The learning study as an approach for “clinical” subject matter didactic research

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the conceptual classification of learning study as a research approach. Design/methodology/approach The paper is mainly theoretical, drawing on articles concerning classroom‐based research approaches as well as on some distinctions between a university‐based science of the universal and a clinical science of the particular. Findings The main argument of the article is that learning studies can neither be subsumed under “design and development research” (because this type of research does not include the professional actor) nor under “teacher research” (because it does not pay much attention to theoretical knowledge) nor should it be regarded as a hybrid between design experiments and lesson studies. In spite of similarities to both it should rather be described as clinical research (in analogy to medical clinical research). The use of teachers’ experiences and tacit knowing in the knowledge‐producing process, the iterative process of specification of theory, and the uniqueness of the learning problems among different groups of pupils are central aspects of a particularistic clinical research process. In comparison with lesson study, the learning study is more focussed on constructing knowledge concerning objects of learning as well as teaching‐learning relations. Teachers are included in the research as interpretative professionals making professional sense of particular educational events. Originality/value The paper promotes the conceptual discussion of the learning study approach, as well as of both lesson and learning studies as research approaches, i.e. as knowledge‐producing practices.

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