Two texts I’ve been reading recently have led me to reflect on a thorny
issue within teaching and learning - the gap between what the teacher intends for
students to learn and the learning that actually takes place. The studies I’ve
been reading are The Hidden Lives of Learners by Graham Nuttall, published
posthumously in 2007, and the fascinating study of reading, Inquiry into
Meaning: An Investigation of Learning to Read (2001) revised ed. by Bussis, Chittenden
& Sallinger.
Nuttall’s research tracked students in classrooms through hours of
detailed data gathering involving audio/video recordings, anecdotal records,
observation, and interviews. The findings showed that what was typically learnt
from a lesson varied considerably from student to student and in most cases was
indeed not at all what the teacher had planned for them to learn. Reasons given were
various - insufficient knowledge of students’ prior knowledge, lack of student
motivation and students retaining little from the planned engagement.
Reading this, I connected with the theories of Kelly (1955), used by Bussis et al. as a framework for their study of reading. Kelly proposed that an individual’s personal constructs dictate the way he/she
perceives information. Here is an explanation from the first edition of the book by Bussis et al quoted in the revised edition:
...two people exposed
to the same events may construe them in very different ways and come away from
the same situation with two quite disparate sets of learning and experience. Likewise,
individuals may construe different events in much the same way and thereby
share similar meanings and exhibit similar behaviours. It is similarity in the
construing of events that provides the basis for similar perceptions and
actions, and not similarity or sameness in the events themselves. (Bussis et
al., 1985, p. 15)
