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Until respondents became more comfortable in the interview situation, early responses when first looking at and describing images were single word or short phrases. These were inevitably descriptive rather than explanatory and needed help in teasing out more analytical responses. In addition, early responses invariably located the image, and by association the learning, in one of three realms:
- a place (e.g. the gym)
- an activity (e.g. reading)
- a curriculum subject (e.g. Maths)
All the images, and by consequence all the discussion, focused squarely on school-based contexts. Even the few which weren't taken physically in the school, were taken on school-organised activities (like a visit to Bletchley Park) or illustrated tasks which were being undertaken as an adjunct to, or in preparation for school e.g. homework or revision.
Later in the research when this preference for school-based contexts was becoming apparent, a few images from beyond the study were introduced to test the emerging theme.
Figure 12 - externally sourced images
Though the circumstances clearly place them outside school, it was school which provided the yardstick with which to judge the learning.
'It's an art club and they're learning to improve their skills. Like an art lesson.'
Even when M had captured an image in an attempt to illustrate that not all reading is school-related, the resulting observation still linked back to school:
Figure 13 - M's books
When given the freedom to describe any examples of learning that might be missing from the range of images they'd just examined, it was still school that formed the point of reference with suggestions like clubs (examples given were those in school), tutorials (one-to-one teacher support) and revision sessions. When pushed to entertain the possibility that some of their learning might take place in the world beyond school, it was generally softer or people skills that were cited like teamwork, communicating or 'dealing with people.'
'It's similar in some ways to what we do in school. Like the practical we do in chemistry and it's all practical when you're driving a car.'
If respondents are attaching an implicit premium to the school-focused context bound up in the three realms, they also confer non-formal or informal situations with much lower status. In fig x, the group is described by I as 'gossiping' which carries a more negative connotation than 'discussing' or even 'talking about.' O on the other hand distinguishes clearly between the two:'... if you're chatting about something which isn't really like learning, like shoes or something, then you don't really like learn much. Well you might learn something, but not as much as you would if you had a discussion about something historical or something where everyone says what they think and you can learn different things from each other.'
Figure 14 - group activity
During the sorting and filtering activity earlier respondents undertook using the interactive whiteboard, the reasons some images were discarded for not being indicative of learning were often due to the informality of the situation:
'I discarded that one because it looked like they were just playing, rather than doing something' or 'Well they were on the coach and it was probably noisy.'
Towards the end of the interviews, each respondent was asked to think about their responses and asked if they were now in a position to say what learning is. One respondent provided the single word response 'School.'
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