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Studies in Higher Education
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Knowledge acquisition or participation
in communities of practice? Academics’
metaphors of teaching and learning at
the university
Elisabeth Wegner
a
& Matthias Nückles
a
a
Institute for Educational Science, University of Freiburg,
Rempartstr. 11, D-79098 Freiburg, Germany
Published online: 23 Dec 2013.
To cite this article: Elisabeth Wegner & Matthias Nückles (2013): Knowledge acquisition or
participation in communities of practice? Academics’ metaphors of teaching and learning at the
university, Studies in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2013.842213
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.842213
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Knowledge acquisition or participation in communities of
practice? Academics’ metaphors of teaching and learning at the
university
Elisabeth Wegner
*
and Matthias Nückles
Institute for Educational Science, University of Freiburg, Rempartstr. 11, D-79098 Freibur g,
Germany
Learning has been described by two conceptual metaphors: as individual
acquisition of knowledge (acquisition metaphor), and as an enculturation into a
subject community (participation metaphor). On the other hand, academics’
conceptions of teaching are usually reported to vary between teacher and student
orientation. In order to integrate metaphors of learning with research on
conceptions of teaching, we analyzed 36 academics’ metaphors of teaching by
content analysis. We found four different categories of metaphors: transmission
and construction (based on the acquisition metaphor), and apprenticeship and
community growth (based on the participation metaphor). The metaphors had
systematic relations to intentions and approaches in teaching reported by the
academics. These results imply that the ‘teacher versus student orientation’
framework can be improved by including the dimension of learning as
acquisition versus learning as participation.
Keywords: conceptions of teaching; metaphors of teaching; approaches to
teaching; univers ities as communities of practice
Introduction
Over the last three decades, two principally different concepts of learning have emerged
from the scientific discourse on learning, summarized by Sfard (1998) as the acqui-
sition metaphor versus the participation metaphor. These conceptual metaphors start
from different epistemological orientations, that is, concepts of knowledge and
knowing. On the one hand, proponents of the acquisition metaphor conceptualize
knowledge as entities, for example as schemata or scripts that can be localized
within an individual person (e.g. Anderson, Reder and Simon 1997). In contrast, pro-
ponents of the participation metaphor understand knowing as an activity (as opposed to
knowledge as an entity) that cannot be separated from the context in which it is enacted.
Knowing is a distributed process in a social community and results from interaction
(e.g. Cobb 1994; Brown, Collins and Duguid 1989; Lave and Wenger 1991). Sfard
stresses that both conceptual metaphors are needed to understand and foster learning.
However, this intense discussion of basic understandings of learning within the com-
munities of educational psychology and the learning sciences seems to have found
little resonance in research on teaching and learning in higher education. For
© 2013 Society for Research into Higher Education
*Corresponding author. Email: elisabeth.wegner@ezw.uni-freiburg.de
Studies in Higher Education, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.842213
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example, research on conceptions of teaching and learning in higher education appears
to have reached a consensus that academics’ conceptions can be described by two main
orientations: the teacher-oriented approach and the student-oriented approach (e.g.
Kember 1997; Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne 2010; Trigwell and Prosser 2004).
This consensus does not relate to the two basic metaphors outlined above. However,
there is evidence that both metaphors can be found not only within the scientific
debates among educational psychologists or learning scientists, but also within the
community of teachers in higher education. In research on conceptions of teaching,
there is a relevant proportion of studies in which teachers described teaching and learn-
ing in terms of the participation metaphor, for example, as a process of enculturation, or
of collaborative knowledge building (e.g. Akerlind 2004; Samuelowicz and Bain 2001;
Carnell 2007). Therefore, it should be fruitful to use the metaphors of learning as they
emerged from the theoretical debates among educational psychologists and learning
scientists as a starting point for research on conceptions of teaching in higher education.
In this article, we will present results of a study on academics’ personal metaphors
of teaching and learning, extending the framework of teacher and student orientation by
including the distinction between the acquisition metaphor versus participation meta-
phor. We will first clarify what distinguishes the two basic conceptual metaphors on
learning and how they are helpful to understand university teaching. Then we will
analyze how these metaphors are visible in the research on conceptions of teaching
and learning and finally present evidence for the existence of both conceptual meta-
phors in academics’ thinking about teaching and learning at university.
Two metaphors on learning: acquisition versus participation
In the early 1990s, ideas about situated learning (e.g. Lave and Wenger 1991; Rogoff
1990; Brown, Collins and Duguid 1989) started to challenge traditional views on learn-
ing as the acquisition of or changes to concepts or schemata. Born of the realization that
there is only limited transfer of knowledge and that learning is always embedded in a
context, ideas developed that focused on knowing as a process, rather than knowledge
as an entity. These ideas sparked off a discussion on two principal perspectives on
learning (e.g. Cobb 1994; Greeno 1997; Anderson, Reder, and Simon 1997; Cobb
and Bowers 1999), which Sfard (1998) summarized as the metaphor of acquisition
versus the metaphor of participation.
Conventional versus personal metaphors
Sfard (1998) deliberately chose metaphors as an organizing principle to analyze the per-
spectives visible in the discourse on teaching and learning, because metaphors expli-
citly or implicitly guide our understanding: ‘Metaphorical concepts provide ways of
understanding one kind of experience in terms of another kind of experience. Typically
this involves understanding less concrete experiences in terms of more concrete and
more highly structured experiences’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 486). Each metaphor
highlights certain aspects of a concept and makes them visible, while others are dis-
guised (Lakoff and Johnson 1980).
The term ‘metaphor’ comprises a wide range of phenomena. Lakoff and Johnson
(1980) refer to those metaphors that are shared by a culture and that are deeply
embedded in the language as conventional metaphors. Sfard’s metaphors are conven-
tional, because they describe perspectives visible in the discourse on learning, based on
2 E. Wegner and M. Nückles
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linguistic aspects like the way key aspects of learning are talked about, such as knowl-
edge, knowing, teachers and learners. They are shared within the culture of the learning
sciences and frame the way individuals think about teaching and learning within this
context. Conventional metaphors can be viewed as lenses that a culture provides to
look at a phenomenon. Even though, within a culture, both lenses are available at
the same time, one of these lenses can be more dominant than another in each instance
of action.
On an individual level, a broad range of personal metaphors of teaching, usually
for secondary school teachers, has been described (e.g. Alger 2009; Leavy, McSor-
ley and Boté 2007; Patchen and Crawford 2011; Saban 2006). They are usually seen
as indicative for teachers’ conceptions of teaching (Saban 2006; Alger 2009), that is,
‘beliefs which form the background for approaches, meaning the sets of practices
and strategies which will be implemented in the different contexts of teaching’ (Vir-
tanen and Lindblom-Ylänne 2010, 356). Conceptions of teaching draw on the con-
ventional metaphors that are made available by the cultural context (Alger 2009).
Therefore, Sfard’s two metaphors of learning should also be visible in academics’
conceptions of teaching. However, up to now only a very few studies have investi-
gated academics’ metaphors of teaching (Visser-Wijnveen et al. 2009; Nevgi and
Löfström 2011).
Acquisition versus participation
The acquisition metaphor is centered round the epistemological assumption that
knowledge can be seen as an entity. Learners either receive knowledge entities or
actively construct them. In consequence, the role of the teacher is either to provide
the knowledge, or to aid the learner in his or her individual construction process.
Expressions like ‘knowledge transfer’, ‘intellectual property’ or ‘grasping ideas’
show how deeply engrained this metaphor is in western language. It is important to
note that the acquisition metaphor includes both transmissive views (the assumption
that knowledge can be passed by transmission from one person to the other) and con-
structivist views (knowledge is constructed individually by each person), because both
conceptualize knowledge as an entity.
Within the participation metaphor, knowledge is not something a person possesses,
but something a person does. Knowing is a situated, culturally embedded, and socially
mediated practice. Therefore learning does not mean to get something, but to become a
part of a community of practice that shares a common interest, interacts regularly, and
engages in a common practice (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002). The process of
enculturation involves adopting the language and the norms of the community in order
to be able to participate in it. Learning is not an individual activity, but a process in
which a social practice is renewed, and even altered, because the enculturation of
new members also changes the existing practice of the community. The goal of learning
is therefore not directed to the individual but to the development of the community as a
whole. Consequently, teachers are neither providers of knowledge nor facilitators in
knowledge construction, but rather expert or full participants within the community.
Learners are not recipients or constructors of knowledge, but legitimate peripheral par-
ticipants (Lave and Wenger 1991, 29): legitimate because the learners ‘inevitably par-
ticipate in communities of practitioners,
’ and peripheral because ‘the mastery of
knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move towards full participation in the
sociocultural practice of a community.’
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The participation metaphor is easily confused with cooperative or collaborative
learning. However, the key element of the metaphors is its epistemology, and not
whether learning activities occur in individual or in cooperative settings. For
example, cooperative methods as scripted cooperation (O’Donnell 1999) use social
interaction as a means of fostering individual conceptual change, but do not aim for
community development.
The two metaphors as perspectives on universities
As we have pointed out above, the metaphors form culturally available lenses through
which individuals perceive teaching and learning. But what do these lenses highlight
and disguise when they are used to analyse learning at the university? Perceiving learn-
ing at the university in terms of the acquisition metaphor seems straightforward. Stu-
dents enter higher education with the aim of gaining knowledge that they can apply
later in their jobs. The simple fact that students have to pay tuition fees in most
countries is an expression of the acquisition metaphor. Students pay for something
(such as knowledge, skills) that they then own and use. Again, the acquisition metaphor
does not mean that teachers are merely transmitters of knowledge. It includes also
views of learning as a self-regulated process in which students actively plan, execute
and monitor their learning (e.g. Zimmerman 2002), and where lecturers act as facilita-
tors who support students in constructing new concepts or to change and adjust their
existing ones. All of these views see knowledge as something an individual possesses
independently from the context or the social community.
Adopting the participation metaphor highlights other aspects of the university: now
universities appear as communities of practice, in which students learn the practice and
the language of these communities. Researchers and students together engage in the
practice of knowledge development, and both are responsible for carrying on the tra-
ditions of the community and developing it further (e.g. Brew 2003). The goal of study-
ing is not the accumulation of knowledge and skills, but the enculturation into subject
communities (Dall’Alba and Sandberg 1996). This means, for example, students do not
learn something about psychology; instead, they become psychologists. Learning
occurs by engaging in the practices of the discipline, i.e. by working on authentic pro-
blems. Professors as full participants in the community act as ‘agents [of] cultural
change who foster reacculturation’ (Bruffee 1999, xii). In consequence, not only do
the students learn, but professors and lecturers develop the discourse and the practice
of the community together in a collaborative process. Therefore, research and teaching
are inseparable processes. Table 1 summarizes central aspects of both metaphors.
As Sfard (1998) pointed out, neither of the metaphors is right or wrong, but each
metaphor highlights different aspects and is therefore needed to understand learning.
This becomes obvious when looking at German academia, where the participation
metaphor has a strong tradition. It can be traced back as far as to the early nineteenth
century, when Humboldt argued that the teacher does not exist for the sake of the
student, but that both teacher and student have their justification in the common
pursuit of knowledge, and hence, there has to be a unity of research and teaching (Hum-
boldt 1809/1970, cited in Hattie and Marsh 1996, 507). Even though this unity has been
challenged repeatedly, still the most common course form is the ‘seminar’, especially in
the humanities and social science. In seminars, it is usually the students rather than the
teachers who give presentations, chair discussions, and write scientific papers, thus
practicing typical activities of researchers. Also in science, students are required to
4 E. Wegner and M. Nückles
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rework and document typical experiments of the discipline and to thereby learn the way
of thinking and communicating in their discipline.
However, these traditional forms of courses only set the frame for teachers’ individ-
ual teaching decisions, especially in German academia, where there is a strong empha-
sis on academic freedom. Academics are usually permitted to arrange courses and
contents according to their own ideas. The metaphorical lens academics choose to
look through might influence the intentions they have in teaching, how they conceptu-
alize the relationship between themselves and students, and which approaches in teach-
ing they feel are appropriate (e.g. Saban 2006). A seminar can therefore be enacted even
in contradiction to the participation metaphor. Teachers can hold seminars or science
courses more or less completely by themselves, without any participation by the
students, focused only on knowledge acquisition.
Conceptions of teaching
How do academics actually ‘use’ the two metaphorical lenses outlined above? At a first
glance, there does not seem to be much overlap between the metaphors and the large
and growing body of research on conceptions of teaching. Several studies and meta-
analyses make a distinction between teacher-oriented conceptions and student-oriented
conceptions of teaching (e.g. Kember 1997; Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne 2010;
Trigwell and Prosser 2004; González 2011; Nevgi and Löfström 2011). Teacher orien-
tation refers usually to conceptions of teaching in which the teacher has the intention of
transmitting knowledge to the students by presenting information which the students
receive passively. Student orientation summarizes conceptions of teaching within
which teachers act as agents of change, supporting students in actively developing
and changing their concepts of the contents they are studying. Teacher orientation
Table 1. Summary of the two metaphors, adopted and extended from Sfard (1998, 7).
Acquisition metaphor Participation met aphor
Goal of learning Individual enrichment Enculturation into a community of
practice, comm unity growth
Learning Acquisition of something Becoming a participant
Student Recipient, (re)constructor Peripheral participant, apprentice
Teacher Provider, facilitator, mediator Expert participant , preserver of
practice
Knowledge,
concept
Property, possession, commodity Aspects of practice/discourse/
activity
Knowing Having, possessing Belonging, participa ting,
communicating
Universities ‘Places of production and
dissemination of knowledge’
Communities of practice;
‘institutions of acculturation into
subject communit y ’
Goal of
universities
Knowledge creation by teachers
without direct link to knowledge
construction by learners
Shared practice of collaborative
knowledge development between
teachers and students
Research/
teaching
nexus
Teaching and research are
independent social practices
Teaching and research are
intertwined, inseparable practices
of the community
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and student orientation could be identified in teachers’ drawings of themselves as a
teacher (Nevgi and Löfström 2011). Usually, student-oriented conceptions are
described as developed more highly than teacher-oriented conceptions (e.g. Kember
1997; Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne 2010; Entwistle and Walker 2000; González
2011).
Just as for Sfards’ (1998) metaphors, underlying epistemological assumptions play
an important role in the formation of academics’ conceptions of teaching. Martin et al.
(2000) found in a study with 26 teachers in higher education that the conception of
knowledge as being constructed and residing within people is closely linked to
student-oriented approaches to teaching, whereas the conception of knowledge as
being given by the external world are linked to teacher-orientated approaches to teach-
ing. Similarly, Visser-Wijnveen et al. (2009) found in a study using metaphors that aca-
demics with ‘lower’ conceptions of knowledge (such as knowledge as isolated facts in
an external world) tended to express ‘lower’ conceptions of teaching (such as teaching
as the transmission of knowledge), while those academics who had described knowl-
edge as personal construction also tended to aim for conceptual change. Also, in an
analysis of 24 academics, Robertson (2007) found academics’ epistemologies to be
central for their view on research, teaching and learning:
This study suggests that it is ‘ academics’ conceptions of knowledge that shape the inter-
relation of research, teaching and learning, and thereby contribute to variation in under-
standing and practice. How knowledge is conceived of, in turn, influences the proces s
and progress of students’ induction into disciplinary communities of inquiry. (Robertson
2007, 552)
Conceptions of teaching and metaphors of learning
In sum, academics’ conceptions of teaching seem to vary between two poles. On one
side, we find teacher-oriented conceptions viewing knowledge as external facts, and
on the other side, student orientations viewing knowledge as personal constructions.
These orientations seem to be linked to epistemological assumptions. However, both
orientations seem to be looking at teaching and learning from the lens of the acquisition
metaphor. They use substantives like ‘knowledge’ and ‘concepts’, rather than verbs like
‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. Student-oriented approaches are described as aiming at concep-
tual change, implying that knowledge has the characteristics of an entity rather than an
activity, thus indicating the dominance of the acquisition metaphor in academics’ con-
ceptions of teaching.
Does this mean that all academics choose the lens of the acquisition metaphor to
look at teaching at the university, and no one chooses the participation metaphor?
We do not think so. Indeed, a closer look at the body of research on conceptions of
teaching reveals that there are a large number of studies reporting conceptions of teach-
ing and learning that do embody the idea of the participation metaphor without being
labeled in this way. We will highlight two aspects in particular because they seem to be
particularly salient: (a) the intention of enculturating students into the subject commu-
nity; and (b) the idea of collaborative growth in teachers and students.
Learning as enculturation or apprenticeship in thinking. The goal of learning as to
enculturate newcomers into a community becomes visible in a number of studies.
For example, Kember (1997) described a category labeled ‘teacher–student inter-
action’, in which teachers stress the importance of engaging their students in
6 E. Wegner and M. Nückles
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working on and thinking about subject-specific problems as participants. For example,
Kember quoted a teacher’s statement from Dall’Alba (1991) in which the interviewee is
positioning himself and his students as part of a process of knowledge creation:
One of the barriers you would want to break down is the barrier which says all the time
there are authors and there are critics. But never I am an author, I am a critic and as a
reader, as a writer, I’m part of this ongoing process. And for this reason I proposed a
course in whic h the writing of texts of all sorts is an important element they are involved
week by week in being authors and critics themselves. (Dall’Alba 1991, 295, cited by
Kember 1997, 267)
Also, Samuelowicz and Bain (2001) found a category they labeled ‘helping students to
develop expertise’, which mirrors the participation metaphor. They described an aca-
demic who sees ‘Learning as a lifelong process during which students (as well as lear-
ners and practitioners in general) undergo a change in their way of thinking and acting,’
and ‘wants students to learn to think and act as architects’ (315).
When analyzing academics’ conceptions of course content, Dall’Alba (1994)
reported a group of academics seeing course content not as an entity, but an activity
in the context of the subject, thus expressing basic ideas of the participation metaphor.
Also, Dall’Alba concluded that higher education should aim at ‘ways of thinking,
acting and approaching the field of study which we want our students to develop’
and that students need to be taught ‘to think like a philosopher or play music as a musi-
cian does or develop a physiotherapist’s approach to the treatment of patients’ (Dal-
l’Alba 1994, 307).
Interestingly, for the field of biosciences, Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne (2010)
could not find teacher- and student-oriented conceptions as they expected, but only
one category which they described as ‘teaching in an academic environment’ (364),
which can also be interpreted as an expression of the participation metaphor:
Teachers seemed to regard their own position as a teacher to mainly include guiding the
students to find information, to use it in practice or to use it in developing their own per-
sonal view of the subject matter, and to pass on the key ways of thinking in the discipl ine.
(Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne 2010, 367)
Teaching and learning as a collaborative growth. Several studies indeed reported aca-
demics as having a view of students as legitimate participants of their community of
practice who are already part of the knowledge generating process. For example,
Samuelowicz and Bain (2001) reported a new category labeled as ‘encouraging knowl-
edge creation’, referring to a conception where students are seen as part of a collabora-
tive knowledge creation process. This category, however, was only found in lecturers
teaching postgraduates. Carnell (2007) also found, in a sample of eight lecturers, evi-
dence of views of effective teaching as ‘collaborative knowledge construction’,
which she labels as ‘co-constructivist.’ From a phenomenographic study with 28 uni-
versity teachers, Akerlind (2004) postulated a ‘new dimension to understand university
teaching.’ She described a group of teachers who stress that they improve and develop
their own understanding from interacting with the students. This is in accordance with a
study by Martin and Lueckenhausen (2005), who found that teachers reported different
kinds of change through teaching. Whereas some teachers experienced change in terms
of how they teach the subject, others reported changes in their understanding of the
subject matter.
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When analyzing conceptions of the research/teaching nexus, Robertson (2007)
depicted a category of academics who stress the inseparable nature of research and
teaching, expressed by quotes like these:
I don’t see it as two separate processes … well, for me, I can’t separate them out …
because when I am teaching, I’m actively thinking about a certain kind of problem
that’s in the text. I can read the same passage out five years running and I’ll guarantee
I do not say the same thing about it each year. It’ll be different. I’ll suddenly see something
else [which may become the basis for a paper]. (Robyn, French Literature) (Robertson
2007, 459)
In sum, we can conclude that there is evidence that there are indeed academics who
express views on teaching and learning that are indicative for the participation meta-
phor, in that sense that they (a) view learning as a process of enculturation; and (b)
that they also take into account how their own teaching activity and the learning activi-
ties of the students contribute to the knowledge base of the whole community. Conse-
quently, both metaphors outlined by Sfard (1998) can be assumed to be present in
academics’ thinking about teaching and learning.
Aims of the study
So far these metaphors have not been considered systematically in research academics’
conceptions of teaching. Therefore, in our study we aimed at closing this gap by ana-
lyzing academics’ personal metaphors of teaching and learning with the use of both
metaphorical lenses. We wanted to know (a) whether both the acquisition and the par-
ticipation metaphor are visible in academics’ conceptions of teaching; (b) whether they
indeed have an impact on the intentions and approaches academics report to have in
their teaching; and (c) how the metaphors relate to the established distinction
between teacher and student orientation.
Method
The study was part of a larger interview project on quality of teaching, of which a small
part was dedicated to the aims of the present study. We chose the methodological fra-
mework of content analysis (e.g. Chi 1997; Postareff et al. 2008), because we explicitly
searched for the visibility of the conceptual metaphors as they were outlined above.
Therefore, content analysis seemed more suitable than more open, explorative
approaches, such as phenomenography (Marton 1981) or grounded theory (Glaser
and Strauss 1967), because content analysis offers deductive as well as inductive
ways of treating the data and constructing interpretations (Chi 1997).
Sample
Thirty-six academics (19 female, 17 male) participated in the study. In order to make
sure they had a similar academic environment and the same access to professional
development programs, all academics were recruited from the same university
(Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, a large traditional German comprehensive uni-
versity). All participants had German nationality and had received a degree from a
German university. At first, interviewees were recruited via the professional develop-
ment center and the university newsletter. In order to draw a sample that would give
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an adequate picture of the academics of the university, interviewees were asked to name
other academics with characteristics missing from the sample (snowball sampling). In
the final sample, teaching experience ranged from a few months to 37 years (M = 9.21
years, SD = 9.58). Twenty of the interviewees were researchers with a PhD, 12 were
still PhD students, and four interviewees had already qualified as professors. Partici-
pants came from a broad range of disciplines: 10 were teaching in science, 14 in the
humanities and 12 in social sciences. Twenty of the academics had participated in
some kind of professional training regarding teaching in higher education.
Interview
We decided against asking academics to actually make a drawing of their metaphors
because we thought that some participants’ lack of drawing abilities might restrain
them in the production of metaphors to images they feel they could draw. Instead, an
interview guideline for a semi-structured interview was developed and piloted with
five academics. Finally, three questions were used to assess academics: (1) personal
metaphors of teaching and learning; (2) intentions in teaching; and (3) approaches to
teaching:
(1) ‘If you think about teaching and learning, which metaphor comes to your
mind?’ Teachers were given some time to think about a metaphor. If they
had problems with coming up with a metaphor, they were prompted by the fol-
lowing question: ‘If I’d ask you to draw a picture about teaching and learning,
what would it look like?’
(2) ‘What are your intentions in teaching? What do you want to achieve?’
(3) ‘How do you try to realize your intentions in your teaching?’
Interviews as a whole lasted approximately 45 minutes, while the sections with answers
to these questions were much shorter (five to 10 minutes). After the interview, the inter-
viewees received a questionnaire which assessed their demographic data, their experi-
ences in teaching, and whether they had participated in professional development
programs. All interviews were conducted by the same interviewer. Most interviews
took place in the office of the interviewee. In eight cases, when the interview partners
preferred it, interviews were conducted in the interviewer’soffice. Each interview was
recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Data analysis
Data analysis was conducted by content analysis (Chi 1997). Answers to the three
questions were analyzed separately. All analyses were conducted within a core
research team consisting of three persons: the interviewer who had first experience
in teaching at the university, a full professor with long-term experience in teaching
both university courses and in the professional development programs, and a
master’s student who had expertise in the domain of teaching in schools. Thus, the
core research team consisted of researchers with different degrees and kinds of invol-
vement in the field of higher education. Another student assistant studying educational
science acted as an independent rater. Also, the categories were presented and dis-
cussed several times within the larger research team of the Institute of Educational
Science of the University of Freiburg.
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Personal metaphors
For the analysis of the personal metaphors, each metaphor as a whole was treated as one
unit of analysis, because the meaning of parts of the metaphor can only be understood
holistically from the context. Two answers were excluded from the analysis because
they did not contain enough information to be analyzed. In the first step, we developed
a coding scheme in discussion within the core research team, without the independent
rater. The following aspects were used as a base:
(1) concept of knowledge;
(2) goal of learning;
(3) roles of students and teachers; and
(4) general orientation (students/teacher).
Not all aspects were visible in all metaphors; for example, some metaphors did not
contain information about the relationship between students or teachers, while others
did not convey information about the concept of knowledge.
From this analysis, we derived four categories of metaphors: transmission, con-
struction, apprenticeship and community growth (Table 2a). The categories of ‘trans-
mission’ and ‘construction’ can be grouped under the acquisition metaphor. They
include metaphors in which knowledge is pictured as an entity, and learning as the
process of acquiring this entity (e.g. building a house from blocks). Apart from teachers
having more knowledge than students, the roles of teachers and students are seen as
qualitatively different (e.g. teacher as the facilitator of a learner, learner as the
trainee). The categories differ in respect to whether metaphors can be seen as
student- or teacher-oriented. Teacher-oriented metaphors, in which students were
described as passive recipients and teachers as the providers of knowledge, were classi-
fied as ‘transmission’. Student-oriented metaphors, in which students were described as
active constructors of knowledge and teachers as the facilitators or mediators in this
process, were classified as ‘construction’ (Table 2b).
The categories of ‘apprenticeship’ and ‘community growth’ mirror the participation
metaphor. Both contain metaphors that convey the image of knowledge as a practice or
an activity, and learning as a process of becoming a participant in a community that
engages in this practice (e.g. hiking in the woods). Teachers and students are not
seen as having different roles, but having different degrees of expertise (e.g. ‘every
student is my future colleague’). Categories can be differentiated by the roles students
have in the process of knowledge creation. The ‘apprenticeship’ metaphors assign stu-
dents the activities that replicate the discourse and the practice (e.g. students reading
literature). In contrast, metaphors from the category of ‘community growth’ hold that
students are already contributing to the development of the discourse and the practice
within the discipline (e.g. teacher and students exploring an area together). This orien-
tation goes beyond student orientation, and can be labeled as ‘co-constructivist’ in
accordance with Carnell (2007; see Table 2b).
In the second step, the coding scheme was applied again to the metaphors and dis-
cussed within the research team in order to negotiate and refine criteria for the categories.
Also, it turned out that the personal metaphors were often related to the discipline of the
participant. For example, the image of ‘reading books together’
changes its meaning
depending on whether it is described for teaching chemistry or literature. Therefore, we
analyzed metaphors always under consideration of academics’ disciplinary backgrounds.
10 E. Wegner and M. Nückles
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In order to check for inter-rater reliability, in a final step, one third of the metaphors
were randomly selected and coded by the independent rater. Only two metaphors were
classified differently, resulting in a good Cohen’s kappa (κ = .72). Also, no discrepancy
was found with regards to the classification as ‘participation’ or ‘acquisition’. Table 3
gives an overview of all metaphors and their final classification.
Intentions in teaching and approaches to teaching
For the analysis of academics’ intentions and approaches in teaching, we chose the fol-
lowing method. Because interviewees often uttered several intentions and approaches,
we defined each separable intention and each separable approach as a unit of analysis.
The units were paraphrased and the paraphrases were discussed within the research
team. On this basis, a coding scheme was developed. After developing the scheme,
we re-applied it to the material in order to refine the criteria. Lastly, inter-rater reliability
was checked by coding a randomly selected third of the interviews by the independent
rater.
For the intentions, the coding scheme contained three categories: knowledge acqui-
sition, enculturation, and inspiring students. Inter-rater reliability proved to be good,
with κ = .75 (for sample transcripts, see Table 4).
Table 2a. Categories of personal metaphors.
Transmission Construction Apprenticeship
Community
growth
Knowledge Property, possession,
commodity
Aspects of practice/
discourse/activity
Knowing Having, possessing Belonging, participating,
communicating
Learning Acquisition of
something
Becoming a participant,
becoming a professional
Goal of
learning
Individual
enrichment
Community building
Difference
teacher /
student
Qualitative and
quantitative
difference
Only quantitative
difference
Student Recipient (re)constructor Peripheral participant,
apprentice
Almost equal
Teacher Provider facilitator,
mediator
Preserver of practice Developer of
knowledge
Table 2b. Categories of personal metaphors and teaching orientations.
Transmission Construct ion Apprenticeship Community growth
Acquisition Metaphor Participation Metaphor
Teacher orientation X
Student orientation X X
Co-constructivist
orientation
X
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Table 3. Overview of all metaphors and their classification. Metaphors that explicitly have a
relation to the subject taught by the teacher are printed in italics.
Community growth
Teaching is like being together on an excursion in the mountain; teacher is an equal part of the
group which explores unknown territory. (Wildlife Ecology)
Teaching and learning is a group experien ce like being together in a museum. In the beginning
the teacher explains something, but through questions and exchange with students the teacher
and the students both learn something new together. (Art History)
Teaching and learning cannot be described separately. It is like different substances are
interacting together in a test tube and teacher and students learn from each other. (Molecular
Biology)
Learning is like throwing balls as a group. The teacher gives impulses but is an equal; the
process is interactive. (Sports)
The teaching situation is like teacher and students are standing together in front of a work of art
and looking in awe at it. (French Culture and Litera ture)
Teaching is like being a sender sending waves to other senders that transform the signal; all
senders are on the same height as the others, all receive signals from the others. (English
Literature)
Learning is a group project, like playing soccer. Everyone interacts and passes the ball in order to
get a goal. (History)
Teaching and learning is an exchange process in which knowledge comes in and goes out of a
circle, with the goal of using it in the world. (Gender Studies)
No metaphors:
Teaching and learning is a dynamic process without hierarchy , in which the positions of teacher
and learner can vary. (Scandinavian Culture and Literature)
Teaching and learning is researching together. (History)
Teaching and learning is a group process, like in a circle, where we learn together and ask similar
questions, only at a different level. (French Culture and Literature)
Teaching and learning is a reciprocal process of exchange, where the different roles are just
formally assigned; both learn, only at a different level. (Cultural Geography)
Apprenticeship
Teaching is like walking as teacher and student through a portico and discussing important
questions. (Philosophy)
Teaching is like reading literature together: For understanding literature, the student needs to
engage in reading; the teacher reads to the student. (Scandinavian Literature)
Teaching is like being together in the forest, where the students can actively practice and learn
about the forest on sight. (Forestry)
Teaching is like opening windows and showing students a new world; the teacher provides tools
and directions for the students. (Cultural Studies)
Learning is like students are hiking, the teacher is the back-up support. (History)
Learning is like being a sheep in the meadow and playing around; in the end the teacher shows
the way out into the world. (Informatics)
No metaphors:
The teaching situation consists out of students that are discussing; the teacher is a back-up in
case they have questions. (Medicine)
Learning is knowing typical activit ies and ways of communicating in the subject comm unity by
engaging in them. (Informatics)
Active construction
Learning is like being on the playground and practicing skills actively; the teacher is the trainer,
overlooking the process. (Sports)
Teaching is like being the architect; students actively build the building that the architect has
developed. (Politics)
Teaching is steering the process of knowledge acquisition in students; students actively build
their knowledge. (Politics)
(Continued)
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For the analysis of the approaches in teaching, several categories emerged, which
we grouped according to whether they were teacher-oriented, student-oriented or
oriented towards co-construction. We classified the categories ‘illustrative presen-
tation,’‘being a role model,’ and ‘asking thought-provoking questions’ as teacher-
oriented, because they indicate that students are just passively receiving instructions.
We classified answers as student-oriented activities that indicated that teachers made
students work on simulated problems, or actively engaged them in critical inquiry,
that is, making students ask questions rather than asking the students. Also, intervie-
wees who described themselves as a moderator in the learning process were classified
as student-oriented. Those interviewees who described approaches in teaching
that included students in the process of knowledge generation were classified as
‘co-constructivist’ (see Table 5). In line with previous literature, we assumed that
these approaches are hierarchically ordered (teacher-oriented approaches being
lowest and co-constructivist approaches being highest, e.g. Virtanen and Lindblom-
Teaching is like being the facilitator in the learning process. (Wildlife Ecology)
No metaphors:
Learning is active construction of knowledge by the student guided by the intrinsic interest and
the support of the teacher (2x). (Philosophy, Psychology)
Transmission
Teaching is like fixing knowledge on students with an anchor. (Geology)
Teaching is like bringing the light of knowledge to the students. (English and American Studies)
Teaching is like drilling students like an officer. (English and American Studies)
Teaching is like having a flower shop: The teacher presents beautiful flowers to the stude nts.
(Law)
Teaching is like being a tour guide; students listen and absorb the information. (Social Science)
Teaching is like pouring water off a mill; the students are like the mills that turn depending on
how much water is poured onto them. (Chemistry)
The teaching situation consists of a teacher standing in front of the class. (Linguistics)
No metaphors:
Learning is con stant repetition. (Economics)
No category
A game with earnest (no further elaboration). (Geology)
Assisting, demandi ng, celebrating (no further elaboration). (Cultural Geography)
Table 3. Continued.
Active construction
Table 4. Sample transcripts for the categorie s in intentions in teaching.
Intention Sample transcript
Inspiring The first goal is always that I want to make students interested in what I
think is interesting, too. I find the topics we are working on really
interesting, […]. And I want them to find them interesting, too.
Because they are interesting, damn it.
Knowledge
acquisition
I want to see that students have an extreme gain of knowledge at the end
of the course, and that they know the matter I taught them. For me,
getting across the knowledge is crucial.
Enculturation But I think, basically in history it’s about that what you can learn, that is:
thinking analytically, researching, synthesizing information,
developing thoughts and presenting them.
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Ylänne 2010; Entwistle and Walker 2000; González 2011; Carnell 2007). Accordingly,
we assigned academics to the highest category they reached. This means each teacher
was assigned to only one of the categories. For the approaches, inter-rater reliability
was shown to be very good (κ = .82).
Results
Personal metaphors
Most interviewees fell into the category of community growth (n = 12), followed by
apprenticeship and transmission (both n=8). Six of the participants were assigned
to the construction category. Metaphors were not equally distributed between the dis-
ciplines. Social scientists expressed metaphors of the category of ‘construction’ more
often than the other metaphors, and natural scientists preferred the perspective of
‘apprenticeship.’ Metaphors of academics from the humanities were mostly assigned
Table 5. Sample transcripts for the categorie s in approaches in teaching.
Teacher orientation
Illustrative, inte resting presentation I present the contents in a way that they fall off their
chairs when they realize what language can do, and
what a sensual, great adventure it is. (IV 28, French
Literature)
Own role description as a role
model
I try to be enthusiastic myself. I guess, a lot is about being
a role model. (IV 26, Philosophy)
Asking thought-provoking
questions
I always use a lot of examples where it is obvious what I
want to show. Where there is a minimal effect but it
looks like an enormous reduction of risks. And then I
ask questions to make them think. (IV 36, Statistics)
Student orientation
Simulating authentic problem
situations
I give them little tasks for literature research, a little bit
like puzzles or detective tasks. I try to make it
interesting, like a scavenger hunt, you read a book, you
have to understand it and follow the next link. And if
you have done all the steps, you find it. (IV 33,
German Literature)
Engaging students in critical inquiry I spent a lot of time telling students that they don’t need
to be afraid to ask questions and to have their own
position. And that they have to think about the
contents.
Teacher’s role as a facilitator/
moderator
Yeah, stimulate them. As a facilitator, a moderator. Not
just explaining them things.
Co-constructivist orientation
Including students in the process of
knowledge generation
I try to make the seminar communicative, we all sit in a
circle, and I don’t have an answer to everything. I
expect the students to develop something with me […].
Trying to include the students into the planning of the
seminar, not me giving them the topics, and they select
from my list, but to have them choose what they are
interested in, what they want to know. (IV 14, French
Culture and Literature)
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to the ‘community growth’ category (χ
2
(34,6)
= 13.053, p = .035, Table 6). No signifi-
cant differences were found between teachers that had already received a PhDs and
those who were still in the stage of qualification.
Interestingly, in analyzing the metaphors, it became evident that academics differed
in whether or not they described images or metaphors that had explicit references to
their academic discipline. For example, a teacher of philosophy depicted the image
of student and teacher walking together through a portico discussing problems like phi-
losophers in ancient Greece, while another, a teacher of law, chose the metaphor of the
teacher as a salesman in a flower shop selling flowers to the students, thus having in this
image no reference to the content she teaches. Of the academics whose metaphors were
assigned to the participation categories (apprenticeship and community growth), nine
chose a metaphor related to their own subject, but only one of the academics from
the acquisition categories (transmission and construction). A χ
2
test showed that this
is a significant deviation from a chance distribution (χ
2
(34,1)
= 5.684, p = .017). This
indicates that academics from the participation categories might indeed be more sensi-
tive to the aspect of enculturation.
Intentions in teaching
Five teachers described ‘inspiring students’ as their only intention in teaching. The other
interviewees who stated that they had the intention of inspiring students made clear that
they pursued the goal of inspiration as a prerequisite for further, more central intentions.
Therefore, they were subsumed under the corresponding main category. Eleven teachers
had intentions that were classified as knowledge acquisition and 11 teachers had inten-
tions in regards to enculturation. Nine teachers described intentions from both cat-
egories, that is, knowledge acquisition as well as enculturation (Table 7).
To examine whether intentions in teaching systematically vary with personal meta-
phors, we performed a χ
2
test with intentions × metaphors as factors. The analysis
revealed a systematic relationship between metaphors and intentions (χ
2
(34,9)
=
18.082, p = .034): academics who had been assigned to the category of transmission
expressed the intention of knowledge acquisition far more often than would be
expected if factors were not related, whereas academics assigned to the category of
apprenticeship expressed the intention of enculturation far more often. Academics
assigned to the category of community growth voiced both categories, knowledge
acquisition and enculturation, as well as the intention of only enculturation, more
than would be expected if the factors were not related (see Table 7).
Table 6. Distribution of metaphors within the disciplines.
Total n Transmission Construction Apprenticeship
Community
growth
Social
Sciences
11 3 (27.3%) 5 (45.5%) 1 (9.1%) 2 (18.2%)
Humanities 14 3 (21.4%) 0 3 (21.4%) 8 (57.1%)
Natural
Science
9 2 (22.2%) 1 (11.1%) 4 (44.4%) 2 (22.2%)
∑
a
34 8 (23.5%) 6 (17.6%) 8 (23.5%) 12 (35.3%)
a
Note that two metaphors could not be classified; therefore only 34 academics were included in this analysis.
Observed percentages exceeding the expected percentages are given in bold.
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Approaches to teaching
Ten lecturers described only approaches that had been classified as teacher-oriented,
and about two-thirds of the academics (n=22) reported student-oriented approaches.
Only four of the interviewed academics reported approaches to teaching that were
classified as co-constructivist.
We expected academics whose metaphors had been classified as ‘transmission’ to
use mainly teacher-oriented approaches, academics whose metaphors had been classi-
fied as ‘construction’ or ‘apprenticeship’ mainly student-oriented approaches, and tea-
chers with ‘community growth’ metaphors using co-constructivist approaches.
Therefore, we compared approaches to teaching within the categories of transmission
versus construction/apprenticeship versus community growth. The χ
2
test turned out
to be significant at the 5% level (χ
2
(34,4)
= 10.665, p = .031, see Table 8), thus
showing that the personal metaphors are indeed related to the approaches in teaching
academics report to have.
Finally, we compared the intentions in teaching to the approaches described by the
academics. Intentions and approaches to teaching were associated with each other.
Academics who had the intention of enculturation, or the intention of both encultura-
tion and knowledge acquisition, reported significantly more often approaches that
were classified as student- or co-constructivist oriented, whereas academics that
Table 8. Distribution among the approaches with regard to the metaphors.
Total
n % Transmission Construction Apprenticeship
Community
growth
Teacher
orientation
10 29.4 4 (50%) 2 (33.3%) 3 (37.5%) 1 (8.3%)
Student
orientation
20 58.2 4 (50%) 4 (66.6%) 5 (62.5%) 7 (58.3%)
Co-
constructivist
orientation
4 11.8 0 0 0 4 (33.3%)
∑
a
34 100% 8 (100%) 6 (100%) 8 (100%) 12 (100%)
a
Note that two metaphors could not be classified; therefore only 34 academics were included in this
analysis. Observed percentages exceeding the expected percentages are given in bold.
Table 7. Distribution among the intentions.
Total
n % Transmission Construction Apprenticeship
Community
growth
Inspiring 5 14.7 0 2 (33.3%) 1 (12.5%) 2 (16.7%)
Knowledge
acquisition
9 26.5 6(75%) 1 (16.7%) 1 (12.5%) 1 (8.3%)
Enculturation 11 32.4 1 (12.5%) 1 (16.7%) 5 (62.5%) 4 (33.3%)
Knowledge
acquisition and
enculturation
9 26.5 1 (12.5%) 2 (33.3%) 1 (12.5%) 5 (41.7%)
∑
a
34 100 8 (100%) 6 (100%) 8 (100%) 12 (100%)
a
Note that two metaphors could not be classified; therefore only 34 academics were included in this analysis.
Observed percentages exceeding the expected percentages are given in bold.
16 E. Wegner and M. Nückles
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solely had the intention of inspiring students more often used teacher-oriented
approaches (χ
2
(34,6)
= 16.161, p = .013, Table 9).
Discussion and conclusion
From our study we can conclude that both conceptual metaphors – the concept of learn-
ing as individual knowledge construction (i.e. the acquisition metaphor) and the
concept of learning as a process of enculturation into a community (i.e. the participation
metaphor) – are present in academics’ personal metaphors of teaching and learning.
Moreover, we found academics’ intentions and approaches in teaching to be related
to their personal metaphors, showing the validity of the use of personal metaphors
for analyzing conceptions of teaching.
The categories (transmission, construction, apprenticeship and community growth)
we developed in our study help to integrate results from other studies. Findings that
there are teachers that stress the importance of collaborative knowledge construction,
as in the studies from Carnell (2007) or Samuelowicz and Bain (2001), as well as find-
ings that there are teachers that highlight the importance of enculturation in a way of
thinking (e.g. Dall’Alba 1991, 1994) can be subsumed under the participation meta-
phor. Also, the distinction between teacher and student orientations can be improved
by adding the category of ‘co-constructivist orientations’ to the spectrum of teaching
orientations.
The strong presence of the participation metaphor in academics’ thinking might
explain why sometimes academics and students seem to be at odds in their idea of
‘good teaching’ (Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne 2010): students are usually socialized
in schools according to the ideas of the acquisition metaphor (Brown, Collins and
Duguid 1989). Additionally, the whole university system, with tuition fees and credit
points, highlights the acquisition metaphor far more than the participation metaphor.
Therefore, it can be assumed that when students are confronted with ideas of learning
as enculturation into a subject community (such as in typical seminars), these ideas are
not compatible with their ideas of learning. This might explain why students often
demand that the lecturers should lecture themselves rather than let the students give pre-
sentations (see Bruffee [1999] for a similar example regarding peer feedback).
Also, it has to be highlighted that both conceptual metaphors emanate from different
epistemological understandings, and that epistemology seems to explain a whole range
Table 9. Intentions in teaching and approaches to teaching.
Inspiring
Knowledge
acquisition Enculturation
Knowledge
acquisition
and enculturation
Teacher
orientation
4 (80%) 4 (36.4%) 2 (16.7%) 0
Student
orientation
1 (20%) 6 (54.5%) 9 (81.8%) 6 (66.7%)
Co-constructivist
orientation
0 1 (9.1%) 0 3 (33.3%)
∑
a
5 (100%) 11 (100%) 11 (100%) 9 (100%)
a
All 36 academics were included in this analysis. Observed percentages exceeding the expected
percentages are given in bold.
Studies in Higher Education 17
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of phenomena related to teaching, learning and research. In this respect, our study is not
only in line with findings from Dall’Alba (1994) on academics’ conceptions of content,
and on academics’ conceptions of how research and teaching are related (Robertson
2007; Visser-Wijnveen et al. 2009), but also with studies on student learning. Epis-
temological beliefs have been repeatedly shown to influence students’ processing of
information and their use of learning strategies (e.g. Buehl and Alexander 2001).
Differences in epistemological understanding might also account for the difference
between disciplines we found in our study, as well as in other studies (e.g. Lind-
blom-Ylänne et al. 2006). Therefore, further research on the relation between epistem-
ologies and conceptions of teaching, learning, and research is strongly needed.
We did not find deterministic relationships between metaphors, approaches and
intentions. For example, one lecturer described a metaphor that we categorized as ‘com-
munity growth,’ but at the same time, he described only teacher-oriented approaches to
teaching. Also, some other academics whose metaphors were classified as transmission
also described student-oriented approaches. However, only those academics depicting
‘community growth’ metaphors actually also described co-constructivist approaches.
This is in accordance with findings of Visser-Wijnveen et al. (2009) as well as Postareff
et al. (2008) that high-level conceptions in regard to one concept increase the prob-
ability of having high-level conceptions in regard to other aspects of teaching, but
that they can nevertheless be in dissonance.
From a methodological point of view, the use of personal metaphors for the analysis
of conceptions of teaching seems to be helpful. However, several caveats have to be
discussed. Some academics did have difficulties in coming up with real metaphors;
therefore the answers might not be comparable in all instances. Also, personal meta-
phors are always shaped by the cultural context. Therefore, we have to be cautious
in generalizing our findings to academics working in other educational systems than
the German one. The long-standing German tradition of integration of research and
education might lead to a stronger presence of the participation metaphor in academics’
thinking than in other countries.
Our study is only based on interviews and no conclusions can be drawn about inter-
viewees’ teaching actions in ‘real life.’ Research on conceptions of teaching usually
only tells ‘half the story,’ because the focus is only on espoused theories and not on
theories in use (Kane, Sandretto and Heath 2002). Further research is needed to
close this gap.
Generally, it proved to be fruitful to apply the metaphors on teaching and learning
that are present in the community of learning scientists and educational psychologists to
research on conceptions of teaching in higher education. Looking through the lens of
each of the two conceptual metaphors provides a different view on learning and on
the university. It implies different intentions of what students need to learn, what the
aims of studying at the university are, and how the roles of students and teachers are
conceptualized. Therefore, professional development programs should address both
views on learning and help academics to integrate both.
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