. In this context, “truth is in the making” (Roelops & Terwel, 1999, p. 204). Knowledge is not a result of transmission, rather the learner constructs it when relating new elements of knowledge to already existing cognitive structures (Bruer, 1993). In effect, social phenomena consist of meaning making activities of groups and individuals around those phenomena. The meaning making activities themselves are of central interest to the constructivism perspective, because it is the making of meaning /sense making from the attributional activities that shape action or inaction (Lincoln & Guba, 2000, p. 167).

Constructivism is characterised by a number of key components. One key component of constructivism is the understanding of the interactions with the environment. It is not possible to talk about what is learned separately from how it is learned, as if a variety of experiences all lead to the same understanding. Rather, understanding is the function of the content, the context, the activity, and the goals of the learner. Since understanding is an individual construction, we cannot share understandings, but may test the degree to which individual understandings are compatible (Savery & Duffy, 1995, p. 31). Similarly, individuals’ “thinking is specific, in that different things suggest their own appropriate meanings, tell their own unique stories and do this in very different ways and with different persons” (Dewey, 1933, p. 46, Schwandt, 1997).

Another component is that knowledge evolves through social negotiation and through the evaluation of the viability of individual understandings. The social environment is critical to the development of individual understanding as well as to the development of knowledge (Savery & Duffy, 1995). It can be concluded that constructivism is characterised by authentic pedagogy. The characteristics are: construction of knowledge in complete task environments; connectedness to students’ personal worlds; value of learning activities beyond school; and cooperation and communication. Knowledge is derived

from community consensus regarding what is “real”, what is useful, and what has meanings, especially meanings for action and for further actions (Lincoln & Guba, 2000).

Knowledge is inseparably bound up with the social and physical environment in which it is developed and used, not an abstract phenomenon (Roelops & Terwel, 1999, p. 203). The situation largely determines the structure, content and coherence of the concepts used (Brown et al., 1989). Knowledge is linked with developments and changes in cultural environment (Roelops & Terwel, 1999). Furthermore, the use of language entails ambiguity because meaning is located in situational contexts (Miller & Gilder, 1987). This conception therefore means that learning always takes place in contexts, a particular view of education often summed up as situated learning (Roelops & Terwel, 1999).

The theory of “situated cognition” is based upon the notion that knowledge is contextually situated and fundamentally influenced by the activity, context, and culture in which it is used (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). This view of “knowledge as situated” is common to constructivists and has important implications for understanding of learning. The situated nature of learning is based on the beliefs that cognition as a phenomenon provides an explanation of individuals’ thinking as they perceive, interpret, and act upon the reality they construct (Harley, 1999, p. 113). Situated learning perspectives are based on the assumption that each individual is unique. This perspective assumes that context is an influencing factor and presupposes that there exist certain realities external to the individual which the individual chooses to work with or reject (Harley, 1996, Lave, 1988). Situation is defined as the awareness by which an individual determines his / her moment–by-moment reality. As actors in the social world, individuals define their reality (Harley, 1996, p. 114).

An important hallmark of the situated learning perspective is based on the belief that knowledge is contextually constructed. Knowledge is fundamentally influenced by the activity, context, and culture in which it is used. Knowledge is thus inseparable from and bound up with the social and physical environment in which it is developed and used. This invites a theoretical framework that determines the structure, content and coherence of the concepts used and understanding of interconnectedness of the main components of this research design. Social constructionism is connected to symbolic interactionism because it emphasizes the identification of situations, seeks to understand how social actors reproduce social actions and how they share intersubjective understanding of specific circumstances (Schwandt, 1997, p. 19).