Learning sciences

Learning sciences (LS) is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of human learning and its processes in the real world. It explores how people learn, identifies what might be important for human learning, engages in the design and implementation of learning environments, and improves instructional methodologies. Drawing on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, education, computer science and sociology, LS researchers study the interactions among learners, social groups, technologies, and environments. Major contributing fields include cognitive science, educational psychology, affective science, computer science, neuroscience, anthropology, and linguistics. Over the past decade, LS researchers have expanded their focus to include informal learning environments, instructional methods, policy innovations, and the design of curricula.

Learning sciences (LS) is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of human learning and its processes in the real world. It explores how people learn, identifies what might be important for human learning, engages in the design and implementation of learning environments, and improves instructional methodologies. Drawing on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, education, computer science and sociology, LS researchers study the interactions among learners, social groups, technologies, and environments. Major contributing fields include cognitive science, educational psychology, affective science, computer science, neuroscience, anthropology, and linguistics. Over the past decade, LS researchers have expanded their focus to include informal learning environments, instructional methods, policy innovations, and the design of curricula. ==Distinguishing characteristics== By integrating multiple fields, learning sciences extends beyond other closely related fields. For example, learning sciences extends beyond psychology, in that it accounts for and contributes to computational, sociological and anthropological approaches to the study of learning. Similarly, LS draws inspiration from cognitive science, and is regarded as a branch of cognitive science; however, it gives particular attention to improving education through the study, modification, and creation of new technologies and learning environments, and various interacting and emergent factors that potentially influence human learning. Many LS researchers employ design-based research methodology. The growing acceptance of design-based research methodology as a means for study is often viewed as a significant distinction of LS from the many fields that contribute to it. By including design-based research within its methodological toolkit, learning sciences qualifies as a "design science", sharing common characteristics with other design sciences that employ design science methodology such as engineering and computer science. Learning sciences is also considered by some as having some degree of overlap with instructional design, although the two communities developed in different ways, at times emphasizing different programs of research. These differences are described in greater detail in a 2004 special issue of Educational Technology. Design-based research is by no means the only research methodology used in the field. Additional methodologies include computational modeling, experimental and quasi-experimental research, and non-interventionist ethnographic-style qualitative research methodologies. ==References== Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1996). Situated learning and education. Educational Researcher, 25(4), 5-11. Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(2), 141-178 Esmonde, I., & Booker, A. N. (2017). Power and privilege in the learning sciences: Critical and sociocultural theories of learning. New York, NY: Routledge. Evans, M. A., Packer, M. J., & Sawyer, R. K. (Eds.) (2016). Reflections on the learning sciences: Past, present, and future. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fischer, F., Hmelo-Silver, C. E., Goldman, S. R., & Reimann, P. (Eds.)(2018). International handbook of the learning sciences. New York: Routledge. Greeno, J. G. (2006). Learning in activity. In R. K. Sawyer (ed.) The Cambridge handbook of the Learning Sciences (first edition) (pp. 79–96), Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. (1996). Cognition and learning. In D. Berliner and R. Calfee (Eds.) Handbook of Educational Psychology, (pp. 15–46). New York: MacMillan. Lave, J. (1996). The practice of learning: The problem with "context." In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.) Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context (pp. 3–32). Boston, MA: Cambridge University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R. K. (2006). The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (first edition). New York: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R. K. (2014). The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (second edition). New York: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R. K. (2022). The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (third edition). New York: Cambridge University Press. Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13. Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., Suthers, D. (2006). Computer-supported collaborative learning: An historical perspective. In R. K. Sawyer (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (first edition) (pp. 79–96), New York: Cambridge University Press.

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