The learner’s meaning-making lens

To gainer a deeper understanding of the meaning-making process, the researcher examined literature on the lens through which meanings are made. The learner’s use of their personal lens to make meaning suggests that there is no one truth in learning from life experiences, but rather our truth, which is different for each person (Zull 2012). These constructivist ideas explain why some experiences have greater impact than others, and why individuals vary in their responses to the same experience (Merriam & Clark 1993). The notion of a personal lens underpins the second construct of significance - subjective value - as Merriam and Clark (1993) propose that significant experiences and their impact are valued using the learner’s own frame of reference. In essence, whether an experience is rendered meaningful by the learner stems from their judgement about an experience within the frame of their existing understandings of the world (Jarvis 1987) and habitual expectations of what has been experienced in the past (Cranton 2016). The learner’s interpretation of an experience for its coherence is influenced by the learner’s meaning-making lens. The learner’s meaning-making lens shapes the way they react to experiences and transform the perceived content into their sense of self (Jarvis 2006). The process to understand and articulate the significance of an experience, by subjectively valuing an experience and its resultant impact, happens through the frame of the learner’s meaning-making lens.

The learner’s meaning-making lens is a system of sorts, made up of constituent parts that work together to provide a frame of reference for meaning-making. Kegan (1994) describes this system as an ‘order of consciousness’ that is shaped both intrinsically (by the drive for growth within the individual) and extrinsically by social forces. Personal meaning systems are developmental; they progress over time as the individual matures and continues to interact with their world, thus changing their approaches to subsequent meaning-making (Jarvis 1987). Where learning is transformational rather than informational, there is epistemological change (change in how we know) rather than just change in what we know (Kegan 2018).

While meaning-making is personal and unique, there is considerable uniformity in the structure of an individual’s meaning-making system (Kegan 1980). Jack Mezirow (2000), who conceptualised transformative learning theory, uses the term ‘meaning structures’ to represent the filter for

30

interpreting the meaning of experiences. He contends this filter “selectively shapes and delimits perception, cognition, feelings and disposition by predisposing our intentions, expectations, and purposes” (Mezirow 2000, p. 16). Meaning structures include (i) epistemic habits of mind or the way learners acquire and use knowledge, (ii) sociolinguistic social norms, cultural expectations and ways of using language, (iii) self-concept, needs, inhibitions, anxieties and fears, (iv) conscience and morality, (v) philosophical habits of mind, and (vi) aesthetics, including values, attitudes, tastes, judgements and standards of beauty (Cranton 2016). Mezirow (2000, p. 18) explains that our “values and sense of self are anchored in our frames of reference” and that our expectations, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and judgements all shape meaning-making. Mezirow’s ideas are represented in the study’s framework as the values, beliefs and assumptions element of the learner’s meaning-making lens (see Figure 2.5). Other elements of the lens that are included in the framework are discussed below.

2.8.1 The influence of emotions on meaning-making

Recent developments in adult learning have recognised the place of affective learning in meaning- making. John Dirkx is a key proponent of the role of emotions in learning. Dirkx (2001a) contends that “personally significant and meaningful learning is fundamentally grounded in and derived from the adult’s emotional, imaginative connection with the self, and with the broader social world”. He also notes that meaning-making is imaginative, and emotions are integral to how learners understand themselves and their relationships with others and their social world (Dirkx 2001a). Moreover, the canvas of adult learning – life experiences – often arouses emotionally-charged images and deeply personal responses that are expressed as distinctive emotional reactions (Dirkx 2001a; Dirkx 2001b). These emotion- and imagination-charged reactions “serve to animate our thoughts and actions” through an emotional connection to the learner’s inner and outer worlds (Dirkx 2001a, p. 66). They are grounded in personal meaning and the learner’s self-identity and worldview and often reveal the inner self (Dirkx 2001b). Earlier work by Boud, Cohen and Walker (1993) on experiential learning championed the importance of attending to emotions and feelings in adult learning situations. Jarvis (2006) captures these ideas in his definition of learning, that incorporates cognitive, practical and emotional transformations of experience.

2.8.2 The role of prior experiences in meaning-making

There is agreement among adult learning theorists that a person’s past experiences shape each new experience and the meanings that are made from them (Jarvis 2006; Kegan 1980; Knowles 1984; Mezirow 1997). The essence of this theory is that individuals come to an experience with their own repertoire of previous experiences to help them approach situations and make meaning from them,

31

and this explains why individuals who have had the same experience can interpret it differently. This is inherently a constructivist view of learning, where the individual makes meaning from each new experience based on their previous knowledge and experience, drawing on cultural and societal influences (Zittoun & Brinkmann 2012). Adult learning theorist, Malcolm Knowles (1984), explored the idea of the influence of prior experiences on learning when he proposed that adults arrive at any learning activity with more and different types of experiences than do children and adolescents. Knowles (1984, p. 44) refers to this idea as the learner’s “reservoir of prior experiences” which in itself is a “rich resource for learning”. Meaning-making is subjective, largely because meaning comes from a synthesis of previous knowledge and experiences and personal understandings of the current experience. This synthesis is based on the notion that adult self-identity stems from the accumulation of their unique set of experiences (Knowles 1984). Knowles’s work on adult learning forms the basis of much of the current thinking on the influence of prior experiences on the learning process.

Boud and Walker (1990) conceptualise this idea of prior experiences as ‘personal foundation of experience’. They contend that every individual possesses a personal foundation of experiences which they describe as:

a way of being present to the world, which profoundly influences the way it [an experience] is experienced and will particularly influence the intellectual and emotional content of the experience and the meanings which are attributed to it.

(Boud & Walker 1990, p. 63)

The individual’s personal foundation of experience is “partly acquired from the social and cultural environment and partly forged by the learner’s own awareness and effort” (Boud & Walker 1990, p. 63). Presuppositions and assumptions that have accumulated over time predispose the learner towards subsequent experiences and learners may be attuned to certain things or decide to engage in certain experiences based on their prior experiences (Boud & Walker 1990).

Importantly, the personal foundation of experience may be unconscious or unarticulated, and it may be difficult for an individual to “give an account” of it (Boud & Walker 1990, p. 63). This suggests that personal foundation of experience has an influence on meaning-making (in terms of the reactions to an experience that are based in the learner’s past), but that these reactions may not be easily explained; reactions to an experience may also be unknown to the learner (Boud & Walker 1990). Moreover, consideration of thoughts, actions and feelings in reaction to an experience may give

32

insight into the learner’s personal foundation of experience, their sense of self, their approach to learning from an experience, and their capacity to do so (Boud & Walker 1990).

2.8.3 The influence of learning intent, motivations and expectations on meaning-

making

People may bring learning intent to an experience (Boud & Walker 1990). Learning intent is a “personal determination which provides a particular orientation within a given situation, a rationale for why the learner comes to the particular learning event” (Boud & Walker 1990, p. 64). This element of the lens that shapes meaning-making is central to the adult learning concepts of motivation and self-direction (Jarvis 2006; Knowles 1984). Learning intent “acts to focus and intensify perception in relationship to certain parts of an experience, and at the same time play down, or eliminate others” (Boud & Walker 1990, p. 64). Even though an individual may not recognise their learning intent, it is manifested in the thoughts, feelings and actions that result from its influence on an experience and the meaning-making process of interpreting the experience for learning.

Motivations for learning may shape learning intent, as motivation is deeply connected to the learning process (Gopalan et al 2017). Intrinsic motivation, in particular, may influence the meanings made from an experience; it involves the desire “to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, to explore, and to learn” (Ryan & Deci 2000, p. 70). Expectations of an experience may also inform learning intent. Expectations speak to the kinds of learning a given experience may engender (Illeris 2017). These expectations have a socio-contextual dimension, as the learner may approach meaning-making based on what they might expect to learn from a given social situation or what they perceive the purpose and value of that experience to be. The learner’s context influences expectations, as it orients the learner and their meaning-making efforts in a point in time in their personal learning journey and shapes what matters to them in terms of learning from an experience. The researcher acknowledges, however, that life experiences tend to be unplanned and somewhat haphazard, therefore learning intent may be an influence on meaning-making in certain types of life experiences. Learning intent may be relevant to meaning-making from an experience like international study, which has a structured, formal academic component but also has a myriad of opportunities for serendipitous life-experience learning.

The discussion to this point has focussed on the individual nature of meaning-making and the elements of the learner’s meaning-making lens that are brought to an experience and used to make

33

meaning from it. The next section of the chapter will explore socio-contextual influences on meaning- making for learning.