Formative Interventions for Expansive Learning and Transformative Agency

Abstract

The article examines formative interventions as we understand them in cultural-historical activity theory, and reflects upon key differences between this intervention research tradition and design-based research as it is conceived in the learning sciences tradition. Three projects, including two Change Laboratories (CL), are analyzed with the help of conceptual lenses derived from basic epistemological principles for intervention research in activity theory. In all three interventions, learners expansively transformed the object of their activity. The CL cases, however, show that this learning process included productive deviations from the researchers' instructional intentions, leading to significant outcomes, both practical and theoretical, that were not anticipated by the interventionists. Together, these cases illustrate that an activitytheoretical formative intervention approach differs from design based research in the following ways: 1) formative interventions are based on design done by the learners; 2) the collective design effort is seen as part of an expansive learning process, including participatory analyses and implementation phases; 3) rather than aiming at transferable and scalable solutions, formative interventions aim at generative solutions developing over lengthy periods of time in both the researched activities and in the research community.

Collective concept formation in educational management: An intervention study in São Paulo, Brazil

“…Lemos (2017) reports on how the emerging new management concept, and plans based on it, are turned into practical local action. Such longitudinal studies might also include formative interventions, such as the Change Laboratory, that facilitate and push forward collective concept formation as an important component of transformation of practice (Sannino, Engeström, & Lemos, 2016).…”

Os Conflitos sob a Mediação do Laboratório de Mudança: Uma Aprendizagem Expansiva

“…No entanto, esse desejo de transformação é uma condição e uma reivindicação dos próprios sujeitos da atividade (Sannino, Engeström, & Lemos, 2016), que passam a questionar as formas como essa atividade está atualmente organizada e, com isso, compreendem coletivamente a necessidade de realizar mudanças. Para que haja a expansão, a metodologia prevê o envolvimento dos aprendizes nas sete fases de um ciclo que compreende ações de construção coletiva Engeström, Rantavuori, & Kerosuo, 2013).…”

Å forske med kunsten som metodologisk praksis med aesthesis som mandat

“…Man anerkjenner, som Per Roar (2016, s. 311) skriver, den inneboende kunnskapen som kunstnerisk praksis kan generere. Dette er likevel ikke enestående for artistic research, og jeg gjenkjenner practice-as-research som fullt ut til stede innenfor også ikke-kunstneriske praksiser i praksisledet profesjonsrettet kvalitativ forskning, som aksjonsforskning (Steen-Olsen & Postholm, 2009) og intervensjonsforskning (Sannino, Engeström & Lemos, 2016 […] it has to be acquired through sensory and emotional perception, through the very artistic experience from which it cannot be separated […] Artistic knowledge is, in each and every case, sensual and physical, «embodied knowledge.» The knowledge for which artistic research strives is a felt knowledge.…”