Students’ learning and conceptual change - some emerging issues on emotions and values

Students’ learning and conceptual change - some emerging issues on emotions and values Cecilia Lundholm Research on Conceptual Development www. ped.su.se/rcd Department of Education & Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University & Staffordshire University

Current projects… • Learning in economics, including env. aspects (with Prof Davies, Business school, Staffordshire University) • Learning about climate change: considering understanding of nature, society and the individual (PhD student Li Wang, www.ped.su.se/rcd) • Synthesising empirical work on students’ environmental learning (Dr Rickinson & Dr Hopwood, Oxford University)

On knowledge and learning in informal settings.. • Ecological knowledge and sustainable resource (fishery) management (PhD student & Dr Crona, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University) • The role of learning and participation in management of Biosphere reserves, UNESCO programme (colleagues at the Stockholm Resilience Centre)

Outline Outline of presentation • The emerging focus on the affective domain, and the interaction of cognition and the affective • Examples from studies in biology, environmental, physics, history and, economics education.

“ The battle between cognition and emotion, between reason and unreason, between logic and illogical thinking, between fantasy and reality, which takes place in the work of representations, continues throughout adult and social life” (Jovchelovitch, 2007, p. 33)

“Cold conceptual change” • The students needs to be - dissatisfied with existing conceptions and knowledge, and find new conceptions - intelligible and plausible. Finally, the student must find that new conceptions are - fruitful and lead to new insights. (Posner et al. 1982)

The “warming trend” in conceptual change - what’s ’hot’? • Motivation • Emotions • Beliefs and values • Meta cognition • Epistemological understanding • Social context

Motivation and conceptual change • Bringing two strands of research together (Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle, 1993) • Motivation research focused ‘what motivates’, and, CC research assumed students engagement (thus leading to conceptual change) • Key message is that the ‘quality’ of engagement will determine conceptual change (mastery goals, personal interest, values, importance, epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy and control beliefs)

Emotions • In the past 10 years, educational research has begun to pay attention to the growing importance of emotion research in basic disciplines of psychology and neuroscience.

Results… • Emotions are situated and dynamic • Students’ emotions are manifold and much richer in nature than traditional views seemed to suggest • Emotions may be central to students’ interest, motivation, volition and effort. • In sum, the papers show the multiplicity and functional relevance of students' emotions.

Questions raised… • Concerning boundaries: What's the difference between “emotion”, “interest”, “well-being” and “feelings”? • Different emotions might be experienced simultaneously • How to research empirically (reciprocal) causation? (Pekrún, 2005)

1. Emotions - as in distaste for the topic 1. Students who have difficulties in learning the topic but who make no reference to their like or dislike for the particular material; 2. Students who are inhibited in their learning through distinct distaste for the topic itself; 3. Those who have arrived at equilibrium between their wariness of the issues and an informed view of the risks involved (Watts & Alsop, 1997. p. 359)

Melanie The second video [...] didn’t seem very interesting - cutting down trees, I don’t think that’s very my sort of thing, I don’t like things like that. I don’t like cutting down trees, I don’t like animals being hurt or moved or anything. I don’t like anything like that. Yeah I’m very against it, I think it’s awful. The way she reacted led to….. I was hardly watching it, I was just paying a little bit of attention

”Where issues are unpalatable or unsavoury there is a tendency for people to ignore them, to undergo ’conceptual avoidance’”(Watts & Alsop, 1997, p. 361)

2. Emotions - directing attention and focus Students can for example focus on succeeding with exams and getting the teacher’s approval (swot stance), but, they can also strive for deep understanding and hence emotions influence to what the students will attend and put in focus (boffin stance) (Claxton, 1991)

Nina: Okay, then I also think we can discuss in the students’ written report that an important aspect of good environmental work within the companies, isthat the staff is involved in the environmental work, and not only the boss - Lena: But I’ve written that already Nina: Yes, but Hans questions that Hans: Yes, I don’t think it’s relevant to the focus of our work, which we decided upon from the beginning Nina: But you haven’t reacted to that in our discussion!

Hans: No, but I admit, it’s really difficult. I have to think all the time: What am I looking for, really? It’s like thinking in math about logarithms; every time you see them you have to think, what does this mean? Karin: Yes, it’s hard to stay on track Lena and Nina: It’s very difficult Karin: We can’t get too emotionally involved, that’s the problem! Hans: No

3. Emotions - as in ‘identity’ or feelings of belonging to a group • “Identity” and affect come into play as students position themselves in arguing for different explanations. This seems to lead to difficulties in identifying contradictions and incorrect explanations. (Limón, 2003 )

Beliefs and values • In order to construct an understanding of evolution, the study shows that the students’ readiness to question and reflect on one’s beliefs, more than the content of those beliefs, are of importance. (Southerland & Sinatra, 2003)

In discussing the generality of the findings the authors write: “ Evolution is a complex topic that is inherently difficult to learn even when ones personal beliefs do not conflict with the content. The situation becomes even more complex when firmly held religious beliefs are perceived to be in direct conflict with the scientific explanations of human evolution in general, and heightened for explanations of human origins. /…/…

“ Thus, whether intentional constructs come into play when learning new scientific concepts may depend on the complexity of the topic, the degree to which the content is perceived to be in opposition to the learner’s prior conceptions, and, the perceived conflict with the learner’s broad, culturally-based belief systems.” (Southerland & Sinatra, 2003, p. 336-337)

Comparing with learning in economics… • In introductory economics courses students reveal their ‘anger’ or ‘disbelief’ in the approach taken by the discipline. (Shanahan & Meyer, 2006)

“ They just don’t ‘believe’, for example, that it is appropriate to put prices on say, wildlife, or that ‘some’ pollution may be acceptable if the benefit from the activity causing the pollution exceeds the pollution costs. This may be despite students agreeing that such approaches can serve to achieve objectives consistent with their original beliefs (such as wildlife preservation). In the extreme, such resistance to an ‘alien’ approach can result in the student withdrawing from the course.”(Shanahan & Meyer, 2006,p. 104)

Student’s values in learning economics ‘Alien’ ways of thinking… Anna: You have to think in terms of money all the time. Not values or something like that, but the fact that everything has to be shown in dollars and cents when a decision is to be made, - my world view really opposes to that. /…/ It’s difficult for me because often enough the value you put on nature is minimalistic, the real values are so much higher, and so often they are valued less than they should be.

‘Pricing - what? • Ecosystems services and biodiversity - not included • Air and ocean (“basic needs”) • Limited resources

Cornelia: These big ecosystems services from the ocean and the air, nobody owns that. The rights of owning are perhaps limited to, what’s it called, a fishing certificate, and there’s no ownership, no selling and buying, so how to find a value…

Explaining the challenges… • Prior knowledge • Values of nature • The emotional aspect • The social aspect (situation and society)

Intentional perspective - as in understanding students’ goals; ‘projects’ • Possible explanation for the students being successful (and not retrieving) are students’ professional projects; an interest in using economics professionally for making the world environmentally better • Thus, there is a willingness to learn and engage in ‘an opposing view’.

Sum up… • Motivation • Emotions • Beliefs and values • Meta cognition • Epistemological understanding • Social context

“ What they are ‘up to’ (in all senses) is the outcome of a tacit decision-making process based only on subjective estimates of competing priorities, opportunities, demands, resources and risks, which is, in their terms, sensible and vital. Only if the emotional/motivational factors in this decision permit or encourage intellectual learning and the subjective assessments are accurate, will achievement be limited by such cognitive factors as ‘ability’ or alternative conceptions.”(Claxton, 1991, p. 159)

Students’ learning and conceptual change - some emerging issues on emotions and values