The debate between cognitive and situated theories of learning and transfer introduced an important development in how transfer was conceived, and represented a transition from a focus on the individual, to a focus on social aspects of learning and transfer.
As explained in the previous section, behaviourist perspectives on transfer relied on similarities between situations to promote and explain transfer (Bransford and Schartwz, 1999; Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström, 2003; Day and Goldstone, 2012). This emphasis on the links between situations was also present in cognitivist perspectives. However, the similarities that would account for transfer within this were “schema”, which can be broadly defined as knowledge structures (Bereiter, 1990). For the cognitivist perspective, knowledge structures, meaning the mental representations (Bereiter, 1990) that explain how the brain stores and represents information (Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström, 2003), had to be the same in the learning and transfer situation for transfer to occur (Lobato, 2006). The focus here is not on specific transfer, as with classical views, but on a broad transfer of mental capacities and knowledge structures.
However, what remains the same is the attention to similarities, whether they were surface similarities or structural similarities (Day and Goldstone, 2012). Hence, despite profound differences, both views, classical and cognitive, focused on the transfer of a task (Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström, 2003) and depended on conceptualizations of learning transfer that treat “knowledge as
quite a static property of individuals” (Hatano and Greeno, 1999 p. 647) and as independent of context beyond the identification of similarities that link the settings of learning and transfer.
Situated perspectives emerged as a direct criticism to this conceptualization of transfer, namely of how it separates the mental dispositions of the individuals and the social world in which they operate (Konkola et al, 2007). The main claim of situated views of transfer is that action is situated and consequently knowledge does not transfer between situations, abstraction is of little use to promote transfer and instruction should always occur in complex environments (Anderson et al., 1996). What these claims ultimately provide is a criticism of schooling (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and a reconceptualization of learning as “progress along trajectories of participation and growth of identity” (Greeno, 1997, p.9).
Consequently, one of the innovations that situated views presented was the shift from individual cognitive behaviour to larger systems of action that also accounted for the individuals’ interactions with the environment (Greeno and Middle School Mathematics Through Applications Project, 1998). The context became a relevant feature of learning and transfer beyond issues of similarities and the static nature of knowledge was questioned so as to include a discussion about the co-construction of knowledge (Carraher and Schliemann, 2002).
One of the major contributions to this new understanding came from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) analysis of several groups (e.g. alcoholics anonymous, tailors) and their recognition of a learning pattern in which novice members developed their knowledge through group participation and from interacting with more experienced members. They described this as legitimate peripheral participation, a theory for learning focusing on the relations between novices and old-timers and their efforts to create, reproduce, transform or even eliminate their communities (Lave and Wenger, 1991).
3.2.2.1 Learning as legitimate peripheral participation
Deriving from the situated perspectives was the idea that learning took place, or should take place, as legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991). This concept developed by Lave and Wenger (1991) referred to
individuals moving from newcomers to full participants within the social practices of any community, while describing participation as a form of membership to that community. Participation was, within their view, the result of constant negotiation between the community members of the “meaning(s) in the world” (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p.51). That meant that knowledge would be co-created within the community in a mutually constitutive manner between understanding and experience, aiming at a greater involvement and understanding of that community and culminating in full participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991).
The process of participation was described by Roberts (2006, p. 624) as a gradual increase in participation, in which “firstly, members interact with one another, establishing norms and relationships through mutual engagement. Secondly, members are bound together by an understanding of a sense of joint enterprise. Finally, members produce over time a shared repertoire of communal resources, including, for example, language, routines, artifacts and stories.” According to Lave and Wenger (1991) this last stage of full participation could take many forms and, ultimately, it was a way of belonging but also a representation of the individual’s positioning in the community. Therefore, legitimate peripheral participation can describe the type and nature of the interactions between newcomers and masters as they relate with the activities, the practices, the knowledge and the artefacts that are part of that community (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Ultimately, belonging to a community and engaging in legitimate peripheral participation would lead to the development of “knowledgeably skilled identities” (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p.55), as they are developed amongst the social interactions provided by the community.
For this study, the possible construction of learning in the workplace as legitimate peripheral participation allows the interpretation of the participants’ changing position within their communities of practice, from the start to the end of their work-placements. Furthermore, it might allow the investigation of how the others that are part of the students’ placements facilitate (or not) their learning and subsequent move from newcomer to full participant (Lave and Wenger, 1991).
3.2.2.2 Expansive Framing
Another important contribution from a situative perspective to explain transfer of learning was expansive framing (Engle 2006; Engle et al., 2010; Engle et al., 2012). Expansive framing was presented by Engle et al. (2010) as a mechanism to promote transfer of learning based on the argument that “transfer is more likely to occur when learning contexts are framed as part of a larger ongoing intellectual conversation in which students are actively involved” (Engle, 2006, p. 451).
For the authors (Engle et al., 2010), the term “framing” referred to the communicative processes that could be used to create a connection between contexts, namely the learning and transfer contexts. This connection could be made regarding time and participation (Engle, 2006), but also, space and content (Engle et al., 2010; Engle et al., 2012). When these connections were expansively established, Engle et al. (2010; Engle et al., 2012) considered that intercontextuality was created. Intercontextuality, which the authors defined as the creation of “connections between settings” (Engle et al., 2012, p. 220) would give “the learners the message that they are allowed, encouraged, and even responsible for transferring what they know from one context to all others linked with it” (Engle et al., 2010, p. 605).
One important consideration at this point is also that the authors’ (2006; 2012) focus regarding the promotion of expansive framing was placed on investigating how teachers framed learning episodes. For example, regarding time framing, they noted how teachers would provide meta-comments that included “references to past and future in a manner that encourages(d) accountability for what one is(was) learning over time” (Engle, 2006, p. 482- 483). Therefore, in Engle’s (2006; Engle et al., 2010; Engle et al., 2012) perspective, teachers worked to frame contexts as being temporally, spatially, contextually and content-wise connected with other contexts. For the authors this would facilitate students’ transfer of learning by creating in them the expectation of transfer sometime in the future and/or in a different context. Overall, the contribution of expansive framing for this study lays in the possibility of investigating transfer as intercontextual, thus as an ongoing process rather than a two-moment event (learning and transfer) and by
identifying different ways in which learning can be framed. This last aspect, I believe, can be particularly relevant to augment classical learning transfer theories’ focus on knowledge.