Competence or enculturation? Academics and their metaphors of learning

The goal of studying can be understood as both the acquistion of abilities (“acquisition metaphor of learning”) and the enculturation into a subject community (“participation metaphor”, SFARD, 1998). The concept of ‘competence‘ contains both aspects of learning. Therefore we examined by N= 36 structured interviews which metaphors guide the thought processes of academics about teaching and learning, and which goals they pursue in their teaching. The results show that a large proportion of academics understand learning as an enculturation into their disciplines. This indicates that some academics may be unable to relate to the interpretation of competence-based teaching in terms of the acquisition metaphor. It also suggests that the perspective of learning as enculturation must be taken into account as well when promoting competence orientation.

23.01.2013 | Elisabeth Wegner & Matthias Nückles (Freiburg)