International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2014

Vol. 27, No. 4, 472489, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.771228

Students use of evaluative constructivism: comparative degrees of

intentional learning
Lindsey Norma Conner*

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

College of Education, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

(Received 11 June 2012; nal version received 17 January 2013)
Evaluative constructivism is used to describe how students derived learning
intentions and made choices about what they would do during a unit of work in
a nal-year high school biology class, as they conducted an inquiry into the
social and ethical issues associated with cancer. The context of the study, theoretical background and overview of students awareness of their learning
strengths and needs are related to the level of achievement in the essays they
wrote. The case studies illustrate the diversity in the extent of knowledge and
use of learning strategies and the implications this has for the level of support
teachers can provide to enable students to be more self-directed. The concepts
outlined here have very wide application to multiple learning contexts.
Keywords: constructivism; inquiry learning; self-evaluation; metacognition

Context of the research study

Previously, as a biology teacher, I observed that students in my nal-year biology
classes found it difcult to be sufciently self-directed in the inquiry process
required by this section of work in the curriculum. This was partly because this section of the curriculum focuses on social and ethical issues which are inherently
complex and ambiguous, and require students to have sufcient content knowledge
and to be able to consider the issues from their own, their peers and societal perspectives (Conner, 2008). Students, in general, also lacked experience in reecting
on their own learning processes for researching and writing essays (Conner, 2007).
The purpose of this study was to investigate students learning about social and
ethical issues using inquiry in a nal-year high school biology class. The students
were 1718 years old and attended an urban co-educational public school in New
Zealand. A very experienced teacher taught the class and I acted as a participant
observer as the students in this class knew me.
The intervention unit of work was supported by a range of explicit teaching
and learning strategies to help students identify their prior knowledge and develop
knowledge of the bioethical issues related to cancer, and of learning processes that
would help them to be more self-directed for their inquiry and research into
specic types of cancer and the associated issues with prevention, diagnosis,
*Email: lindsey.conner@canterbury.ac.nz
! 2013 Taylor & Francis

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

473

treatment and emotional concerns. These activities were designed in a constructivist framework which required students to identify their ideas and beliefs about the
issues: a group brainstorming activity, small and whole-class discussions about specic issues, pre-write paragraph writing, use of a journal (notebook) to record their
knowledge, thinking and questions they wanted to answer. The activities also
involved prompting students to gure out what else they needed to know and how
they might nd out for themselves. The teacher provided guidelines, checklists and
verbal prompts, as well as direct questions to stimulate thinking and to check on
students progress. Further activities were designed to extend students thinking
and to enable them to become more aware of multiple perspectives that inuence
why and how people make decisions. The teacher used specic activities and provocative questions to assist with this. For example, during one activity, he asked
the students to read an article and statements about the incidence of breast cancer
and the likelihood of it being an inherited condition. Then he asked students to
comment on whether they would recommend that their sisters had their breasts
removed as a preventative measure for breast cancer. The students had to consider
the evidence and make a decision. This provocation also stimulated the students to
think about the rational and emotional aspects that people face when making such
decisions and that they are not necessarily based just on the scientic information.
This was exactly the outcome the teacher had intended. Another provocation was
centred on whether we should not publicly fund health care for smokers. Further
details of the intervention and the activities are provided elsewhere (Conner,
2010a).
The teaching and learning strategies also included ways to allow students to
select (evaluate) appropriate information they might need and therefore research further for including in their essays. The teacher wanted the students to become more
aware of and evaluate the evidence provided in the articles and websites, and to use
discretion about what they included and why they might include ideas or not.
Developing discriminatory literacy skills in this way built (to varying extents) students capabilities to be evaluative of information and their own learning strengths
and weaknesses.
This paper focuses on the learning processes of the students during the unit of
work, rather than a focus on what they learned.
Theoretical background
This section outlines the theoretical background associated with constructivist
approaches to learning. The intention is to briey describe the background related
to constructivism but emphasise that previously, constructivism has mostly been
applied to the learning of content knowledge. The new descriptor of evaluative constructivism also applies the principles of constructivism to the processes of learning
(how to learn) and the conditional aspects of learning (when to use particular ways
of learning). Evaluation (both self and from others) can provide support for the regulation (discriminating, choosing and appropriating tasks) and enhancement of
learning. The purpose is to bring together the ideas from learning sciences that contribute to the notion of evaluative constructivism, such as information processing,
self-regulated learning and situated cognition, and indicate how selected previous
studies contribute to these ideas.

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

474

L.N. Conner

Since 1980, constructivism has developed as the predominant theoretical perspective in science education (Tobin & Tippins, 1993). The focus in constructivist
approaches is to develop and enhance students understanding by connecting new
information to pre-existing knowledge (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996). In contrast,
when the focus is on the recall of knowledge, rather than understanding, students
tend to use strategies to memorise and recall or reproduce the content being studied
(Burnett & Proctor, 2002; Diseth, Pallesen, Hovland, & Larsen, 2006). This is not
to say that content knowledge is not important in constructivist approaches far
from it (Conner, 2008). Rather the emphasis is on acknowledging that learners construct knowledge by adjusting previous conceptions. This paper proposes that it is
now time to consider how awareness and use of learning processes (procedural
knowledge), and an awareness and use of conditional aspects of learning (such as
knowing when to apply a learning strategy), can also be described in terms of constructivism.
Tsai (2000) has indicated that how science teachers present information (a factor
contributing to the learning environment) not only models students epistemological
beliefs about learning in science, but also contributes to how students orient their
learning (or derive learning intentions). Students perceptions of the learning
environment and what is required of them have strong links with their learning
intentions. For example, students who judge that it is important to focus on learning
for meaning tend to use approaches to help them to develop more meaningful
understanding of science concepts than those who focus on recall or memorisation
(BouJaoude & Giuliano, 1994; BouJaoude, Salloum, & Abd-El-Khalick, 2004). In
Tsais (2000) study of 10th grade Taiwanese students, the students who held epistemological beliefs towards constructivist views of science preferred constructivist
learning environments. These students also claimed that they were not provided
with enough opportunities to explore their prior knowledge and understanding nor
were they given enough opportunities to negotiate (or choose) what to do. They
wanted to have more control over their learning and to some extent, be given more
opportunities to think independently.
The constructivist classroom is a learner-centred environment where the past
experience of students is acknowledged and brought to the fore. In this context,
learning is necessarily reective, interactive, inductive and collaborative, and questions are valued as a source for curiosity and focus for nding out information. In
such classrooms, the teacher acts as a facilitator or mediator of learning rather than
someone who only takes on the role of imparting knowledge. Teachers are also
expected to provide students with a variety of experiences from which learning is
constructed. This may involve maximising social interactions between learners
so that they can actively negotiate meaning (Conner, 2010b; Lemke, 2001;
OLoughlin, 1992; Traianou, 2006) and therefore enhance their understanding.
If understanding is inextricably connected with our capacity for reective
consciousness as Capra (2003) indicates, then learning for understanding must call
on reective processes. Capra elaborates and states that:
Being able to hold mental images enables us to choose among several alternatives,
which is necessary to formulate values and social rules of behavior Our intentions,
awareness of purposes and designs and strategies to reach identied goals all require
the projection of mental images into the future. (Capra, 2003, pp. 6364)

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

475

Constructivism, as applied to the processes for learning, involves a consideration of

what the learner already knows about themselves and their abilities as a learner
(Bruer, 1994), what they need to learn effectively (perceived task or cognitive
demand) and how the intentions or goals will be achieved. Dunlosky and Metcalfe
(2009) refer to these processes as judgements of learning. In inquiry learning
contexts, such as the intervention in this paper, where students research a topic of
interest, constructivist approaches can assist in developing not only skills and strategies for learning, but also students abilities to appropriate when to use specic
learning tactics. Tasks that help with this include self-questioning, summarising or
elaborating on material being studied and creating opportunities for students to
make new connections between different concepts. When constuctivism is applied
to procedural and conditional knowledge as well as the development of conceptual
knowledge, e.g. the development of information processing skills, it becomes
important to identify what skills or strategies students are aware of, already use
successfully and to provide them with multiple approaches so they have some
choice about what they do. This latter point is quite crucial because it assumes
students are open and willing to choose what to do rather than them being in a
learning environment where they expect to be told what to do. These are quite different approaches so it is important that students know what is expected of them as
learners, which may be quite different to what they are accustomed to.
Information processing
There are two main approaches to information-processing theory. One approach is
very intentional, conscious and analytic because it is based on logic, choice and
sequencing. This approach requires effort by the learner because they have to reect
on learning experiences and select appropriate strategies. In contrast, an alternative
approach using automatic or unconscious learning processes, may require little
effort at all. Learning decisions in an automatic mode may not be conscious
because they are based on intuition or practice that has come from repeated previous experiences, and probably success. These learning processes may be illogical
because they may be based on what feels good or appropriate, even if it is not. The
importance of this to evaluative constructivism is that the term evaluative presupposes a conscious learning process, which is probably necessary for changing learning tactics. If students continue to use previous learning behaviours, they are
unlikely to improve their outcomes unless they are already an expert.
Regulation of learning processes
In the last couple of decades, there has been a growing emphasis on how active,
self-conscious, self-directed and self-regulated strategies can focus students on more
deliberate ways of learning. This is in contrast to how most students probably cope
with immediate tasks in classrooms; that is through behaviours that are assemblages
of previous habits. However, merely repeating previous learning behaviours may
give rise to troubling and resilient habits (Davis, Sumara, & Luce-Kappler, 2008)
that do not enhance learning to any great extent. We know that learners have the
potential to be introspective and can choose how they approach learning tasks. Even
very young children have been shown to have these skills (Hussain, 2011). The
extent of introspection will necessarily be related to previous experience and an

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

476

L.N. Conner

awareness of what could be done or what is appropriate for a specic learning

context (Vrugt & Oort, 2008). Efforts to promote learning should therefore include
providing opportunities to interrogate ones learning processes or to be more aware
of what learning tactics could be used, in an evaluative sense, of what works to
enhance learning in particular situations (situated conditional cognition).
The term metacognition is often applied to aspects such as knowledge about
cognition, awareness of ones own thinking processes, comprehension of
requirements for learning, control of learning processes and regulation of cognitive
procedures (Leutwyler, 2009). It is likely that all students use metacognition to
some degree (Gunstone, 1994). Therefore, one of the roles of a teacher might be to
alert students about how they can make use of this kind of thinking to enhance their
learning. There is some evidence to suggest that planned activities for prompting
metacognitive processes have resulted in enhanced learning (e.g. Baird, 1998;
Conner, 2007; Hacker, 1998; Vrugt & Oort, 2008; White & Frederiksen, 1998). In
a summary review of four articles on researching the use of metacognition, Azevedo (2009) concludes that we need to know more specically what metacognitive
and regulatory processes are being observed, how they were measured using multiple sources and to what conditions do the results apply. Leutwyler (2009) states that
there are relatively few studies that research the development of metacognitive
learning strategies for students older than 17 years old.
Situated cognition
The concept of situated cognition relates to the idea that multiple aspects of the
learning context (or wider learning environment) the physical, social and symbolic
aspects of the environment inuence peoples perceptions and hence what and
how they learn.
Brown, Collins and Duguids research (1989) considered that learning is a process of enculturation where knowledge is made meaningful by situating it in an
activity that relates to the context or culture of the participants. Greeno (1997) distinguished between a cognitive perspective that explains cognitive achievements in
terms of structures and processes in the individual mind and a situative perspective
that views accomplishments in relation to systems that span physical, social and
symbolic environments. Wortham (2001) extends this beyond the individual, where
others knowledge or other sources of knowledge also inuence learning outcomes.
I take this further by stating that students cannot evaluate how well they are learning or what they could choose to do differently to enhance their learning, unless
they know about alternative ways to proceed. That is, they need to know what
choices they have, if they are to be enabled to make conscious choices. There is
also an element of willingness and effort involved in this process that must not be
ignored. Students need to know alternative ways of learning, how to weigh up the
possibilities and that they can consciously choose or select what to do in relation to
task demands. When they actively participate in these processes, the development
of an internal locus of control (Ramsey, Hungerford, & Volk, 1990), self-monitoring
and self-regulation (Zimmerman, 1994, 2001) are more likely. Students perceptions
of the usefulness of particular strategies are likely to be related to students experiences and previous success. Therefore, affective factors are likely to be important in
determining what strategies learners value and whether they have already experienced success in transferring strategies to multiple contexts. They are likely to base

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

477

what they do on what has worked for them in the past. Further, if students believe
they have tools to help them proceed, they are more likely to invest the time and
effort needed to use them (Kluwe, 1982) and evaluate them (Conner, 2007). If they
have condence, they are more likely to be willing to consider possibilities and
willing to select and use particular learning strategies. Figure 1 shows the relationship of these components in an evaluative constructivism framework.
Evaluative constructivism is centred on active learning. It is a process whereby
learners purposefully monitor and regulate their own learning needs, select or
choose information or ways to tackle tasks, adjust and modify them according to
task demands and their own skills, monitor progress, weigh up choices, and reect
and appraise work to derive next steps. Therefore, as a learning process, it is driven
by an intention to improve a specic skill or outcome. This may require nding out
what options or choices/possibilities there are, mostly from other sources such as
peers, the teacher or other materials AND being aware of how to use strategies and
when to use them. Reective tools, such as guidelines, questioning protocols,
mnemonics and other process prompts, may be useful in assisting with this, but the
conditional aspects of when to use each one are often overlooked. In the future,

Figure 1. The interrelationship between elements of evaluative constructivism.

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

478

L.N. Conner

online smart apps and automatic digital prompts in bubbles to support learners in
their learning processes will become commonplace. Knowing that these prompts
support students should propel us to design learning activities and environments
that include them.
Students judgements about how to use and when to use specic tools need
some consideration. Tools are only useful if students make appropriate judgements
and decisions about when to use which strategies. The effectiveness of their learning will only improve if they are able to appropriate and apply learning approaches
and specic strategies to tasks. The openmindedness and willingness of students to
consider alternative ways of learning are also important. There is an assumption that
individuals have the power and are able (know and are aware of the choices they
have). Teachers can assist by enabling students to become more self-aware of their
own patterns of learning or behaviours and reconguring new learning processes as
appropriate to the task/outcome demands. In Figure 1, I suggest that it may be that
it is possible to drive evaluative constructivism using two main agendas:
(1) Developing intentions for learning ask what do I need to know or do?
(2) Increase knowledge and awareness of the choices of learning procedures and
allow students the freedom to make these choices.
Educators who work with these agendas, are likely to empower students to be
more self-regulating and engage with their learning rather than being passive recipients of knowledge or reliant on being told what to do. Providing students with
choice can be motivating and can transform learners to become agents of their own
learning (Conner, 2010a). The case studies below provide some examples of individual differences in how the learning outcomes related to students knowledge and
awareness of their learning, and consequent choices these students made in a particular learning context.
Research design and procedures
This study used an in-depth naturalistic case study approach (Yin, 1994) to investigate the teaching and learning about biological, social and ethical issues in a
secondary school biology class. This approach enabled the nuances of the learning,
not merely a surface recount of whether or not they learned from the experience
but in-depth accounts of how the experiences shaped their learning in this context.
The characteristics that enabled or hindered progress have been described in detail
for each of the cases. The 21 students were taught by their usual biology teacher. I
was a participant observer throughout the conduct of relevant classes.
Ethical approval for this study was gained from the College of Education ethical
approvals committee. Written informed consent was obtained from the school principal, the teacher of the class and individual students, most of whom were either 17
or 18 years old. Pseudonyms have been used for the three students who are used
here to illustrate the range of responses.
I observed the 16 students who chose to be part of this study during class
activities and I interviewed them prior to and post the intervention. I also used the
materials produced by the students as part of their learning (brainstorm sheets,
learning journals, notes from specic classroom activities and the essays written for
assessment) to triangulate students learning with their outcomes (essay marks).

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

479

This allowed the sources to be cross-referenced to determine if students knew of

learning strategies and, more importantly, whether they used them.
I used general questions in the pre-unit interview to explore students perceptions of their learning. Then I categorised the pre-unit interview responses into three
learning awareness categories of good at (i.e. what students perceived they were
good at), help with and ability perception with regard to essays and exam performance. These are summarised for each of the 16 students in Table 1. The
responses represent perceptions prior to the start of the unit of work (except for
Samantha and Liz whose post-unit interviews incorporated the questions in the preunit interview). Since producing an essay was the intended outcome of the unit of
work for the class in this study, for analysis I grouped students into the following
categories according to the quality of their essays: Invisible Product, Satisfactory
Product and Quality Product. Students in the Invisible Product category did
not hand in a nal essay. I chose the category Invisible Product because although
the students did not write an essay, some could articulate their ideas that they
intended to develop further for the high-stakes external exam. Students in the Satisfactory Product category produced essays that ranged in marks from 13/40 to 24/
40. Students in the Quality Product category wrote essays with marks between
26/40 and 32/40. Both the Satisfactory Product and Quality Product categories
were further subdivided into Satisfactory Multiple and Quality Multiple groups
to indicate students who had produced more than one essay.
Three in-depth case studies of individual students are presented to indicate how
the range of awareness of learning strategies may assist learning; how the extent of
deliberately making learning intentions, choosing or selecting ways to learn, related
to the quality of students essays. These cases describe how students learning characteristics, considered important for enhancing self-directed learning (Wang &
Peverley, 1986), can be linked to individual achievement. The cases are then used
to exemplify the description of evaluative constructivism.
Findings
The students behaviours were considered in terms of the constructivist approaches
they used, especially in terms of how they drew on previous knowledge of the ways
they learned, regulated their approaches through a range of metacognitive processes
to consider what they did well, what they needed to work on and how to appropriate particular knowledge and learning strategies. Although many of the learning
habits of the students in this study can be traced to previous behaviours, this study
investigated how students personally improved their own learning through a process
that I am describing as evaluative constructivism. The students embraced the idea
that they could take charge of their own learning to varying degrees and much of
their motivations were linked to the content (context) and whether they were interested in the topic of investigating issues related to cancer. Where this did not occur
to any great extent, the students were usually uninterested in the topic, held an
assumption that their abilities were xed (that they had no personal power or
agency to control their own learning), or that the learning environment was not
malleable.
Table 1 shows that in general, there was a correspondence between the level of
awareness of learning processes and what students achieved in their essays. In the
Invisible Product category (no essay produced though some attempt at a draft par-

480

L.N. Conner

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

Table 1. Students perceptions of their learning abilities and needs (D = difcult, E = easy).
Essay writing
perception

Exam
prediction

Making
decisions,
making notes,
writing/
organisation
Not good with
numbers

D, style, bad
luck with
questions

Pass

E, if understand
D, if not uent

Low

Solving
problems,
organisation
Explanations,
interpreting
instructions,
content, note
making,
organisation
Essays in
English
Remembering,
sorting
information

E, if creative; D,
if need to follow
structure
D, understanding
the question

55%

E, history; D,
English
D, structure and
formatting, I
dont know
where to start
D, structure,
never plans

Pass

D, never done
essays before

Low

Group

Student

Good at

Help with

Invisible
Product

Daniel

Remembering,
learning orally,
Physical Ed

Tulane

Working with
people,
research,
learning orally
Creative tasks

Sally

Satisfactory
Product

Mary

Group
discussions

Kay

Languages

Mitchel

Plotting ideas,
Physical Ed,
team work

Vincy

Essays

Awar

Anything
without
English
Samantha Problemsolving

Satisfactory
Multiple

Ann

Independent
study

Quality
Product

Niome

Creative
writing

Lois

Researching
comprehension
Memorising,
problemsolving, essays
Explaining

Charlie
Quality
Multiple

Terri

Hard to
concentrate,
structure,
planning
Anything with
lots of English

Organising study, E, if have all the

information
time
management
Memory recall,
organisation,
understanding
the essay
question
Essay writing,
oral presentation,
abstract recall
Planning essay,
memory recall
Statistical info,
knowing content
requirements
Mathematical
formulae

D, remembering
main points,
structure E
when understand
the question
E, interest and
understanding
important
D, not enough
info, E
E, chunks info
and uses pictures
E if know info

Low

Pass

45%

70%
based on
previous
marks
5055%

5560%
60%
Good
mark if
plan
60+%
linked to
effort
(Continued)

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

481

Table 1. (Continued).

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

Group

Student

Good at

Help with

Liz

Listening,
discussions,
dictation

Marianne

Remembering

Structure of
essays, formulae
in maths and
chemistry
Interpreting
abstract ideas

Essay writing
perception

Exam
prediction

60%
D, connecting
ideas, structure,
understanding the
question
E for factual
60+%
recall; D for
interpretation

agraph), Daniel and Tulane said that they learned well orally and their success was
due to luck rather than their prior knowledge or the learning they could have
gained through their own inquiries. The other students in this category (Kay, Mary,
and Sally) did not identify their learning preferences and could not articulate how
they learned well, i.e. they had a very low awareness of how they learned or what
they could do to improve their learning. All of the students in the Invisible Product category recognised that they needed to develop their organisational skills and
that their work could be improved with more effort (Table 1).
Students in both the Invisible Product and Satisfactory Product categories
identied what they were good at, or needed help with, but only in broad
terms. Their reasons were not necessarily linked with knowledge or an in-depth
awareness of their own abilities and use of learning strategies or skills. For example, Awar considered his difculties all stemmed from his lack of knowledge of and
ability to use English. Ann, Mitchel, Samantha and Vincy recognised their need to
organise their time, to plan more and structure their work but did not say how they
would specically do this, i.e. they had general rather than specic intentions.
In general, there was a positive relationship between students prior knowledge/
awareness of learning strategies and their use of these strategies in researching and
essay writing for this unit of work. The knowledge and use of specic declarative,
procedural and metacognitive strategies has been linked to the quality of the students essays (Conner & Gunstone, 2004). Those students who reected more specically on their learning needs and who consciously knew about AND used a
range of learning strategies, were more self-directed in their learning than students
who had broad conceptions of their needs.
The teachers role in establishing and maintaining an environment conducive to
enabling evaluative constructivism was very important in this context. He motivated
the students to consider what they knew already about the topic and about their
own learning processes. He modelled self-questioning and indicated explicit learning strategies that could be used for different parts of the inquiry process. For
example, the teacher issued bookmarks that contained sentence starters to prompt
the students to write in their learning journals. He also created support materials
such as an essay checklist and an essay marking schedule so the students could
self-check and peer check each others essays. He also demonstrated the use of
mnemonics for structuring paragraphs and possible ways to construct essays.
Figure 2 visually shows the differences between the three cases described below
and the relative positioning of the extent to which they derived intentions, and
knew and used choices related to learning strategies. I now describe why I have

482

L.N. Conner

Charlie

Mitchel

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

Daniel

Figure 2. The interaction of intentions and choices on engagement in evaluative

constructivism.

positioned these students relative to each other in Figure 2, within each case
description.
Cases
Daniel
Daniel was very condent that he could do anything and achieve well if he wanted
to, probably due to successes in some aspects of schoolwork in the past. However,
he lacked the organisational strategies to structure independent research or writing.
Daniel did not make specic intentions regarding his work nor could he identify
particular learning strategies that could help him. To some extent, Daniels absences
did prevent him from knowing what he was supposed to do (he was involved in
athletics trials during the unit). However, even during the times he was present he
was not attentive, misinterpreted information and was easily distracted and distracted others. This tendency showed a lack of interest in that he did not write a
pre-write paragraph nor produce a nal essay.
Daniel also had no real concern about the topic under study (biological, social
and ethical issues related to cancer), since it had not affected anyone he knew and
it was not really an issue for him, even though he asked several personally relevant
questions during class. He recognised that he had a limited background knowledge
about cancer, the issues and how to research and write essays. He did not connect
with the content. Even though he knew that essays could have structure, he was not
prepared to put time or effort into deliberately using strategies to structure his writing. Daniel was not willing to consider what might help him to complete his essay.
He tended to be impulsive and did not evaluate what he needed to do very effectively. Rather, he dismissed the need to prepare because he had previously been
successful. He stated:
Daniel (Interview 2): I feel that if I want to do well at something, I can do it but it is
my choice if I want to put the work in.

My observation notes indicated that he minimised effort, spoke to others, allowed

himself to be distracted by others and did not complete tasks. His lack of knowledge

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

483

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

probably precluded him from being able to plan, monitor or evaluate his work. He
also thought his success previously was due to luck and that his nal result in the
exam on this topic would depend on the question, rather than how well he had prepared for it.
His knowledge telling approach to writing rather than planning or structuring
was linked to his learning behaviours, such as in his words writing notes just for
the sake of it because he thought that writing notes would show that he was
doing what he was supposed to and this is what he had done in previous classes
where inquiry was the focus. He had not made the connection between how he
was taking notes and how it may or may not help him. As he explained when I
asked him how did you take notes?:
Daniel (Interview 2): I just wrote them down.
Researcher: Straight out of the book?
Daniel: No, just from what Mr. S gave us.
Researcher: How did you know what you wanted and what you needed?
Daniel: I just wrote down everything.

He thought that he could remember things well if there was a purpose for remembering. Daniel had come through one of the higher banded classes in this school,
probably because he had a good memory. Even though he knew that some of the
learning strategies the teacher had highlighted (using key words, key questions and
checklists to guide his research) would be useful, he did not use them. He had not
used them previously and therefore had little or no experience that they could help
to direct his inquiry.
Daniel has been placed on the right-hand side of Figure 2, because he knew
some strategies but negotiated tasks downwards by minimising effort and downplaying the importance of engagement. He was not aware of how the strategies
might enhance his learning, let alone conditional aspects of when they might be
useful and therefore he did not deliberately choose what to do. His engagement
with evaluative processing was therefore quite low.
Mitchel
Mitchel tended to describe his learning in general terms. He admitted that he did
not plan his essay but used a conscious stream approach where he wrote down
whatever came into his mind. Occasionally, he monitored his progress in his learning journal as illustrated by some of his learning behaviours. He identied in his
journal some content areas that he needed to develop, whereas other statements
showed that he was aware of the need to structure his essay better. Mitchel often
sought feedback from others, particularly the teacher and therefore valued advice.
He also set up a buddy/study arrangement with another student out of school time
on his own accord, because he knew he needed assistance and he purposefully
approached someone whom he thought knew more than he did. Getting feedback
from someone else was purposeful and deliberate, and was his way of externally

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

484

L.N. Conner

monitoring his progress. He did not work in an independent way very effectively,
but recognised that he did not know enough to be condent in evaluating his own
learning strengths or what he needed to focus on. Using a buddy helped him to
learn about additional ways of tackling tasks. He knew he needed to know more
and engaged somewhat in developing this knowledge.
By the end of the unit of work, Mitchel had improved his abilities to write
essays, even though he did not score very highly in terms of essay quality. He
lacked knowledge about text structure and organisation, and therefore did not write
an essay with a clear, logical sequence. This lack of knowledge prevented him from
achieving a good mark in the essay (it was satisfactory). Despite the efforts of
the teacher to help him during class and to give him oral and written feedback on
his writing, Mitchel did not integrate this information sufciently to write a good
essay. Mitchel admitted he had little prior knowledge, which is why he sought help
from both the teacher and his buddy. However, he thought his essay writing
capabilities had improved as a result of the unit of work. Mitchel is placed in the
frustrated quadrant of Figure 2, because he had very good intentions but insufcient
knowledge or experience to put them into action. Consequently, his engagement
was moderate because he did not know enough to be able to evaluate what could
enhance his learning.

Charlie
Charlie knew from previous learning experiences that when he planned he was
more successful. He could discuss in detail how he planned his essay to make
connections between what he thought was required and what he actually did. In
other words, he formed clear intentions for what he would do, knew of a range of
strategies he could use and evaluated the strategies that might enable him to
achieve those intentions. In terms of evaluative construcivism, he was more
engaged with the evaluative processes of learning. He even invented his own coding system to help him collate information related to different aspects he wanted
to include. Charlie also asked himself many questions, both about the content and
the processes he would use to drive his inquiry process. Some of these questions
occurred to him while he was researching and writing. For example, one journal
entry included:
Charlie (Journal): I would like to know more about cancer in plant cells do they get
cancer? If so, do they get it as frequently as in humans? Do all carcinogens have the
same sort of effect on plant cells as they do on humans?

Of all the 16 students, Charlie had the highest number of separate entries in his
learning journal (nine) (as evidenced from dates or slightly different writing styles).
Charlie indicated that of all the activities in the unit of work, peer checking helped
him the most because the essay he checked was, in his opinion, quite a good one.
He recognised that the essay he checked had good structure and owed well, and
that he could learn from this. Surprisingly, when asked what he would do with his
essay after he had received feedback from his peer and the teacher, he indicated that
he would not change it. He described how he had modied his essay prior to presenting it for peer review:

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

485

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

Charlie (Interview 2): I think the more practice I did, the better I got. I think practicing was the best thing and the more practice I do, the better I get.

He considered that the time and effort required to modify his essay that might result
in a small change in grade was not worth the effort. He had strategically evaluated
that editing was not worthy of his time and effort.
Among the 16 students in this research, Charlie probably had the most sophisticated knowledge about his learning; he knew that using the strategies actually
helped him. This knowledge was linked to his success in tasks where he had
consciously been aware of using them previously. The focus of his planning and
monitoring was to maximise the efciency of his time. He always worked consistently well in class, and separated himself from others when he wanted to work
independently. This was another example of how he applied his awareness, knowledge and use of learning strategies effectively. The use of many specic learning
strategies, such as using his own symbols at the side of text and using visual markers to indicate changes or places in the text that needed elaboration or examples,
allowed him to write a well-constructed essay that illustrated connected ideas and
showed a breadth of understanding about the contingencies inherent in the social
and ethical issues.
Charlie has been placed in the engaged quadrant of Figure 2, because he
made strong specic learning intentions, knew of a range of possible strategies and
deliberately chose what he thought would help or would be worthwhile. He could
also describe instances of when he used particular strategies and why he used them
for that purpose. In other words, he not only knew about how he learned, he was
also aware that there were conditional aspects to appropriating strategies and utilised this knowledge.
These three cases illustrate the range of how students learning awareness, use
of learning strategies, deriving specic learning intentions and deliberately choosing
what to do linked to the quality of their essays. The levels of engagement of the
other 13 students would appear scattered if they were plotted on Figure 2. The
point is not that these cases above are special, but that they illustrate the variable
nature of how students in this class engaged with learning processes. It is important
that teachers are aware of these types of individual differences of students in their
classes, and adjust their feedback and responses accordingly.
Implications
The above ndings imply that clearly students in this class showed a huge range of
knowledge and awareness of their learning needs. Helping students to identify these
strengths and weaknesses in itself contributed to their awareness. Although most of
what the students did was as a result of previous habits, there were some shifts
related to a conscious selection of content and learning strategies that were as a
result of being prompted and provided with supporting activities and strategy
reminders by the teacher. Students perceptions of the tasks/strategies (particularly
the usefulness or perceived effort relative to benet) inuenced what they did. This
applied especially to the frequency and type of self-questioning in journals as well
as the extent to which they edited draft versions of their essays.
Metacognitive strategies can enhance students awareness of learning and can
help them to derive intentions and make appropriate choices for learning processes.

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

486

L.N. Conner

By highlighting learning strategies explicitly, the teacher in this study helped students to access their prior content and procedural knowledge. There was less
emphasis on when to use appropriate strategies. This purposeful cueing of prior
knowledge provided the rst steps in the constructivist process. Some students
reported that the teachers focus on the learning processes during class instruction
was important because otherwise they would not have used these strategies of their
own accord.
Due to the wide variation in awareness exhibited by these students, there are
huge implications for teachers and teaching. Knowing when to make strategies
explicit and how often to emphasise them becomes a tension for the teacher. Many
students could describe strategies for making their learning more effective but did
not use them or did not use them appropriately or effectively. The amount of
guidance or prompting by the teacher is a dilemma that can only be gauged on an
individual basis. Too much guidance may undermine students self-evaluation of
their needs and hence their ability to self-regulate their own learning, since it
externalises what students need to do. Conversely without some guidance, some
students may not know how to get started and they may need some external
prompting or monitoring to proceed. There is always a balance in terms of what the
teacher focuses on though. It seems important to give examples of how strategies
could be used or to cue or prompt the selection of appropriate strategies, as part of
the teaching so that students develop intentions and know of possible alternative
learning processes they could use. However, as shown in this study, doing this does
not guarantee that the students will use these strategies.
Students may also become confused and not know which strategies to use if
they are presented with too many to choose from. In their study, Dar-Nimrod,
Rawn, Lehman, and Schwartz (2009) found that when you offer people more
options, they are not necessarily satised with their decisions. In fact, their research
showed that choosing from a large number of options can have detrimental psychological effects compared with choosing from a smaller number of choices. It seems
that in Dar-Nimrod et al.s study, people who were motivated to make the best
choice possible were more willing to put more time into nding alternative options
than people who tended to be satised by a lower threshold of acceptability. This
has implications for how we teach about learning strategies. Perhaps teachers should
provide a few alternatives and let students make choices rather than trying to
uncover many possible ways of carrying out tasks.
The case studies presented above indicate a snapshot in time of how these students used learning strategies in a particular context. While this was the intention of
the study, it remains a limitation for the development of a more generalised theory.
In order to advance the concept of evaluative constructivism, we need many more
studies of how students use strategies in different contexts and how learners regulate their use according to their knowledge of them and perceptions of task
demands (Vrugt & Oort, 2008). That is, we need more examples of how students
choose to proceed based on their perceptions of the needs of the task (task demand
in Figure 1), and how they evaluate and appropriate what is required. As Azevedo
(2009) has indicated, it is also important to design learning environments that will
help to develop these skills over time. Therefore, it becomes even more important
that students are able to self-evaluate what their learning strengths and learning
needs are, as they develop in an iterative way.

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

487

The construct evaluative constructivism has been used here to describe how
aspects of introspective learning can enhance students intentions and decisions about
learning. It is proposed that deriving learning intentions and an awareness of the
choices of ways to proceed are important for acting as a cue to selectively evaluate
what knowledge is important.
Although this study was conducted in the context of inquiry about biological,
social and ethical issues, the principles could be applied to a range of other learning
contexts. What is evident is that the individuals used as cases in this study varied
enormously in how they engaged with the evaluative processes. This has huge
implications for considering the variance in the effect teaching has on learning in
any class and the extent to which we might expect individuals to be agents in
enhancing their own learning processes.
Notes on contributor
Lindsey Norma Conner is an associate professor and the director of the Science and
Technology Education Research Lab at the College of Education, University of Canterbury.
Her research interests are in learning, science education, futures education and teacher
education.

References
Azevedo, R. (2009). Theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and instructional issues in
research on metacognition and self-regulated learning: A discussion. Metacognition and
Learning, 4, 8795.
Baird, J. R. (1998). A view of quality in teaching. In B. Fraser & K. Tobin (Eds.), International handbook of science education (Vol. 1, pp. 153167). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
BouJaoude, S. B., & Giuliano, F. J. (1994). Relationships between achievement and selective
variables in a chemistry course for non-majors. School Science and Mathematics, 94,
296302.
BouJaoude, S., Salloum, S., & Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2004). Relationships between selective
cognitive variables and students ability to solve chemistry problems. International Journal of Science Education, 26, 6384.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18, 3241.
Bruer, J. T. (1994). Classroom problems, school culture, and cognitive research. In K.
McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practicum
(pp. 273290). Cambridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Burnett, P. C., & Proctor, R. M. (2002). Elementary school students learner self-concept,
academic self-concepts and approaches to learning. Educational Psychology in Practice,
18, 325333.
Capra, F. (2003). The hidden connections: A science for sustainable living. London: HarperCollins.
Conner, L. (2007). Cueing metacognition to improve researching and essay writing in a nal
year high school biology class. Research in Science Education, 37(1), 116.
Conner, L. (2008). The importance of knowledge development in bioethics education. In D.
Macer (Ed.), Asia Pacic perspectives on bioethics education (pp. 17). Bangkok: UNESCO Asia and Pacic Regional Bureau for Education. Retrieved from http://www.unescobkk.org/leadmin/user_upload/shs/Publications/APPBE.pdf
Conner, L. (2010a). Learning about social-ethical issues using evaluative constructivism:
Case studies. Saarbrcken: VDM Verlag/Mller.
Conner, L. (2010b). In the classroom: Approaches to bioethics for senior students. In A. Jones,
M. Reiss, & A. McKim (Eds.), Ethics in the science and technology classroom: A new
approach to teaching and learning (pp. 5567). New York, NY: Sense Publishers.

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

488

L.N. Conner

Conner, L., & Gunstone, R. F. (2004). Conscious knowledge of learning: Accessing learning
strategies in a nal year high school biology class. International Journal of Science Education, 26, 14271443.
Dar-Nimrod, I., Rawn, C. D., Lehman, D., & Schwartz, B. (2009). The maximization paradox: The costs of seeking alternatives. Personality & Individual Differences, 46, 631
635.
Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in
complex times. New York, NY: Routledge.
Diseth, A., Pallesen, S., Hovland, A., & Larsen, S. (2006). Course experience, approaches to
learning and academic achievement. Education and Training, 48, 156169.
Duffy, T. M., & Cunningham, D. (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and
delivery of instruction. In D. H. Jonasses (Ed.), The handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 170198). New York, NY: Macmillian.
Dunlosky, J., & Metcalfe, J. (2009). Metacognition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Greeno, J. (1997). On claims that answer the wrong questions. Educational Researcher, 26,
517.
Gunstone, R. F. (1994). The importance of specic science content in the enhancement of
metacognition. In P. J. Fensham, R. F. Gunstone, & R. T. White (Eds.), The content of
science: A constructivist approach to its learning and teaching (pp. 131146). London:
Falmer Press.
Hacker, D. J. (1998). Self-regulated comprehension during normal reading. In D. J. Hacker,
J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in educational theory and practice
(pp. 165191). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hussain, H. (2011). Complicity in games of chase and complexity thinking: Emergence in
curriculum and practice-based research (A thesis submitted in partial fullment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education). University of Canterbury.
Kluwe, R. H. (1982). Cognitive knowledge and executive control: Metacognition. In D. R.
Grifn (Ed.), Animal mindhuman mind (pp. 201224). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Lemke, J. (2001). Articulating communities: Sociocultural perspectives on science education.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 296316.
Leutwyler, B. (2009). Metacognitive learning strategies: Differential development patterns in
high school. Metacognition and Learning, 4, 111123.
OLoughlin, M. (1992). Rethinking science education: Beyond Piagetian constructivism
toward a socio-cognitive model of teaching and learning. Journal of Research in Science
Teaching, 29, 791820.
Ramsey, J. M., Hungerford, H. R., & Volk, T. L. (1990). Analysing the issues of STS. The
Science Teacher, 57, 6163.
Tobin, K., & Tippins, D. (1993). Constructivism as a referent for teaching and learning. In
K. Tobin (Ed.), The practice of constructivism in education (pp. 321). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence-Erlbaum.
Traianou, A. (2006). Understanding teacher expertise in primary science: A socio-cultural
approach. Rotterdam: Sense.
Tsai, C.-C. (2000). Relationships between student scientic epistemological beliefs and perceptions of constructivist learning environments. Educational Research, 42, 193205.
Vrugt, A., & Oort, F. J. (2008). Metacognition, achievement goals, study strategies and academic achievement: Pathways to achievement. Metacognition and Learning, 3, 123146.
Wang, M. C., & Peverley, S. T. (1986). The self-instructive process in classroom learning
contexts. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 11, 370404.
White, B., & Frederiksen, J. (1998). Inquiry, modeling, and metacognition: Making science
accessible to all students. Cognition and Instruction, 16, 3118.
Wortham, S. (2001). Interactionally situated cognition: A classroom example. Cognitive Science, 25, 3766.
Yin, R. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

489

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 11:48 04 June 2016

Zimmerman, B. J. (1994). Dimensions of academic self-regulation: A conceptual framework

for education. In D. H. Schunk & B. J. Zimmerman (Eds.), Self-regulation of learning
and performance: Issues and educational applications (pp. 321). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2001). Theories of self-regulated learning and academic achievement. In
B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 137). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.