On the surface it is common to connect agency to a dichotomy, where structure is considered the opposite. I feel there are intrinsic limitations to looking at agency bound in this way. Agency evolves within a structured institutional setting as well as beyond it. As well as being a research area in its own right, agency is also connected to so many other aspects of learning.
Agency could also be studied with connection to concepts such as; metacognition, self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, group awareness, and so forth. Agency is not only a learning issue, but also a teaching issue. Although adjacent to my current field of inquiry, teacher agency is also a compelling area to explore. As well as agency with respect to informal spaces of learning within a greater community. To some extent, agency, in one way or another, is essentially connected to almost all aspects of life-long learning.
There is a long tradition of binding agency to structure.
Fuchs, S. (2001). Beyond agency. Sociological theory, 19(1), 24-40. p. 25
I wish to explore agency independent of structure. Agency as the manifestation of self interacting within groups. Given the prevalence of research into individuals personal agency the field requires researchers to explore the impact of peers, relationships and power distance with respect to agency.
Although I am attempting to detach the institutional components of agency, that is not to say that I believe we can factor out the measurable manifestations from the greater environment and/or culture.
“Nathan and Alibali (2010) drew a distinction between systemic and elemental descriptions of learn[1]ing research. Elemental perspectives focus on the role of component elements of a complex learning environment – and, as such, they rely on the factoring assumption: they assume that any components of the learning system (such as context) can be “factored out” and analyzed independently.” (Nathan & Sawyer, 2014, p. 36).
Nathan, M. J., & Sawyer, R. K. (2014). Foundations of the learning sciences. In The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 21-43).
From my perspective, not having the context of the elements limits the potential use of the knowledge gained. Looking at the group context and the setting or environment of the interaction is important to understand how agency is impacted by different collective variables. For example, we could learn a lot from longitudinal studies exploring how academic agency in school develops interactively or does not develop into long term life-long learning.
In terms of the agentic tasks we should focus on mediation. Mediation in the CEFR is defined as
“Interaction refers to spoken or written exchanges between two or more individuals, while mediation (often involving translation or interpretation) makes communication possible between individuals or groups who are unable to communicate directly. Clearly, interaction and mediation involve both reception and production.” (Little, 2008, p. 3) Little, D. (2008). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the development of policies for the integration of adult migrants. Thematic Studies: The Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 5-19.
Within the ESL context mediation can be extended to context literacy. Understanding the context and facilitating negotiations between people. This could be done using Socratic dialogues in circles and then have interaction about the previous interactions. Looking at agentic manifistations in collaborative tasks is important to expand the research. “The importance of groups and contexts: Students often learn more effectively when they participate in collaborative activities with peers and the teacher, with the teacher guiding an improvisational knowledge-building process (Scardamalia & Bereiter, Chapter 19 in this volume; Tabak & Reiser, Chapter 3 in this volume).” (Sawyer, 2022, p.3-4) Sawyer, R. K. (2022). An introduction to the learning sciences. The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences, 1-24.
Within the frame I am trying to make, there is a temporal element of the action and reflecting on the action. Within my understanding, the cognitive load of successfully interacting in the construction of knowledge is too high to consider having the additional cognitive load of interacting with your interaction or mediating your own experience at the same time, especially while using alternate languages. I would suspect that my research will be counter to the claims made in the EDD authoritative text.
“Metacognition occurs across the timeline of cognitive events. It may precede an academic task when a learner forecasts whether knowledge and skills are available to successfully tackle an assignment. This is self-efficacy. It can occur simultaneously with thinking, as a learner monitors progress and considers whether switching to different strategies would be more successful. Metacognition can also occur when a learner retrospectively considers properties of prior learning events; for example, evaluating how effective, efficient, easy, and risky their learning strategies were.” (Winne & Azevdo, 2022, p. 93)
Winne, P., & Azevedo, R. (2022). Metacognition and self-regulated learning. The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences, 3, 93-113.
