The central argument of this dissertation is that virtue ethics is overly individualistic. In response, I develop and defend a more relational, ecological account - what I call extended virtues. First, following Andy Clark, Kim Sterelny, and others, I argue that cognition and emotion can be embedded in, scaffolded by, or even extended to include various environmental resources. These arguments undermine default internalism about cognitive and affective processes. Next, I show how recent work in social and personality psychology similarly undermines individualism about the bearers of these cognitive and affective processes. Taken together, these arguments have significant but heretofore underappreciated implications for virtue ethics. After reviewing the literature which attempts to spell out the ethical implications of embedded, scaffolded, and extended cognition, I conclude that a more substantive engagement with virtue ethics is needed. I then show how plausible, mainstream theories of virtue assume default internalism and individualism, and are thus subject to charges of empirical inadequacy. Finally, I formulate my account of extended virtues in response to these shortcomings. I begin by making three explicit arguments for why an account of extended virtues is needed. I then develop two further arguments - the process argument and the bearer argument - which yield the conclusion that the processes relevant to, and the bearers of, moral and intellectual virtues can be embedded, scaffolded, or extended. After providing examples and filling in details about the hypotheses of embedded, scaffolded, and extended virtue, I propose that virtues are less like dispositions and more like relations. I conclude by suggesting that ecological metaphors such as stewardship are more fitting than traditional views of morality as inner strength.

Plans do not serve the particular circumstances of a given situation, but rather serve as abstract descriptions of some future activities. The relationship between plans, which are abstract, and actions, which are concrete, is referred to as the relationship between plans and situated actions. This relationship can be formulated in the following questions: 1) How do individuals conceive of future activities? 2) How does an individual who is acting upon a plan adjust when facing contingencies? The relationship between plans and situated actions has remained a source of intense academic discussions (e.g., Bardram, 1997; Bardram & Hensen, 2010; Leudar & Costall, 1996; Ng, 2002; Schmidt, 1997; Suchman, 1987). Despite the ample research on the relationship between plans and situated actions, a review of the literature indicates that the problem has not been adequately addressed (Randall et al., 2007; Suchman 2003), which has compelled this researcher to create a theoretical model that integrates the disparate nature of plans and line of actions. Drawing on research on cognition and categorization theory, this thesis proposes a theoretical framework that conceptualizes the relationship between plans and situated actions in terms of activity categories. Specifically, the theoretical framework draws on the prototype and basic-level category theories of categorization, both of which were developed primarily by Rosch (1978), as well as the field theory developed by Lewin (1936). Categorization theories are used to address plans’ abstractness as they capture typifications of human experience. Field theory is used to address the concreteness of action as it captures dynamic properties of the situation in the here and now. The basic premise of the theoretical framework is that individuals conceive (have a knowledge) of plans and their attributes as future activity categories with a range of possibilities. These possibilities are structurally graded, ranging from highly typical to atypical. Plans are believed to be formed based on what is typical for the activity. The theoretical framework argues that an association exists between an individual’s knowledge of typical adjustment relevant to the activity and actual adjustment the individual makes while performing the activity. With this in mind, the theoretical framework considers the actor’s perspective to be central to the investigation. Based on the theoretical framework, several hypotheses are formularized and tested. An in-depth case study conducted in a ready-mix concrete company was used to examine aspects of the theoretical framework empirically. The results of the case study provide a wide range of independent evidence supporting the framework. In addition, an experimental methodology was developed for quantitative testing in the laboratory aspects of the theoretical framework not attainable in the case study. Theoretical and practical implications of the proposed framework and empirical findings are examined. Future research directions are discussed.

Situated cognition argues that learning takes place in an embedded social and physical environment, and through a social process, reality takes on meaning. This dissertation investigated if a link exists between learners’ participation and advancement within a sociocultural community of practice as specifically evidenced by higher rates of tracheal intubations on live patients and scores on the national certifying examination by paramedics. During 2006, paramedic students taking the national certifying examination were asked to answer a post-examination questionnaire quantifying the number of intubations performed during training. For intubation experience, significant odds ratios (relative to none performed) were observed for 4 to 9 performed [OR = 1.66, 95% c.i. = (1.24, 2.23)] and 16 or more performed [OR = 1.76, 95% c.i. = (1.21, 2.56)]. The male to female odds ratio [OR = 1.25, 95% c.i. = (1.04, 1.52)] was significant. For age category, significant odds ratios (relative to 40 and over) were observed for 20 to 24 [OR = 1.70, 95% c.i. = (1.27, 2.28)] and 25 to 29 [OR = 1.32, 95% c.i. = (1.00, 1.73)]. For education, the bachelor’s degree to high school odds ratio [OR = 2.56. 95% c.i. = (1.95, 3.35)] was significant. For ethnicity, significant odds ratios (relative to African-Americans) were observed for whites [OR = 1.69, 95% c.i. = (1.04, 2.74)] and others [OR = 2.33, 95% c.i. = (1.15, 4.72)].The multivariable logistic regression model results suggest that the number of tracheal intubations, sex, ethnicity and education level are all associated with greater odds of passing the certifying examination. In addition to traditional classroom lectures and activities, paramedic students also learn in clinical situations with varying levels of supervision culminating in near independent practice. Theories of situated cognition provide insight into these clinical learning situations that break from traditional models. When context, content, and community merge, knowledge is generated in new and meaningful ways. By participating in communities of practice, knowledge is transferred, created, and altered along with the learner through active engagement with all the illstructured, dynamic, and unpredicted opportunities the ‘real world’ offers. The students’ exposure to live tracheal intubations during training serve as an example of situated learning environments and its influence can be observed through the national certifying examination. The findings provide guidance for paramedic educators in creating situative learning affordances and specifically, determining the number of tracheal intubations performed during paramedic training.

<p>Cognitive science has traditionally viewed the mind as essentially disembodied, that is, the nature of mind and cognition is neither affected by the ¡Èsystem¡É it is implemented in nor affected by the environment that the system is situated in. But since the mid-1980s a new approach emerged in artificial intelligence that emphasized the importance of embodiment and situatedness and since then terms like embodied cognition, embodied intelligence have become more and more apparent in discussions of cognition. As embodied cognition has increased in interest so have the notions of embodiment and situatedness and they are not always compatible. This report has found that there are, at least, four notions of embodiment in the discussions of embodied cognition: software embodiment, physical embodiment, biological embodiment and human(oid) embodiment.</p>

This thesis describes prototyping in service design through the theoretical lens of situated cognition. The research questions are what a service prototype is, what the benefits of service prototyping are, and how prototypes aid in the process of designing services. Four papers are included. Paper one suggests that service prototyping should be considered from the perspectives of purpose, fidelity, audience, position in the process, technique, representation, validity and author. The second paper compares research about how humans use external representations to think, with reasons for using prototypes in service design and service design techniques. The third paper compares two versions of a service prototyping technique called service walkthrough; showing that walkthroughs with pauses provided both more comments in total and more detailed feedback. The fourth paper also contributes to our understanding of how prototypes aid in designing services, by connecting the surrogate situation with the future situation of service. The paper shows how the formative service evaluation technique (F-SET) uses the theory of planned behaviour to add knowledge to service prototype evaluations about the intention to use a service in the future. Taken together the research provides a deeper understanding of what prototypes are, and their roles in service prototyping. This understanding is further deepened by a discussion about service as a design material, suggesting that from a design perspective, a service consists of service concept, process and system. The service prototype acts as a surrogate for the future situation of service. The thesis describes what the benefits of using surrogates are, and shows how prototypes enhance the ability to gain knowledge about future situations. This leads to an understanding of prototyping as a way of thinking in design. / Den här avhandlingen använder situerad kognition som lins för at beskriva prototypande i tjänstedesign. Genom den här beskrivningen undersöker avhandlingen vad en tjänsteprototyp är, vad fördelarna med att använda prototyper är samt hur prototypande kan användas för att designa tjänster. Fyra artiklar ingår i avhandlingen. Den första artikeln föreslår att tjänsteprototypande ska betraktas från perspektiven syfte, detaljgrad, publik, position i processen, teknik, representation, validitet och författare. Avhandlingens andra artikel jämför forskning om fördelarna med att använda externa representationer för tänkande, med anledningar för att externalisera i tjänstedesign, och tekniker för att göra externa representationer. Den tredje artikeln jämför två variationer av prototypningstekniken tjänstegenomgång, och visar att genomgångar med pauser ger mer kommentarer och mer detaljerad feedback. Den sista artikeln bidrar också till förståelsen av hur prototyper stöder design av tjänster, genom att den kopplar surrogatsituationen och den framtida tjänstesituationen. Artikeln visar hur en teknik kallad formative service evaluation technique använder theory of planned behaviour för att bidra med kunskap om att evaluera tjänster med avseende på intention att använda tjänsten i framtiden. Tillsammans bidrar forskningen till en djupare förståelse av vad prototyper är och deras roller i tjänsteprototypning. Denna förståelse fördjupas ytterligare genom en diskussion av tjänster som designmaterial och avhandlingen föreslår att arbetet att representera och designa tjänster innefattar både design av och för tjänster. Tjänsteprototyper fungerar som surrogat för den framtida tjänstesituationen. Avhandlingen beskriver föredelarna med att använda surrogat och visar hur prototyper stödjer möjligheten att skapa kunskap om framtida tjänstesituationer. Detta leder till att prototypande ses som ett sätt att tänka i design.

The importance of mathematics instruction including "real life" contexts relevant to students’ lives and experiences is widely acknowledged (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000; 2006; 2009), however questions about why contextualized mathematics is beneficial and how different types of contextualization impact problem solving have yet to be fully addressed by research. Common justifications for contextualized mathematics include the idea that relevant contexts may help students to apply what they learn in school to out-of-school situations, and that relevant contexts may scaffold learning by providing a bridge between what students understand and the content they are trying to learn. The present study investigates these justifications, as well as students' beliefs and problem-solving methods, using story problems on linear functions. A situated cognition theoretical framework (Greeno, 2006) is used to interpret student behavior in the complex, social system of "school mathematics." In a series of interviews, students from a low-performing urban school were presented with algebra problems. Some problems were personalized to the ways in which they described using mathematics in their everyday lives, while others were normal story problems, story problems with equations, or abstract symbolic equations. Results showed that students rarely explicitly used situational knowledge when solving story problems, had consistent issues with verbal interpretation of stories, and engaged in non-coordinative reasoning where they bypassed the intermediate step of understanding the given situation before trying to solve the problem. After completing most of Algebra I, students still had considerable difficulty with symbolic representations, and struggled to coordinate formal and informal mathematical reasoning. Problems with the same mathematical structure with different amounts of verbal and symbolic support elicited different strategies from students, with personalized problems having high response rates and high use of informal strategies. This suggests that students can use sophisticated, situation-based reasoning on contextualized problems, and that different problem framings may scaffold learning. However, results also demonstrated that the culture of schooling, and story problems as an artifact of this culture, undermines many of the justifications for contextualizing mathematics, and that students need more authentic ways to develop their mathematical reasoning. / text

Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in the role of museums and cultural festivals in adult learning. Once considered the keepers of physical and cultural history, there was only limited concern for if and how adults learned from these settings. The conventional view held that museums provided knowledge, and it was an individual’s prerogative whether or not to seek it out. The past few decades, however, have seen both a resurgence of interest in visiting museums and festivals and a more concerted effort to understand their value in a rapidly evolving society. This study considers visitor experiences at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, a free two-week festival held each summer in Washington, D.C. Specific research questions addressed are: (a) what are study participants’ perceptions of their experiences during their festival visit? and (b) what do study participants perceive as outcomes of their visit? Data for this phenomenological study were gathered through in-depth interviews with five participants and researcher observations. Participants were asked to take photographs during their visit and these images were used to stimulate post visit interview recall and discussion. Study participants’ experiences and researcher observations are presented through individual and social themes. Individual themes include the role of sensory perceptions and of participant-specific characteristics and autobiography in visit behavior and meaning-making. Socially-oriented themes include the role of official festival demonstrators, fellow visitors, and the voice of the museum as communicated through interpretive signage. Comparisons are drawn to current museum visit theory with analysis suggesting that the Smithsonian Folklife Festival offers more than museum visits; it provides dynamic and authentic opportunities for cultural contact and socially situated cognition.

Built upon symbiotic flow, that is a merging of flow theory (Csikzentmihalyi, 1975) and situated cognition (Gee, 2007) this dissertation presents the findings from a 6-month qualitative study of an elite gamer and his practices and experiences with video games. The study used mediated discourse analysis and case study methods to answer the following question: What does it mean to be an elite gamer, to one life-long player of video games? In addition, the following sub-questions were considered: a) What aspects of elite gaming are important and meaningful to one particular gamer? b) What moments of play does this gamer identify as significant? c) What does sustained play look like for one him? Data sources included interviews, observations of significant gaming (that is gaming in heightened states of enjoyment and success), observation de-briefs, co-analysis interview, and a research journal. The researcher coded observational data for elements of symbiotic flow and in response to interview data. Data are presented in narrative, expository, and graphic forms across the study. This inquiry has resulted in the creation of the Model of Nested Transaction in order to articulate and understand the nature of significant gaming experiences. Additional significant findings include: a) Time is the primary resource and commodity in this particular player's elite gaming world, because it represents a level of dedication and insider status; b) this gamer values particular affordances in his gaming, namely experiences that develop knowledge and skills that can then be applied instantaneously in gaming contexts and be harnessed for longitudinal participation; c) video games provide the participant, and gamers like him, with possibilities for greatness, an aspect of his identity that is both critically important to him and often strikingly absent outside of games. The study argues for productive consideration of video games as a mediational tool of both meaningful learning and powerful identity exploration.

Plans do not serve the particular circumstances of a given situation, but rather serve as abstract descriptions of some future activities. The relationship between plans, which are abstract, and actions, which are concrete, is referred to as the relationship between plans and situated actions. This relationship can be formulated in the following questions: 1) How do individuals conceive of future activities? 2) How does an individual who is acting upon a plan adjust when facing contingencies? The relationship between plans and situated actions has remained a source of intense academic discussions (e.g., Bardram, 1997; Bardram & Hensen, 2010; Leudar & Costall, 1996; Ng, 2002; Schmidt, 1997; Suchman, 1987). Despite the ample research on the relationship between plans and situated actions, a review of the literature indicates that the problem has not been adequately addressed (Randall et al., 2007; Suchman 2003), which has compelled this researcher to create a theoretical model that integrates the disparate nature of plans and line of actions. Drawing on research on cognition and categorization theory, this thesis proposes a theoretical framework that conceptualizes the relationship between plans and situated actions in terms of activity categories. Specifically, the theoretical framework draws on the prototype and basic-level category theories of categorization, both of which were developed primarily by Rosch (1978), as well as the field theory developed by Lewin (1936). Categorization theories are used to address plans’ abstractness as they capture typifications of human experience. Field theory is used to address the concreteness of action as it captures dynamic properties of the situation in the here and now. The basic premise of the theoretical framework is that individuals conceive (have a knowledge) of plans and their attributes as future activity categories with a range of possibilities. These possibilities are structurally graded, ranging from highly typical to atypical. Plans are believed to be formed based on what is typical for the activity. The theoretical framework argues that an association exists between an individual’s knowledge of typical adjustment relevant to the activity and actual adjustment the individual makes while performing the activity. With this in mind, the theoretical framework considers the actor’s perspective to be central to the investigation. Based on the theoretical framework, several hypotheses are formularized and tested. An in-depth case study conducted in a ready-mix concrete company was used to examine aspects of the theoretical framework empirically. The results of the case study provide a wide range of independent evidence supporting the framework. In addition, an experimental methodology was developed for quantitative testing in the laboratory aspects of the theoretical framework not attainable in the case study. Theoretical and practical implications of the proposed framework and empirical findings are examined. Future research directions are discussed.

abstract: Incidental learning of sequential information occurs in visual, auditory and tactile domains. It occurs throughout our lifetime and even in nonhuman species. It is likely to be one of the most important foundations for the development of normal learning. To date, there is no agreement as to how incidental learning occurs. The goal of the present set of experiments is to determine if visual sequential information is learned in terms of abstract rules or stimulus-specific details. Two experiments test the extent to which interaction with the stimuli can influence the information that is encoded by the learner. The results of both experiments support the claim that stimulus and domain specific details directly shape what is learned, through a process of tuning the neuromuscular systems involved in the interaction between the learner and the materials. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2013