Situated Learning and

Assessment
UCD College of Life Sciences
Teaching and Learning Symposium 2010
18 Feb 2010
Dr. Anne Drummond
UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science

Situated Learning

Learning in which the learning environment

is situated in a particular context
Apprenticeship (cognitive)
Adult learning
Learning should be

Knowledge and
skills are learned in
contexts that
reflect how
knowledge is
obtained and
applied in everyday
situations

Creating meaning
from the activities
of daily living

always be regarded
as situated in a
local and social
context, contrary
to traditional
theory of education
where knowledge
is considered free
from any
contextual

Situated Learning Theory

Emerged in late 1980s-1990s

Builds on other theories

Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989)

Lave and Wenger (1991)
Banduras social learning theory (modelling)
Vygotskys constructivism (scaffolding and fading)
Dewey, Knowles, Kolb

Has characteristics of

Principles of adult education (andragogy)

Problem-based learning
Experiential learning

Situated Learning
apparently

Emphasises higher order thinking rather

than the acquisition of facts
Encourages reflection on learning
Focuses on application rather than retention
Places learners in the experience
Enhances employability of graduates
Learning occurs through dialogue with
others in a community of practice

Terminology

Communities of practice
Legitimate peripheral participation

Legitimate: member of the community

of practice
Peripheral: learners start at the edge
and can move inwards
Participation: learning through doing

Situated learning
applications

Schools

Social settings

Community committees, sports,

leisure

Vocational and educational

settings

Mathematics, language, science

Apprenticeship, mentoring,
coaching
Master-apprentice relationships

Work and professional settings

New position
Professional bodies

Core characteristic: active

participation of
students in a real-world
or near-real world
context for the purpose
of learning

JPF, Practitioner and

Student
Just Plain Folk
(JPF)

Students

Practitioners

Reasoning with

Causal stories

Laws

Causal models

Acting on

Situations

Symbols

Conceptual
situations

Resolving

Emergent
problems and
dilemmas

Well-defined
problems

Ill-defined
problems

Producing

Negotiable
meaning and
socially
constructed
understanding

Fixed meaning
and
immutable
concepts

Negotiable
meaning and
socially
constructed
understanding

(Brown, Collins and Duguid, 1989, p. 35)

Situated learning in the

literature: Experience of different
disciplines

Educational (higher education) literature on situated

learning tends to

Samples

Be descriptive or discursive
Focus on professional education domains
Management education (instructional design project for corporate
clients)
Medicine (PGME / CPD situated in the workplace)
Nursing (situated in practice placements)
Engineering (situating a communications course within the
curriculum)
OSH (situating SH&E training within the workplace)

More recently:

instructional design; computers providing an alternative to

the real-life setting; SL as a basis for web-based e-learning

Instructional design in SL:

9 critical characteristics
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Provide authentic context that reflects the way the

knowledge will be used in real-life;
Provide authentic activities;
Provide access to expert performances and the
modelling of processes;
Provide multiple roles and perspectives;
Support collaborative construction of knowledge;
Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times;
Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed;
Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be
made explicit;
Provide for integrated assessment of learning within the
tasks.
(Herrington and Oliver, 2000)

Our experience of
Situated Learning in OSH
Challenges

Adult professional CPE programmes

Actual work situation V placement or internship

No work-based instruction
No work-based supervision or mentoring
Recognising experiential learning (+ need to capture)

Modularisation provided opportunity to review

Cert, HDip and BSc programmes
Decided to gain/assess evidence of experiential
learning through assessment
Realised that situated learning was taking place

Examples of work-based
assessments in OSH

Level 1: Report for manager (versus an essay)

OR Article for Chamber of Commerce newsletter
Level 1: Basic risk assessment of own workplace
Level 3: Risk assessments / management reports in a variety of
domains and contexts provide a scaffold and ultimately lead
students, with reducing support, to their:

Level 3: Safety Statement project

Level 2: Professional portfolios

Level 3: Ergonomic assessment

Level 3: SWOT analyses
Level 3: Proposing a model for practice

Student feedback on workbased assessment Level 1

N=
Very
Helpful
to my
Learning
%

62

169

101

19.4
32.9

51

Helpful
to my
learnin
g
%

62.9
61.1

43

Neither
helpful nor
Unhelpful
%

16.1
5.4

Unhelpful
to my
learnin
g
%

1.6
0

Very
Unhelp
ful
to my
learnin
g
%

Module
and
Year

SHWW
10010
2009-10

0.6

SHWW
10020
2008-9

In terms of helpfulness to learning, please indicate the extent to which you

found the following components helpful or unhelpful: Preparing
assignments

CertSHW
programm
e
2007-8

Student feedback on workbased assessment Level 3

N =

Strongly agree
%

Agree
%

Neither
agree nor Disagree
%

Disagree
%

Strongly
Disagree
%

Module and Year

10

25

75

SHWW 30070
2009-10

18

44

50

5.6

SHWW 30170
2008-9

15

40

33.3

6.7

20

SHWW 30180
2008-9

66.7

33

SHWW 30050
2008-9

20

52.6

31.6

10.5

5.3

SHWW 30060
2008-9

13

53.8

38.5

7.7

SHWW 30070
2007-8

18

27.8

44.4

11.1

11.1

5.6

SHWW 30160
2007-8

The continuous assessment helped me to apply learning in the context of the

workplace

Feedback on work-based
assessment
BSc Graduate Evaluation (20022009)
N =

60% response

Work-based
assignments
associated
with
modules
Work-based
research
project

51

51

Very helpful
to my
learning
%

Helpful
to my learning
%

Neither
helpful nor
unhelpful
%

Unhelpful
to my learning
%

Very unhelpful
to my learning
%

35

53

10

55

39

Helpfulness to Learning: work-based assignments associated with modules

Helpfulness to Learning: work-based research project

61% of employers encouraged graduates to apply learning at

work, while doing BSc;
36% of employers were neutral, but did not discourage.

Student feedback
on work-based assessment
What was good about this
module?
The use of
real life
experiences
(workplaces)
was a plus

Practical
Assignmen
ts

Assignments
- putting
learning into
work setting

Continuous
assessment is
strongest
teaching
feature of
module
I found the
assignments
very helpful, I
learnt a lot

PROs
of the OSH
experience

Theoretical

Promotes deep
learning
Social and
professional
acceptance
Perceived value to
learners

In practice

Increased student
engagement
Reduction in
regurgitated content
Positive student
evaluations
Designs out
plagiarism

and CONs
of the OSH
experience

Theoretical

[Such] socialisation
may not embody
best practice
Hard to implement
in the classroom
May not always be a
master involved
Debate over
transferability

In practice

More work for graders

(but probably more
interesting)
Difficult to attribute, i.e.
to separate impact of
situated learning from
effects of modularisation
or introduction of
continuous assessment

Opportunities

Situated Learning .

IS NOT an educational form, pedagogical strategy or

teaching technique
IS a way of understanding learning
Should not be ignored by educationalists

Provides an opportunity to pay attention to

different learning climates
In some domains it is important to recognise the
social and professional acceptance in
communities of practice as part of the learning
experience
Important to look at LEARNING (not teaching) as
the contextualised or situated experience

References

Anderson, J.R., Reder, L.M. and Simon, H.A. (1996). Situated Learning and Education.
Educational Researcher . 25 (4) pp. 5 11.
Boud, D. and Falchikov, N. (2006). Aligning assessment with long-term learning.
Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education . 31 (4) pp. 399-413.
Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning.
Educational Researcher . 18 (1) pp. 32 42.
Choi. J. and Hannafin
, M. (1995). Situated cognition and learning environments: roles, structures, and implications
for design.
Journal of Educational Technology Research and Development . 43 (2) pp. 53 69.
Herrington, J. and Herrington, A. (1998). Authentic assessment and multimedia: how univers
ity students respond to a model of authentic assessment. Higher Education Research and De
velopment. 17 (3) pp. 305 322.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning; legitimate peripheral participation
. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Merriam, S.B. and Caffarella, R.S. (1999). (2nd Ed). Learning in Adulthood: a comprehensive
guide. Jossey-Bass Publishers: San Francisco.
Romer, T.A. (2002). Situated learning and assessment.
Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education . 27 (3) pp 233 241.
Stein, D. (1998). Situated learning in adult education. ERIC Digest no. 195.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/

References

Computer Science: Ben-Ari, M. (2004). Situated learning in computer science

education. Computer Science Education. 14 (2) pp 85 100.
Engineering: Artemeva, N., Logie, S. and St-Martin, J. (1999). From Page to Stage:
How theories of genre and situated learning help introduce engineering students to
discipline-specific communication. Technical Communication Quarterly. 8 (3) pp. 301
316.
Medicine: Swanick, T. (2005). Informal learning in postgraduate medical education:
from cognitivism to culturism. Medical Education. 39 (8) pp. 859 - 865.
Nursing: Cope, P., Cuthbertson, P. and Stoddart, B. (2000). Situated learning in the
practice placement. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 31 (4) pp. 850 856.
OSH: Machles, D. (2003). Situated learning; new approach to SH&E training focuses
on learning. Professional Safety. Sep 2003. pp. 22 28.
Physiotherapy: Richardson, B. (1999). Professional Development: 2. Professional
knowledge and situated learning in the workplace. Physiotherapy. 85 (9) pp 467
474.
Teaching: Korthagen, F. (2010). Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of
teacher education: Towards an integrative view of teacher behavior and teacher
learning. Teaching and Teacher Education. 26 (1) pp. 98106.
Designing web-based E-learning: Hung, D. and Chen, D.T. (2001). Situated
cognition, Vygotskian thought and learning from the communities of practice
perspective: Implications for the design of Web-based E-learning. Educational Media
International. 38 (1) pp 3 12.

Thank you for listening

anne.drummond@ucd.ie