Roger Säljö

University of Gothenburg | GU

Expert performance in a domain is often defined as maximal adaptation to stable task constraints. This definition is useful when analyzing the vertical transition when novices become experts. However, many workplaces undergo considerable changes and, thus, task constraints change as well. In this paper, a complementary conceptualization of expertis...

This study connects to an ongoing discussion about the limits and affordances of simulators as realistic and relevant contexts for professional learning, in this case in the development of visual expertise. Earlier studies of simulator-based maritime pilot training conclude that there are risks associated with so-called negative skills transfer due...

A cognitive theory of visual expertise is proposed to model the visual information processing of domain experts. During theory development, we integrated empirical evidence from multiple methods of inquiry-including qualitative observations, qualitative interviews, eye tracking, and neuroimaging-used in research on learning and instruction in the p...

The article introduces the basic concepts and ideas of the sociocultural, or cultural-historical, perspective on learning, development and education. Originating in the ideas of Lev S. Vygotsky, research within the sociocultural perspective analyses how people learn by appropriating the cultural tools (intellectual and physical/technical) of their...

The background of the article is an interest in theories of learning and the metaphors of learning they build on and propagate. The basic argument is that the discursive construction of learning plays a central role in theoretical perspectives in research but also in discussions of societal issues in a wider sense. An initial observation is that cu...

This study investigates what role diagnoses play in institutional decision-making in regards to provision of special educational support and in the referral of pupils from mainstream schooling to special needs schools or classes. During the past decades, many countries have witnessed a radical increase in the number of children receiving psychiatri...

Professional learning is complex and is the result of a mix of experiences made in academic and workplace settings. An interesting step in the learning trajectories of professionals is represented by internship. Interns have to engage in boundary crossing when connecting academic learning with professional practices. An interesting issue to explore...

Throughout human history, people have invented technologies-intellectual and physical-that have reshaped our world and our activities. We create artifacts (hammers, bicycles, excavators etc.) that extend the powers of our body beyond what nature has given us. The same applies to intellectual activities, our epistemic practices rely on collaboration...

In this study, the ambition is to explore in situ which aspects of professional performance students are made accountable for in evaluations carried out by means of simulator-based competence tests. Methodologically, the study draws on video materials collected through ethnographic fieldwork. Analytically, the study focuses on a part of the data co...

We examine the challenges and emergent nature of learning during undergraduate internships. Much scholarly inquiry on the latter focuses on internship experiences within traditional professional domains such as medicine, teacher education, and other fields. There is less knowledge about undergraduate interns entering more fluid and recent work sect...

The idea of appropriation of cultural tools as a central feature of human development is a cornerstone of the sociocultural/cultural-historical theory. Through the design of cultural tools, which are both physical and intellectual/conceptual, knowledge and skills are made available to new generations. During the past decade, young children in many...

Våra sätt att tala om kunskaper och färdigheter präglas av perspektiv och distinktioner som formulerades redan under Antiken, för mer än 2000 år sedan. Här etablerades motsättningar, dualismer, som den mellan teori och praktik, kropp och själ, och tanke och handling, som skulle få stor betydelse inte bara för vår syn på kunskap, utan också för hur...

Children in many parts of the world spend increasing time using digital devices (tablets, mobile phones etc.). In the present study, the developmental consequences of interacting with and through such devices are explored from a cultural–historical perspective with a focus on the development of executive functions. What makes digital devices intere...

The background of this article is an interest in analysing how assessment of professional skills is conducted in higher education contexts, drawing on video data from a course on maritime navigation. The empirical study focuses on a) how students working in a bridge simulator are able to display their knowledge about how to calculate the relation b...

See RECORDING Human beings have an incredible talent for learning and for converting the insights they make into technologies. Some of these technologies (hammers, knives, bicycles etc.) transform our bodily capacities; they change the way we interact with the world when we repair an object or move between places. Other technologies (numbers, writi...

Historically, the concept of development has referred to processes that take place early in life. A basic scholarly ambition has been to provide research results that make it possible to understand and predict ontogenesis. The object of inquiry in these ambitions has been the individual and his/her path towards adulthood. It seems reasonable to ass...

This article is a commentary to the contributions in the special issue on Units of analysis in learning research: Approaches for imagining a transformative agenda. The articles demonstrate the importance of carefully considering the units of analysis that are used in research, and the consistency between how data are generated, organized, analysed...

Objective: To compare the assessments of 10-year probability by patients and their physicians of cardiovascular complications of hypertension with actual outcomes. Design: Patients with uncomplicated hypertension treated with at least one antihypertensive drug at inclusion were followed for 10 years through mandatory national health registers. Sett...

Changes in working life require knowledge, which is sometimes radically different from existing expertise. Learning based on existing knowledge is not sufficient. Some knowledge is difficult to learn because it is counterintuitive. Research on conceptual change has extensively studied this type of learning challenges while students are learning sci...

This article reports a study of a full-scale digital examination in a five-year master program of teacher education in Norway. The innovative design involves observing a video case based on an authentic classroom situation and analysing the case in light of educational theory and subject content knowledge. All parts of this format are to be solved...

Goodwin’s notion of professional vision suggests that learning to see in professionally relevant ways includes appropriating the visual practices within a domain. This observational study aimed to analyze how experts communicate these visual practices to novices to help them make meaning of domain-specific representations. Informed by a sociocultur...

The VIDEOMAT project builds on analyses of early algebra teaching and learning in four different countries, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the USA (California). The first lessons of algebra teaching in schools in the four settings have been recorded and analyzed. The data collections followed a similar structure in all classrooms. Teachers were recrui...

In the Swedish classrooms of this study, teachers valued student participation and student engagement in mathematical activities. Students were consistently given opportunities to communicate and to voice their ideas. Students shared their work in the context of the whole class, which they seemed happy to do, and they were praised by the teachers f...

The chapter gives a background to research and research traditions on teaching and learning in classrooms. In the post-war period, a large number of research approaches have been developed in order to capture the complexities of classroom life. Much of this research has documented traditional patterns of communication in classrooms that seem to be...

The analyses in the chapters have taken us into a variety of classrooms at the particular point in time when students are introduced to algebra. There are similarities as well as differences between the classrooms documented in terms of the instructional practices that unfold and the cultures of learning they represent. The empirical results show h...

The interest behind the present study can be found at two levels. First, our aim is to show how what is commonly conceived of as acts of thinking and reasoning are grounded in materiality, in artefacts, and in what Donald (2010) refers to as symbolic technologies. Thinking (and learning) in this perspective implies engaging with symbolic technologi...

This article is based on an extensive study of teaching-learning processes in special educational settings organised for children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). There is a general assumption that children’s learning will be supported through placement in a special class with few students and one or more teachers pre...

In democratic societies schools have an obligation to address complex societal issues such as ethnic/religious tensions and social conflicts. The article reports an exploratory study of how theatre plays were used in upper-secondary schools to generate pedagogically relevant platforms for addressing the current Middle East conflicts and their impac...

Human cognition generally is construed as an abstract activity involving symbol manipulation in the mind/brain of the individual. A corollary of this position is that the unit of analysis in research is the isolated mind. However, human cognitive practices generally take place in interaction with others, and, furthermore, they rely on the use of (s...

This study of institutional categorisation analyses how municipalities, psychiatric clinics and schools conceive of and act on school difficulties in the Danish school system. The research analyses the responses of municipalities and schools following changes in institutional practices for the allocation of special educational support. The main dat...

The book reports a comparative research project about algebra teaching and learning in four countries. Algebra is a central topic of learning across the world, and it is well-known that it represents a hurdle for many students. The book presents analyses built on extensive video-recordings of classrooms documenting the first introduction to symboli...

During the past half-a-century the education sector has grown in size and significance in most parts of the world. In what is talked about as a knowledge or information society, the time spent in educational institutions increases. One of the most important game-changers for education, and for educational research, is digitization and the growing r...

Public discussion on the quality of education in different corners of the world very much relies on the data provided by the international large-scale assessment (ILSA) studies. While aware of different methodological keystones and technicalities embedded in these, the idea behind this special issue is to contribute to the understanding of how stud...

Recent research in Norway reveals significant differences between how students and educators in higher education report using social media in the context of university activities. Students seem to use such media at their own initiative and largely outside the academic agenda. This study looks further into students’ use of social media by means of a...

This study of institutional categorization reports an investigation of the practices, procedures and assumptions of psychiatric staff members when diagnosing ADHD. The main data upon which the study is based consist of transcribed audio recordings of meetings in the psychiatric clinic. Here children referred from primary schools on the suspicion of...

The purpose of this positioning paper presentation is to discuss use and research on information and communications technology (ICT) in English as a Second Language (ESL) in Norwegian and Nordic teacher education. The paper concludes with a call for more research in the field of ESL teaching and ICT in teacher education, and greater plurality in th...

Nästan alla barn i Sverige deltar i någon form av förskoleverksamhet. Därmed är förskolan en central del i samhället. Förskolan ska erbjuda aktiviteter och innehåll där barn, med olika bakgrund och intressen, ska utvecklas enskilt och i grupp. Förskolan och barns utvecklig ger en rik bild av barns utveckling och lärande inom ramen för förskolan, oc...

Currently, threats to societal security from extremist groups are high on the political agenda in many countries. Politicians, policymakers at various levels and communities are searching for methods to counteract recruitment to violent organizations. These efforts are often referred to as Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE-programmes). One of th...

All social activities rely on categorization. In order to understand the world, to discuss it with others, and to participate in social action, we have to re-present to ourselves and to others what is happening. Language is the primary mechanism for this. In this chapter, we address issues that relate to categorization in educational settings. Usin...

Research indicates that expert performance is domain specific and hardly transfers to novel tasks or domains. However, due to technological changes in dynamic work settings, experts sometimes need to adapt and transfer their skills to new task affordances. The present mixed method study investigates whether eye movement modeling examples (EMME) can...

In this paper, we review research on how students’ interest in science changes through the primary to secondary school transition. In the literature, the findings generally show that primary students enjoy science but come to lose interest during secondary school. As this claim is based mainly on interview and questionnaire data, that is on seconda...

Lesing og teknologiske grensesnitt: noen refleksjoner omkring behovet for tverrvitenskapelighet I denne artikkelen drøftes lesing, laering og teknologier i lys av teoretiske tilnaerminger fra det sosiokulturelle paradig-met, og fra empirisk forskning på lesing og laering basert på eksperimentelle paradigmer mer kjent fra naturviten-skapelige disipl...

In recent decades, digitization, digital technology and the expansion of the Internet have resulted in significant changes in media ecology. Important consequences of these developments concern the socialization of new generations, where the values, skills and identities of young people are shaped through their participation in a range of online ac...

The year 2013 marked the release of the fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report judged it extremely likely that human activity is the predominant cause of recent climate change due to an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (IPCC, 2013).

The dramatic expansion of knowledge during recent decades, as well as the rapid development of digital technologies providing access to information, poses interesting challenges to established educational activities, including attempts to introduce young people to modern scientific practices and their results.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the micro-genesis of a child’s appropriation of timing. The data consist of video observations from a primary classroom with a focus on one child (7 years old) participating in a musical activity. The results show that the teacher scaffolds the child in several steps: from establishing a platform for particip...

All social activities rely on categorization. In order to understand the world, to discuss it with others, and to participate in social action, we have to re-present to ourselves and to others what is happening. Language is the primary mechanism for this. In this chapter, we address issues that relate to categorization in educational settings. Usin...

The article presents an analysis of how diversity is defined and attended to in Swedish schools. The research reported has been carried out as a case study of categorizing practices that concern the uses of neuropsychiatric diagnoses, notably ADHD. The data were collected as part of a larger study. The interaction over a two-year period between the...

In this article, we examine the practice of learning to produce video using a new visual technology. Drawing upon a design intervention at a science centre, where a group of teenagers tried a new prototype technology for live mobile video editing, we show how the participants struggle with both the content and the form of producing videos, i.e., wh...

Over the years, the role and extent of the basic sciences in medical curricula have been challenged by research on clinical expertise, clinical teachers, and medical students, as well as by the development and diversification of the medical curricula themselves. The aim of this study was to examine how prior knowledge of basic histology and histopa...

In the present article, a study of the use of a virtual lab in environmental science teaching is reported. The lab was used as part of regular instruction; the idea was to provide a context to learn about experimentation as a research method. The study builds on a sample of 80 of 511 students, and uses pre- and post-test data of students’ insights...

Population growth and social/technological developments have resulted in the buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and oceans to the extent that we now see changes in the earth’s climate and ocean chemistry. Ocean acidification is one consequence of these changes, and it is known with certainty that it will continue to increase as we em...

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In the present article, a study of the use of a virtual lab in environmental science teaching is reported. The lab was used as part of regular instruction; the idea was to provide a context to learn about experimentation as a research method. The study builds on a sample of 80 of 511 students, and uses pre- and post-test data of students' insights...

The growing importance of medical imaging in everyday diagnostic practices poses challenges for medical education. While the emergence of novel imaging technologies offers new opportunities, many pedagogical questions remain. In the present study, we explore the use of a new tool, a virtual microscope, for the instruction and the collaborative lear...

New representational technologies, such as virtual microscopy, create new affordances for medical education. In the article, a study on the following two issues is reported: (a) How does collaborative use of virtual microscopy shape students’ engagement with and learning from virtual slides of tissue specimen? (b) How do visual and conceptual cues...

Medical education has pioneered educational innovation in higher education as exemplified by the problem-based learning (PBL) movement. A multitude of reviews and meta-analyses indicate that the PBL movement has been successful in many ways. Innovations in medical education, however, are not limited to curricular reform and interactive arrangements...

The electronic patient record (EPR) is a constitutive element of medical practice and can be conceived of as a multi-purpose tool that is intended to support a range of activities such as planning, decision-making and evaluation. Each of these activities is quite complex in its own right. The aim of the present study is to explore how the standardi...

Environmental education (EE) is now clearly specified in educational standards in many parts of the world, and at the same time the view of language learning is moving towards a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) strategy, to make English lessons more relevant and attractive for students (Eurydice, 2006). In this respect, environmental...

Understanding how best to assess expertise, the situational variations of expertise, and distinctive qualities of expertise that arises from particular workplace experiences, presents an important challenge. Certainly, at this time, there is much interest in identifying standard occupational measures and competences, which are not well aligned with...

In recent decades, the idea of learning as embedded within communities of practice has inspired research and practice in many areas, among others in the context of workplace learning. In the present study, the collaboration between members of two different communities of practice representing different economies of meaning, technicians and foundry...

In many societies, artificial memory systems are essential resources for preserving information and developing knowledge. Such systems imply that information is documented outside the human body by means of graphic signs on material artifacts (texts, images). The concept of hybrid minds points to the manner in which human cognitive and communicativ...

This meta-analysis integrates 296 effect sizes reported in eye-tracking research on expertise differences in the comprehension of visualizations. Three theories were evaluated: Ericsson and Kintsch’s (Psychol Rev 102:211–245, 1995) theory of long-term working memory, Haider and Frensch’s (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cognit 25:172–190, 1999) information...

Virtual microscopy is being introduced in medical education as an approach for learning how to interpret information in microscopic specimens. It is, however, far from evident how to incorporate its use into existing teaching practice. The aim of the study was to explore the consequences of introducing virtual microscopy tasks into an undergraduate...

An important contribution of the chapter by Clancey is that he combines Dewey’s ideas of the transformative nature of learning with a detailed analysis of how students struggle with problems of how to familiarize themselves with intellectual tools such as graphs and concepts in statistics. In the present chapter, it is argued that when analyzing le...

Hur sorterar, värderar och utvecklar elever och studenter ny kunskap och förståelse? » Vad är digital literacy? Hur skiljer sig denna från förmågan att hantera information från de källor vi är vana vid i den traditionella användningen av texter? » Hur har projektarbetet som arbetsform vuxit fram och vilken roll kan detta arbetssätt komma att spela...

The purpose of this article is to offer some reflections on the relationships between digital technologies and learning. It is argued that activities of learning, as they have been practised within institutionalized schooling, are coming under increasing pressure from the developments of digital technologies and the capacities to store, access and...

Much of the research on students' understanding of the greenhouse effect and global warming reports poor results. Students are claimed to hold misconceptions and naïve beliefs, and the impact of teaching on their conceptions is also low. In the present study, these results are called into question, and it is argued that they may to a large extent b...

This article concerns a central issue in education as an institutional activity: instructions and their role in guiding student activities and understanding. In the study, we investigate the tensions between specifics and generalities in the joint production of guided action. This issue is explored in the context of handicraft education—or more spe...

Popular approaches in the learning sciences understand the concept of learning as permanent or semi-permanent changes in how individuals think and act. These changes can be traced very differently, depending on whether the context is stable or dynamic. The purpose of this poster is to introduce a distinction between horizontal and vertical transiti...

In sociocultural and activity-theoretical perspectives, institutions are understood as communities of practice with intermediary functions; they regulate and handle conflicts and dilemmas between individuals and collectives in society. How institutional actors deal with such dilemmas, and what consequences their activities will have for the collect...

Over the past decades research on learning has become more diverse and complex. The concern expressed by Alexander, Schallert, and Reynolds (2009/this issue) is that this diversity of theoretical perspectives has resulted in a fragmentation that is destructive to the field. Although it is important to engage in explicit discussions of how learning...

The academic seminar can be seen as the core of university culture. In a seminar, claims to knowledge - presented in an essay and/or orally - are critically scrutinised and subjected to further articulation. The point of this chapter is to report on attempts to develop critical features of seminar culture in the online context. The basic premise is...