CILS: Research: ICLS 2004

While studies of learning and learning environments have predominantly taken place in laboratories and formal educational settings, there is a growing community of researchers and next generation informal learning researchers who are conducting studies in non-school settings such as museums, afterschool, homes, zoos, workplaces, and other informal learning environments (Callanan & Jipson, 2001; Leinhardt, Crowley, and Knutson, 2002; CILS; MLC).

Though researchers and practitioners continue to debate the definition of informal learning and its relationship to formal education, there are some core identifiable features – learning is self-directed, the administration or sponsorship of the learning activity is not always present/assumed, activity is often unsystematic and have fluid arrangements, and learners represent a diversity in groupings, age, race, and ethnicities.

Will prior research on cognition, learning, and reform-based schooling be sufficient to continue research in informal learning, or is there something fundamentally different about the ways in which non-school/non-laboratory learning occurs that require a reconceptualization of the model of the learner and new frameworks for organizing informal activity systems? Will this necessitate the development of new theories of practice?

The purpose of this session is bring to the foreground key issues being addressed by researchers who have been designing, studying, and working in informal settings as well as at the intersection of formal and informal learning institutions. Our goal is to bring these issues to the discourse in learning sciences, share some examples of new work in the informal learning space, and understand where this body of research fits into the larger educational research landscape. Each panelist will share their perspectives on informal learning research drawing upon their own studies as illustrations. The role of discussants will be to help frame and critique our discussions in light of prior psychological, cognitive, and social-cultural traditions.

The defining characteristics of the formal and informal learning environments have been well documented (Hofstein & Rosenfeld, 1996: Wellington, 1990). However, the degree to which these two contexts can inform the practice of the other and the appropriateness of inferring theories and methods between the two remains controversial. Wertsh (chapter 7, 2002) acknowledges that the informal setting is a different sociocultural setting from classrooms and cautions researchers in the degree to which we infer findings from one context to the other. Additionally, informal learning is largely concerned with the processes of learning and does not focus on product outcomes such as test scores. Such products are not available or suited to the exploratory nature of museum environments and studies show that such measures do not transfer well to the study of learning in informal environments (Bitgood, Serrell, & Thompson, 1994; Falk & Dierking, 1992; Hein, 1998). While measures may not transfer well, some museum-based studies suggest that activity structures from classroom-based research can be extended and adapted to the informal setting (Hapgood & Palincsar, 2002).
Perhaps clarifying similarities and differences between these two contexts is of little importance. Rather, the informal space should be viewed as a “rich variation (Bartels & Hein, 2003)” that can offer unique perspectives on learning such as how parents and children engage in everyday thinking (Crowley, Callanan, Jipson, Galco, Topping, and Shrager, 2001) or how motivation and engagement influence self-directed learning (Paris, 1997).

While numerous studies have explored learning processes and outcomes of individual and groups in informal settings (Allen, 2002; Ash, 2002; Crowley et al., 2001; Diamond, 1986; Falk, 1983; Laetsch, Diamond, Gottfried, & Rosenfeld, 1980), it is only recently that this field has begun to develop more generalizable theories and models of informal learning. For example, Schauble, Leinhardt, and Martin (1997) encourage museum researchers to study learning as informed by sociocultural theory which "emphasizes that meaning emerges in the interplay between individuals acting in social contexts and the mediators - including tools, talk, activity structures, signs, and symbol systems - that are employed in those contexts." Additionally, Falk and Dierking (2000) promote a model of learning in museums that connects personal, sociocultural and physical contexts together. George Hein (Chapter 5, 1998) encourages researchers to embrace network, as opposed to linear, theories to model the learning process of visitors in museums and discusses at length (Chapter 2) how different theoretical commitments influence the process of designing educational artifacts and environments.
Design-based research is an emerging paradigm to systematically study educational innovations outside of a laboratory setting in the natural, complex activity space (Brown, 1992; Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003; The Design-based Research Collective, 2003). This approach attempts to fill the gap between theory and practice by being grounded in theory but tested in real-world settings. Design-based research may be particularly relevant to the informal learning community as we seek to study and design for learning based on theories that account for the unique characteristics of this context. Minda Borun and colleagues though a three-phase study provides a rich example of how an iterative exhibit design cycle can both further our understanding of how people learn and which features of an exhibit promote more robust educational experiences. Studies that have been conducted by Finke at the Lawrence Hall of Science and King at the Natural History Museum in London also provide examples design-based interventions.

How might learners be studied in a science museum when entertainment, experience, ethics, empowerment, and/or meaning-making are the primary instructional design objectives, rather than content acquisition, process skills, and expertise?
How does one go about orchestrating learning, creating new participation structures/social arrangements, or facilitating interactions in informal settings to enact sound education practices?
What practical interventions can be designed to improve learning, yet preserve the spatial, social, and, cultural context in which informal learning takes place?
How is ‘design for learning’ or ‘teaching for understanding’ achieved in environments in which activity is self-directed and/or occurs in family groups?

Schauble and Bartlett (1997) argue that as educators and researchers, we need to reconceive our role in the informal learning space from that of scientific observer to active designer, whereby we structure and design the environment according to a coherent theory of how people learn here. Osbourne, 1998 argues for not only designing rich content, but also providing instructional supports and pedagogical prompts within the design.
In the learning sciences, many researchers are faced with methodological challenges when studying learning in complex, non-laboratory settings. While some informal learning researchers argue for purely qualitative, naturalistic approaches (cf. Deborah Perry), other researchers embrace design-based research methods have been used to create and assess educationally-relevant interventions in which designs embody hypotheses about learning, and interventions are iteratively refinement and studied (DBRC, 2003). Rather than attempting to isolate particular variables to study in a complex setting, salient variables and their interrelationships are identified (Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc, 2000).

What are the nature, attributes, strengths, and characteristics of effective informal learning environments that can influence and transform formal institutions, settings, student learning, and teacher practice?
What is the role of institutional policy, sponsorship, and administration to enable informal learning research between (or in) education institutions?
How does informal learning research fit into the learning sciences?

General research in museums has a history of over 100 years (Hein & Alexander, 1998), while studies that focus specifically on learning and cognition have gained considerable momentum in the past 20 years (see Dierking & Falk, 1994 and Ramey-Gassert, Walberg, & Walberg, 1994 for comprehensive review of the literature). Informal learning research remains somewhat invisible to the larger educational research community (Bartels and Hein, 2003) and our understanding of learning and facilitating in informal settings may, arguably, lag behind classroom-based research by about 10 years (Schauble and Bartlett, 1997). To advance this field, several efforts are underway: the Center for Informal Learning and School a partnership between Kings College London, UC Santa Cruz, and The Exploratorium which has created a framework for carrying out research in informal learning institutions that will inform formal settings. Second, a recent policy statement was issued from the informal learning community (Dierking, Falk, Rennie, Anderson, & Ellenbogen, 2003) to promote six avenues of research: 1) exploring precursors to learning, 2) taking the physical setting into account, 3) exploring social and cultural mediating factors, 4) promoting longitudinal research, 5) investigating the process of learning, and 6) expanding our research methods. These will be discussed in the context of advancing the agenda for learning sciences.