INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING AND FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS: TOWARD SOCIETALLY RELEVANT EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

1. INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING AND FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS: TOWARD SOCIETALLY RELEVANT EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH YRJÖ ENGESTRÖM REIJO MIETTINEN JAAKKO VIRKKUNEN CRADLE, University of Helsinki

2. JOHN DEWEY IN THE PUBLIC AND ITS PROBLEMS (1927, p. 202-203) “When we say that thinking and beliefs should be experimental, not absolutistic, we have then in mind a certain logic of method, not, primarily, the carrying on of experimentation like that of laboratories. Such a logic involves the following factors: First, that those concepts, general principles, theories and dialectical developments which are indispensable to any systematic knowledge be shaped and tested as tools of inquiry. Secondly, that politics and proposals for social action be treated as working hypotheses, not as programs to be rigidly adhered to and executed. They will be experimental in the sense that they will be entertained subject to constant and well-equipped observation of the consequences they entail when acted upon, and subject to ready and flexible revision in the light of observed consequences.”

3. *IMPLICATION: INSTEAD OF CONTROLLING THE WORLD, ACCEPT THAT OUR DESIGNS HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES AND DRIFT IN UNEXPECTED WAYS *CULTIVATE TENTATIVE SOLUTIONS BY MEANS OF EXPERIMENTATION, FIRST LOCALLY AND THEN GENERALIZING THEM THROUGH DIALOGUE AND FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION *THIS MAY BE ACCOMPLISHED IN TWO WAYS: • BY MEANS OF ANALYZING AND FOSTERING INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING IS MULTIORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS OF ACTIVITY AND POLICY (the contribution of ReijoMiettinen) • BY MEANS OF CONDUCTING AND ANALYZING FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS, SUCH AS THE CHANGE LABORATORY (the contribution of JaakkoVirkkunen)

4. URIE BRONFENBRENNER IN ’TOWARD AN EXPERIMENTAL ECOLOGY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT’ (1977, p. 527-528) ”Allsuchnaturalisticstudieshave the disadvantage of beinglimited to variations of macrosystemsthatpresentlyexistorhaveoccurred in the past. Futurepossibilitiesremainuncharted, exceptbyhazardousextrapolation. Thisforeshortenedtheoreticalperspectivewasfirstbrought to my attentionbyProfessor A. N. Leont’evof the University of Moscow: ’Itseems to me that American researchersareconstantlyseeking to explainhow the childcame to bewhat he is; we in the USSR aretrying to discoverhow he can become what he not yet is.’ Soviet psychologists often speak of what they call the ‘transforming experiment.’ By thistermtheymean an experimentthatradicallyrestructures the environment, producing a new configurationthatactivatespreviouslyunrealizedbehavioralpotentials of the subject.”

5. LARGE SCALE, STATISTICAL GENERALIZATION LARGE SURVEYS LARGE SOCIETAL EXPERIMENTS CONTROLLED FIELD TRIALS DESCRIPTIVE AND CONFIRMATORY PRODUCTION OF EVIDENCE (HOW THINGS ARE) EXPLORATORY CREATION OF NEW IDEAS AND PRACTICES (HOW THINGS MIGHT OR SHOULD BE) DESIGN RESEARCH COMPARATIVE ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES REPLICATION LAB EXPERIMENTS AND CASE STUDIES LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS, CASE STUDIES SMALL SCALE, IN-DEPTH EXPLANATION TYPES OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

6. LARGE SCALE, STATISTICAL GENERALIZATION LARGE SURVEYS LARGE SOCIETAL EXPERIMENTS CONTROLLED FIELD TRIALS INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING DESCRIPTIVE AND CONFIRMATORY PRODUCTION OF EVIDENCE (HOW THINGS ARE) EXPLORATORY CREATION OF NEW IDEAS AND PRACTICES (HOW THINGS MIGHT OR SHOULD BE) FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS (FOR EXAMPLE CHANGE LABORATORY) DESIGN RESEARCH COMPARATIVE ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES REPLICATION LAB EXPERIMENTS AND CASE STUDIES LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS, CASE STUDIES SMALL SCALE, IN-DEPTH EXPLANATION TYPES OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

7. LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIPS • BOTH INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING AND FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS REQUIRE LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN RESEARCH UNITS AND VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONAL ACTORS • EXAMPLE: COLLABORATION BETWEEN CRADLE AND THE PRIMARY HEALTH CARE OF THE CITY OF HELSINKI • 1994: DOCTORAL STUDENT RIITTA SIMOILA DEFENDS HER PhD THESIS AND BECOMES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER OF HELSINKI PRIMARY CARE • 1997-1999: HELSINKI CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL AND HELSINKI PRIMARY CARE FUND A CRADLE RESEARCH PROJECT FOR DEVELOPING COLLABORATIVE CARE FOR CHRONICALLY ILL CHILDREN; THE IDEA OF CARE AGREEMENT IS GENERATED • 2000-2002: HELSINKI PRIMARY CARE AND THE HELSINKI HOSPITAL DISTRICT FUND A CRADLE PROJECT FOR DEVELOPING COLLABORATION BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SPECIALIZED CARE FOR CHRONIC PATIENTS WITH MULTIPLE ILLNESSES; CARE AGREEMENT IS TESTED, TOOLS AND PROCEDURES ARE DVELOPED • 2006: DOCTORAL STUDENT ANNA-LIISA NIEMELÄ DEFENDS HER PhD THESIS AND BECOMES SPECIAL PLANNER AT HELSINKI PRIMARY CARE • 2006-2009: HELSINKI PRIMARY CARE FUNDS A CRADLE PROJECT FOR DEVELOPING NEW INNOVATIVE PRACTICES FOR THE HOME CARE OF THE ELDERLY; HOME CARE MANAGERS JAANA NUMMIJOKI BECOMES DOCTORAL STUDENT AT CRADLE • 2009: BOOK ‘PROMISING HOME CARE: NEW MODELS FOR WORK WITH THE ELDERLY’ IS PUBLISHED, BASED ON THE RESULTS OF THE PROJECT • 2010: THE MAYOR’S PRIZE ‘ACCOPLISHMENT OF THE YEAR’ IS AWARDED TO THE HOME CARE DEPARTMENT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INNOVATIVE PRACTICE OF ‘MOBILITY AGREEMENT’ AIMED AT NURTURING PHYSICAL MOBILITY AMONG OLD PEOPLE LIVING AT HOME WITH ILLNESSES • 2010-2012:CRADLE RESEARCH PROJECT (FUNDED BY THE FINNISH TECHNOLOGY AGENCY TEKES) FOLLOWS UP AND SUPPORTS THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATIONS DEVELOPED IN HELSINKI HOME CARE • 2011-2015: CRADLE RESEARCH PROJECT ON CONCEPT FORMATION IN COLLABORATIVE WORK (FUNDED BY ACADEMY OF FINLAND) FOLLOWS THE COLLECTIVE FORMATION OF THE NEW CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE PHYSICAL MOBILITY FOR ELDERLY HOME CARE CLIENTS • 2013: THE ABOVE MENTIONED CRADLE PROJECT INTRODUCES THE USE OF EMPOWERING PHOTOGRAPHY AS A TOOL IN HOME CARE; THIS BECOMES THE PhD THESIS TOPIC OF THE DOCTORAL STUDENT PÄIVIKKI LAHTINEN

8. WHY INTERVENTION RESEARCH? -BECAUSE ALL RESEARCH INTERVENES: WE CANNOT STAY OUTSIDE, WE CAN ONLY PRETEND TO DO SO (SO WE’D BETTER GET SERIOUS ABOUT IT AND ANALYZE OUR OWN ACTIONS, TOO) -BECAUSE INTERVENTIONS ARE GOING ON IN ANY CASE: RESEARCHERS DO NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY (SO WE’D BETTER STOP FEARING THAT WE MAY ‘CONTAMINATE’ THE REALITY) -BECAUSE BY INTERVENING DELIBERATELY AND METHODICALLY WE GENERATE POSSIBILITY KNOWLEDGE (SO WE’D BETTER STOP BEING SATISFIED WITH CATEGORIZATION KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WHAT ALREADY EXISTS)

9. THE PROBLEM WITH DESIGN-BASED RESEARCH: WHO SETS THE GOALS AND DOES THE DESIGN? PAUL COBB & al. IN ‘DESIGN EXPERIMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH’ (2003, p. 11)”In addition to clarifying the theoretical intent of the experiment, the research team must also specifythe significant disciplinary ideas and forms of reasoning that constitute the prospective goals or endpoints for student learning.”

10. THE PROBLEM WITH DESIGN-BASED RESEARCH: WHO SETS THE GOALS AND DOES THE DESIGN? PAUL COBB & al. IN ‘DESIGN EXPERIMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH’ (2003, p. 11)”In addition to clarifying the theoretical intent of the experiment, the research team must also specify the significant disciplinary ideas and forms of reasoning that constitute the prospective goals or endpoints for student learning.”OBSESSION WITH PREDEFINED ‘ENDPOINTS’ RATHER THAN INTEREST IN GOING BEYOND THE INFORMATION GIVEN

11. NORMAN LONG IN DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY: ACTOR PERPECTIVES (2001, p. 233) “Crucial to understanding processes of intervention is the need to identify and come to grips with the strategies that local actors devise for dealing with their new intervenors so that they might appropriate, manipulate, subvert or dismember particular interventions.”

12. WHERE IS TRANSFORMATIVE AGENCY? • IF THE RESEARCHERS SET THE GOALS OR ’ENDPOINTS’ OF LEARNING, THE LEARNER IS GIVEN THE TASK OF EXECUTION • THE LEARNER IS NOT THE DESIGNER OR TRANSFORMER IN THESE EXPRIMENTS • TRANSFORMATIVE AGENCY MEANS THE SUBJECT’S WILLED QUEST FOR CHANGE • TRANSFORMATIVE AGENCY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CHALLENGE TO EDUCATION • IF A METHODOLOGY IGNORES LEARNERS’ TRANSFORMATIVE AGENCY, IT IS NOT UP TO ITS TASK • THIS IS THE MAIN REASON WHY WE ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH DESIGN RESEARCH AND WHY WE BUILD OUR METHODOLOGY OF FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS ON VYGOTSKY’S PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE STIMULATION AND ILYENKOV & DAVYDOV’S PRINCIPLE OF ASCENDING FROM THE ABSTRACT TO THE CONCRETE

13. IMPORTANT REFERENCES • ENGESTRÖM, Y. (2011). From design experiments to formativeinterventions. Theoryand Psychology, 21(5), 598-628. • ENGESTRÖM, Y., SANNINO, A. & VIRKKUNEN, J. (2014). On the methodological demands of formativeinterventions. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 21, 118-128. • MIETTINEN, R. (2013). Innovation, humancapabilities and democracy:Towards an enablingwelfarestate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • SANNINO, A. (2011). Activity theory as an activist and interventionist theory. Theory and Psychology, 21(5), 571–597. • VIRKKUNEN, J. & NEWNHAM, D. S. (2013). The Change Laboratory: A tool for collaborative development of work and education. Rotterdams: Sense Publishers. • VIRKKUNEN, J., & TENHUNEN, E. (2010).Finding a concept that integrates specialists’ know-how: The case of special school for handicapped and neurologically ill children. Actio: International Journal of Human Activity Theory, 3, 1-23.

14. INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING

15. Contradictory interpretations of the development of the government of the Finnish basic education since the late 1980s • Decentralization of state administration (CR 1986)establishment of developmental centers and a transition from the control by norms to the control by information. Change in budgeting of municipal services (1993) and law on municipal self-governance (1995). • Transition from a planning and welfare state into a competition state. Gradual adoption of neoliberal policy and new public management. “Project-formed development” and “management by programs and results” as its form of management (Rantala & Sulkunen 2006). • Development of a novel form of school governance based on trust, decentralization and development by teachers and professional school communities, “from the culture of control to the culture of trust” (Aho & al, WB 2007)

16. Approaches of analyzing and developing governance • Positivistic: Evidence-based approach to find the best practices, design experiment model in education • Governance approach inspired by Foucault, mechanisms and machineries of power, self-governance. “Strangely subjectless process” (Offe 2009). Both services providers/professionals and citizens are deprived moral and cognitive agency, no space for local emancipatory initiatives • Pragmatist approach inspired by Dewey. Experimental democracy (Dorf and Sabel), local experimentation by communities of inquiry and diffusion of the results to other actors of the field. The new task of state: organize dialogue and institutional learning. Not many examples of local development or learning between the organizations of an institutional field.

17. The development of the ingredients of governance based on local experimentation and learning (1)The aquarium project and -network in 1992-1997 • The first version of 1994 curriculum were tested in pilot schools (1992-1993), the self-organizing thematic networks of development were formed (175 municipalities, 713 school projects) with the support of BE. National seminars. • Change of school culture, increased collaboration in the design of school level curricula, reflection of values methods of evaluation, the idea of being agent of development, increased collaboration between other schools • Frustration, excessive burden of work. Lack of training and research, learning from experience dominated (a Kolbian- constructivist approach).

18. A national project for the implementation of the special education strategy in Finland (2008-2012) • The implementation of the 2007 strategy of special education was realized by a four-year developmental project funded and headed by Board of Education. Participation of 233 municipalities geographically covering the whole country. The pilot schools developed various practices (inclusion, intensified support, learning plan etc.) related to the strategy and forthcoming law. Education by University of Jyväskylä, feedback to plans by University of Helsinki) • Methods to allow learning from pilot experiments: 1) Descriptions in an Internet platform (Kelpo.Pednet), 2) Organized visits between schools, 3) Good practice fairs where pilot schools presented their solutions.

19. Reading enthusiasm program (2013-2015) • The Ministry of Education and culture because concerned about the diminishing reading of books among school children. Coordinated by University Oulu. 32 school-library pairs received funding for development of models of enhancing the reading of the schoolchildren. 32 local solutions/models will emerge. How can other schools and libraries learn from their solutions and practices?

20. The partners (distributed agency) in public sector development programs State: Board of E Ministry of E&CU Municipalities Universities, HEIs Associations Schools and other service providers Other service providers Parents Citizens

21. Challenges of institutional learning • 1) Local agency; initiatives for development/experimentation come from schools (out of existing practices) with commitment by a key group of practitioners supported by the rector and the municipality – continuity of development after project funding • 2) Articulation of the new practices, models or methods in order to allow learning in the field The emerging forms (organized school visits, seminars, good practice fairs, platforms in Internet, support for network collaboration) are not sufficient. Generalization and modelling call for writing of papers, in which results are connected to theory and prior research

22. Division of labor/roles in development and institutional learning • Board of Education/Ministry: (a) Defining the ‘program,’ an the problems and phenomena behind it carefully. Foundation for experimentation and generalization (b) organizing the network and exchange of information, publication etc. (second order “enabling role” of state). • Research institutes/universities. (a) Provide the background (scientific) knowledge and tools for experimentation, (b) facilitate experimentation by commenting, (c) Doing research on experiments (collecting and analyzing data) it and writing papers that generalize the results of the experiments (greatly needed) • Municipality: looking for promising initiatives and practices in schools, supporting them and bring them to funded (through projects). Organizing the interaction between schools and other local actors.

23. FORMATIVE INTERVENTIONS

24. Miettinen’s analysis shows a need and possibility to enhance and deepen institutional learning through collaboration between researchers and practitioners.The Change Laboratory method shows how that can be done by bringing theoretical instruments and modeling into such collaboration.It also provides a solution to the ‘paradox of embedded agency’ in institutional theory of ‘how can actors change institutions if theiractions, intentions, and rationality are all conditionedby the very institution they wish tochange?’ (Holm, 1995).

25. typically carried out in a pilot unit of an activity facing a need for a new principle/model of meeting clients’ needs and the related transformation of the activity • participants: the members of the work community of the unit • four basic phases: A ChangeLaboratory intervention Implementation and follow up 6-12 2h sessions once a week Negotiations Preparatory data collection

26. The two fundamental principles of formative intervention: Ascending from the Abstract to the ConcreteandDouble Stimulation contribute jointly in the Change Laboratory intervention to the development ofpractitioners’ transformative agency, that is,their ability to break away from a given frame of action and to take initiative to transform it (Engeström, 2005)

27. The theoretical abstraction of ’activity system’ as the unit of analysis and object of intervention: from problems individuals’ experience to the activity system in which they emerge. • 2. Joint reconstruction of historical development of the system through the evolution and resolution of contradictions within it. Identification and modeling of its current inner contra-dictions that explain the problems. • 3. Modeling a new principle/structure of the system that resolves the contradiction. • 4. Ascending from the abstract new model to a concrete new form of the activity Applying the principle of ascending from the abstractto the concrete

28. Taking jointly epistemic actions of ascending from the abstract to the concrete (expansive learning actions) The researcher- interventionists prepare a series of task for the participants to stimulate them to take expansive learning actions. Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE)

29. Second stimuli A messy set of repeating problems, disturbances and failures made visible with data • Tools for analysis • the abstract model of activity systems • methods and conceptual tools to carry out historical and actual empirical analyses of the activity • A model of the new object and form of the activity Double stimulation A hypothesis of the root causes of the problems as inner contradictions in the system First stimuli Transformation of the practical activity

30. The setting of DWR in the Change Laboratory Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE)

31. The CL process in a school for neurologically ill and disabled children Virkkunen & Tenhunen 2010