Simone Volet

This chapter aims to seek insight into engagement in context, conceived through Productive Disciplinary Engagement (PDE), which can be perceived as a condition for sustained disciplinary and interdisciplinary interest and motivation. Despite ongoing trends in the design and implementation of enriched learning environments that are expected to boost effective use of material and digital tools along with new sources of information, the empirical research on their motivational and emotional consequences is still in its infancy. These environments challenge, cognitively as well as motivationally, emotionally, and socially, both students and teachers alike. Keeping in mind the challenging times for future learning and work-life, engagement and motivation are discussed with a focus on science disciplines. In these fields, there is a strong call for proficient skills in collaborative team learning, problem-solving, and collective knowledge creation in anticipation of an uncertain, challenging future. Knowledge-intensive work and knowledge demands are escalating along with fast technological development, and simultaneously tasks that demand new, not yet even existing and partly unpredicted knowledge and expertise are increasing. In addition, knowledge and expertise are progressively more distributed, with new knowledge, products and innovations being created in collaboration that crosses disciplinary borders. In this chapter, three case illustrations in different science fields and learning contexts provide empirical evidence for the discussion on the learned lessons from these illustrated studies designed to support PDE, and the potential significance of PDE for productive collaboration, sustained disciplinary interest, and motivation given later development of adaptive expertise.

Age-related differences in cognitive organisation reveal adolescents' failure to meet G. Polya's definitional and planning criteria for effective problem solving. Adolescents were less efficient and poorer in planning and adaptability than women, with only two completing the task successfully compared with eight women. There were qualitative differences in group metaplans and subsequent moves. Eight efficient women's metaplans were based either on time constraints or personal priorities. In contrast, only five adolescents expressed any plans that involved standing back from the task, and four of these only made plans for single errands so that each errand had to be re-planned. The task of organising an afternoon's errands allowed us to examine adolescents' spontaneous and induced planning on partially constrained problems. The chapter explores ways to observe adolescents' and adults' plans and self-regulation on constrained tasks like learning to use a computer, and school-related tasks like working on projects.

This chapter examines the conceptualisation of work activity that forms the foundation of Francophone perspectives on training and work and reviews empirical work grounded in these perspectives. It commences by identifying and discussing three fundamental assumptions about the nature of work activity and workplaces as legitimate sites of learning and training that underpin Francophone research related to the articulation of training and work. These are as follows: (1) actual work activity cannot be reduced to the prescribed task, (2) any work activity includes a productive and a constructive component and (3) work activity affords the creation of rich learning opportunities for improved practice. Six empirical studies that have addressed the above assumptions are scrutinised next as illustrations, with reference to other bodies of literature concerned by workplace learning. Common innovative methodological aspects of research found across studies from the Francophone research traditions are also identified. The final part of the chapter elaborates on several novel contributions of Francophone research aimed at enhancing the articulation of work and training to the overall body of literature on learning through and for practice. It is argued that by conceptualising work activity and professional practices as enabling environments for training within the complexity of real-life, interactive and dynamic situations and providing empirical support for this claim, research from Francophone research traditions makes a unique contribution to the literature on workplace learning, as well as the literature on vocational, professional and training research. It is also claimed that the dissemination of this work in the Anglophone research community offers exciting possibilities for cross-fertilisation and mutual enrichment, conceptually, methodologically and educationally.

This book is the collective outcome of a group of scholars who have been actively engaged in scholarly exchange, debating and sharing their research on interpersonal regulation of learning and motivation over a number of years. This collaboration, which has intensified in recent years, has taken place through regular symposia at international conferences, the organization of a weeklong EARLI Advanced Study Colloquium at the University of Cambridge, a follow-up meeting in Exeter, and numerous visits to one another's institutions...

Aristotle's classic thesis in Metaphysica that "the whole is something over and above its parts and not just the sum of them all" (Book H, 1045: 8-10; see Corning, 2002) has stimulated scientists in different disciplines for centuries...These notions discussed across sciences that deal with complex, self-regulated systems are pertinent to the study of interpersonal regulation in learning, particularly in collaborative contexts constituting a group of individuals either in synchronus or asynchronus interaction....

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the literature on individuals in cultural transitions in higher education, namely, international students in culturally unfamiliar contexts; teachers of international students and culturally more diverse classrooms; and local students in increasingly culturally diverse classes. All these individuals are actors exposed to new and shifting cultural experiences expected to impact their motivation and engagement. Two broad perspectives emerging from the literature were used to organize the chapter: a perspective of adaptation representing research grounded in unilateral, bilateral or reciprocal conceptualizations, and a perspective of transformation, capturing experiential learning research leading to personal and academic development. The analysis highlights how motivation is a critical, yet under-examined construct. This leads to numerous suggestions for future research including: addressing the neglected role of agency in research on international students' sociocultural adaptation and the lack of research on successful processes of adaptation; examining the confounding issue of socialization into new cultural-educational environments and level of proficiency in the medium of instruction, which impacts on engagement; and scrutinizing the posited link between deep-level motivated engagement in cultural transitions and the emergence of transformative experiences. A case is made for research on individuals' engagement and motivation in cultural transitions to be conceptually and methodologically stronger and broader, moving from studies of single groups of individuals in need of adaptation, to investigations of the co-regulated, reciprocal adaptations of actors and agents operating in complex sociocultural contexts where power dynamics related to knowledge and language affect participation and engagement with cultural 'others'.

The field of education has experienced extraordinary technological, societal, and institutional change in recent years, making it one of the most fascinating yet complex fields of study in social science. Education is a multidisciplinary and international field drawing on a wide range of social sciences and humanities disciplines, and this new edition of the International encyclopedia of education aims to encapsulate research and comprehensively match this diversity. The encyclopedia was developed by an international expert panel of editors and authors and incorporates more than 1,000 chapters covering such topics as demography and social change; learning and cognition; education of professionals; economics; globalisation; philosophy of education; education research methodology; primary and secondary education; educational assessment; social and emotional aspects of learning; vocational education and training (VET); qualitative research; education measurement; technology and learning; higher education (HE); leadership and management; educational evaluation; education of children with special needs; curriculum development; national systems of education; adult education; statistics; early childhood education and care (ECEC) theory; and teacher education. It will be of interest to educators and researchers in education of all backgrounds.