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Group dynamics inherent in instructional settings

Robert Höghielm, Stockholm Institute of Education

Introduction

Adult Education can be characterised as a practical and normative discipline, in which the purpose of research is to evolve programmes which have the most likelihood of promoting learning situations in which behaviour changes may best be brought about. The stress on practicality and the needs of the field have, no doubt, determined which problems have been selected as legitimate for research. That has caused a lack of balance between practice-oriented research and discipline-oriented research, where the purpose is to develop and test theories and lay the necessary foundations for applied research. Adult education is considered a normative discipline, in that it is concerned with deliberate attempts to help adults develop in certain ways[1]. Thus it is a distinctive social activity, and a normative one as it involves primordial value judgements. However, we have to remember that educational systems are designed to serve, not only an inner function, the achievement of educational and instructional goals, but also an important external function, e.g. socialisation and legitimisation. In a democracy educational systems in practice serve as important instruments with which to provide norms and values representative for such a society. However, as value judgements rarely take into account the relationship between the internal and the external functions, they cannot be used as the only base for developing adult education theory. Probably such a theory will have to start with the educational process as it exists in reality, and not from what someone thinks it ought to be. The neglect of adult education process as it exists in reality and, often, a too narrow focus on psychological aspects have resulted in an inadequate conceptualisation of adult education phenomena.

To use education as a way to develop and change the society is relatively a new idea. The pedagogical history of ideology shows us that education for a very long time was given the role to keep and consolidate the established society. When Sweden became industrialised - together with a general optimistic view on development - the idea gradually emerged that the society would benefit more if knowledge was provided in a efficient way but provide it to as many groups as possible. That spirit was behind the ‘educational progressivism’ which coloured the Swedish educational reforms after 1945. Also the field of adult education was included in that philosophy. The study circle organisations got 50% of their costs covered by the State in 1947. Before that time they had to rely on their relationships with different people’s movements. An important step by the State was to start to integrate values which previously had characterised many of the Swedish People’s movements (religious-, temperance- and workers’ movements). Generally it is now more than 15 years ago since adult education became a central question in the country’s educational policy. During this period adult educational reforms have been carried out in different ways.

Since the second world war the state and the society gradually have taken a more active role in financing general adult education in Sweden. Only recently ( at the end of the 1970s) the big enterprises have become very active in providing in-service training programmes for their employees. These activities, however, are often carried out in collaboration with the competence - given (public) adult education i.e. municipal adult education (komvux) and labour training courses (AMU-courses). In 1970 the Swedish Parliament agreed about the two main objectives of all Swedish adult education, which are as follows:

  • redistribute, i.e. to use adult education for equalisation of the Swedish society
  • service political, i.e. to provide the labour market with well-educated workers but also respond to the individual’s educational needs.

A key question in all kind of adult education is the process of instruction. My own empirical studies on the process of instruction in komvux (1978-1982) showed the following main results[2]:

  • Most of all komvux teachers teaching mathematics and Swedish at compulsory school level during the school year concerned were not working in accordance with the teaching ideals formulated by the andragogists, i.e. ideals officially recommended by Government and Parliament.
  • Komvux teaching, clearly, is more dominated by the transmission of facts than youth education, at least where compulsory school courses are concerned. In actual fact the teachers played the part of living textbooks. Moreover, as has already been observed, statements of fact by the participants are confined to a small number of very active participants who display teacher behaviour. With the exception of these active participants, one finds no sign whatsoever of the andragogical spirit which ought to permeate teaching.

The question is whether it is practically possible for teaching to be permeated by the andragogical ideals. The major difference, however, between adult education and youth education is that the latter is mainly occupied by socialising the pupils into society, while the former can be used as a tool to change the participants’ social situation.

Theoretical consequences

My research results from Swedish municipal education can be explained from a frame factor standpoint which underline the importance of external factors[3]. These are materialised through three mechanisms. The first mechanism, educational programmes, is expressed as a goal system, exemplified by syllabi and teaching materials, which governs the educational situation. The second mechanism, termed administrative reality, imposes constitutional, organisational, and physical constraints on the educational situation. The third mechanism, judicial requirements, serves a regularity function, in that it sets down rules that determine the conditions under which education will occur (e.g. teacher qualifications, grading systems, attendance policies). An understanding of the origins and power of these three mechanisms, which represent forces in the broader society, when combined with the psychological factors of instructors and participants, provides a more complete picture of the instructional process than typically considered in adult education research[4].

These restrictions have been established on a central level which means that teachers and participants in Swedish municipal adult education have few possibilities to influence their own situation (i.e. in competence-given adult education).

The teacher’s interpretation of the framework has a significant impact on what type of teaching strategy is chosen. If the teacher believes that the task is to get as many participants as possible to cover as much basic knowledge as possible, then the participants who require the most tutoring time will ‘set the pace’. The teacher can be forced to lower the goal or leave out units because of limited time and teaching material. A short-coming with this analysis, however, is that the contextual framework is given ‘credit’ for the teachers’ limited space to ‘manoeuvre’ in the process of instruction.

The psychological factors of teachers and participants are also important ‘determinants’ for how the process of instruction really turns out. This is probably more important in adult educational settings which are not competence-giving in a strict formal way. In this context you should probably consider the teacher as a fourth ‘framing factor’. This factor seems to have been thoroughly explored, considering the long tradition of research on teachers. That kind of research has, however, been mainly interested in the teacher as a primary factor and not one among several factors of importance for how the educational practice will materialise[5].

In this circumstance von Wright’s analyses of problems which are related to ‘Determinism and the Study of Man’ can be of some guidance[6]. From a socio-philosophical perspective von Wright argues that human behaviour can not be predicted in terms of natural laws but only in terms of probabilities. The determinants of Man which von Wright uses could be labelled as both psychological and sociological. Von Wright speaks about internal and external determinants.

The final point for human action is the intentions and the epistemic attitude the person has. The intentions can be viewed as a more short-term determinant while the person’s social role is a long-term determinant. Besides these two aspects von Wright also introduces the concept of ability as an important determinant for human action. The discussion can be transferred to the teacher’s professional role in a certain educational programme. The teacher’s role, i.e. what the teacher is expected to do because of normative pressure from school tradition, syllabi etc. is one important determinant for acting but others are subject knowledge and intentions. Von Wright, however, means that ‘ability’ is a shortcoming:

They delimit the ‘horizon’ or ‘domain’ or ‘range’ of a man’s freedom to act. This range will then wax and wane with variations in ability.[7]

Because von Wright speaks generally about determinants for human behaviour he regards ‘ability’ as a limitation. But if you apply this kind of thinking on the instructors’ abilities, i.e. their subject knowledge and capacity to solve problems, the ability could be regarded as a resource and the contradiction of limiting ‘actions’. The three components (instructor role as perceived in a certain educational programme, intentions and ability) are dependent on the contextual framework.

The discussion implies that the ‘teacher factor’ in all kinds of adult education - where the contextual framework is not very strict - grows in importance. The situation can be summarised in Figure 1.

Collective ideals of instruction are found in the top left box while the right top box consists of components which are out of the individual instructor’s control from a pure frame factorial point of view. Both the lower boxes contain what Lundgren calls psychological conceptual apparatus[8].

Figure 1. Factors to consider when studying the process of instruction.

A shortcoming with Figure 1 is that it outlines which factors on a general level have an impact on the educational practice, materialised into the process of instruction. The instructors as a ‘fourth’ framing factor can, however, better be visualised by introducing the concept school (unit) code. Research from youth education shows that the school code has a decisive meaning on the ‘educational spirit’ at a certain school[9]. The school code does not exist in a conscious, explicit way, which staff at a school can react on. It is rather a product of or an aggregate of (changeable) conceptions about what is feasible to do within the school. A particularisation is made in Figure 2 of the more general approach outlined in the previous figure.

Figure 2 Relations between adult educational school code and factors of importance for the process of instruction

(A) SOCIETY

(D)THE SINGLE SCHOOL’S PREPAREDNESS FOR MEASURES

The left part of the figure can be recognised from Figure 1. Ideals and frame factors are external influences outside the process of instruction. In the same box the concepts norms and school practice are included. These are referring to the single school unit’s activities. It can be, for example, how one usually recruits new participants or copes with ethical questions. If both aspects are considered, you can assimilate them into an adult educational school code. This code can shift from school to school. Finally, both the teacher’s educational profile and the participants have an impact on the process of instruction .

The weaker the conceptual framework is, the stronger impact from the instructors ‘framework’, i.e. subject knowledge ability to solve problems and intentions (influenced by ideology, situations e.g. participants and knowledge).

Some findings

I have compared instruction in Swedish municipal education, komvux (strict framework) and folk schools (loose framework) by using the same kind of classroom observations. Both are adult educational providers which have a general ambition to recruit neglected groups in society and also have programmes which give access to higher education. In both cases a modified observation technique was used, similar to Flanders[10]. (However, no distinction was made between so called teacher and students categories.)

The material from municipal adult education had been collected previously (1978-1980), while data from folk schools was collected recently (Spring 1987). The results are based on instructions in mathematics and ‘mother tongue’ (Swedish). Generally the results showed that participants from folk schools contribute in a more concentrated way compare to komvux’ students. Furthermore, the folk school’s participants have a tendency to carry out arguments i.e. longer dialogues, while the komvux’ participants contribute sparsely. In both mathematics and Swedish the folk school participants provide more subject related information and put more questions compared to the komvux participants. The latter participants are more often confronted with questions. To summarise: the folk school participants are more active and also have more impact during the lessons compared to the komvux students.

A reasonable explanation is that the differences can be related to the looser conceptual framework which is in force for the folk school. Instructors in komvux both feel, and in fact are, more ‘framed’ by the much more strict framework which is decided for komvux. In folk schools the instructors feel more free to operate the lessons in a freer way, because they have more freedom to decide, for example, how much time can be spent on certain units. Another important explanation can be that folk school teachers are more committed to ideals which underline a more andragogical way of instruction. My continuing research work is designed to elucidate these explanations more precisely.

[1] Verner, C. (1978) Some reflections on graduate professionals in adult education. In The Canadian Higher Education, 8:2, 39-4