Faculty of Humanities
School of Education
8900024a
watsonp@clm.wits.ac.za / An understanding of how and what students learn is crucial to improving teaching and learning
practices in universities. In the South African context, the need to achieve equity in outcome
(success) gives this imperative a sharper urgency. This study investigates the development in student
understandings of the concept ‘law’ during a semester of tertiary-level introductory legal study. The
study begins from the understanding that ontogenetic development, in the Vygotskian sense, arises
from interaction in the social domain, prior to becoming internalized as individual mental structure.
The study is thus based on an understanding that the social domain plays a critical role in ontogenesis.
In order to make the role of this domain evident, the study combines a Vygotskian frame, and a
Vygotskian understanding of the role played by semiotic mediation in development, with a Discourse
account of language. The work of Gee is used for this purpose. It is suggested that the two sets of
theory are complementary, each providing a dimension that is comparatively lacking in the other.
Additional literature is drawn on to further clarify the individual / social relation and it is suggested
that the social domain influences individual development in at least two ways: first through the action
of context, and how this acts to position text and individuals acting within it; and secondly through
historical positioning: through the cultural model understandings brought to the task by the
participants.
From this theory is drawn a framework for analysis of the empirical data studied. This data included
two essays written by students on the topic ‘What is Law’, the first at the beginning, and the second
after six months, of introductory legal study. Additional data studied included the course-pack
materials of the course, and transcripts of the lecture series. The primary question addressed in the
research is: how can an account of first-year undergraduate students’ development of the concept
‘law’ in an introductory course on law be provided, such that the analysis enables an understanding of
the role of the social domain in ontogenesis? Specific questions addressed in analysis included
whether cultural model understandings, which differed between the different groups studied, were
evident in initial student writings, and if so, whether these understandings might help or hinder
concept development; what power relations were evident in the context, and how these could be
expected to position students; and finally, what Discourse appropriate changes (development) could
be read in student texts, and how this could be related both to contextual positioning and prior
knowledge held.
The findings of this study are specific to the study and cannot be extrapolated to different
circumstances. However, at the empirical level the study suggests that factors likely to be associated
with success in this context include Discourse familiarity, content foregrounding in prior knowledge
structures, the development of authority in writing, and identity shifts towards an ‘insider’ position.
Factors found to be associated with lack of success include conflicts of new knowledge with prior
knowledge structures, a lack of recognition of the task constraints, a strong identification with a
different community, and confusion resulting from contradictions in the mediation provided. These
factors may help to understand differential performance in the context by students from different
cultural backgrounds. At a broader level, the study suggests that the addition of a Discourse account
to a Vygotskian understanding of development provides tools for analysis which are generative in
contributing to understandings of how the social impacts on the individual in development. These
tools make explicit the intractable nature of the content, form and values combination which functions
in language to reproduce context, and through this positions individual development-in-context. This
positioning does not act deterministically: through trajectory and choice, identity and individual
positioning are a crucial construct in learning. Finally, the study provides evidence of the complexity
of the interaction of this content, form, values combination in development: an analysis which focused
on content alone would not have captured the richness of development which this method made
evident
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/1680 |
| Date | 14 November 2006 |
| Creators | Watson, Pamela |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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