A social constructivist perspective on learning environments

Abstract

A social constructivist framework was used in conjunction with an interpretive methodology to study the preferred and experienced learning environments in a chemistry classroom. The teacher and the students completed survey instruments related to student involvement in discussion, autonomy in the classroom, the relevance of the course for student needs, commitment to learning, and inhibitors to learning. They were interviewed on the nature of the learning environment, their views about teaching and learning, and the nature of science and scientific knowledge. The learning environment in this classroom was shaped by semantic frames that constrained the actions of the teacher and students. An objectivist system of semantics was used by the teacher to justify an approach to teaching that was consistent with transmitting knowledge to student receivers and maintaining a high level of control. Little autonomy was provided for the students to decide what or how they should learn and chemistry was perceived to have limited relevance. To a significant extent students accepted the learning environment and justified what happened in terms that were consistent with objectivist semantics. Hence there was no impetus for change, the principal concern being to cover the work in the most efficient way possible. Efforts to bring about reform in this classroom will need to address explicitly the framework that gives meaning to the actions of the teacher and students and which, in an implicit way, shapes the learning environment.

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