Situated Learning Agency and A Systemic Approach to the Development of Competence

In the paper, I introduce an integrative systemic framework that
conceptualizes the development of competence as a process of
ongoing interactions between individual learners (their achievement
motivation, deliberate practice, and learning outcomes) and social
environment (represented by developmental resources and demands). In
this context, I discuss the role of “situated agency” in learning development
and explore how learning individuals may effectively act as active agents of
their learning, as well as individual and social conditions that enable and prevent such
agency.
I begin with a critical analysis of different psychological theories providing competing
constructions of human learning potential, which I label “theories of giftedness”, “theories
of practice”, and “theories of motivation.” I explore contradictory ways in which these
theories construct key factors that determine successful development of learning
potential to adult professional competence. Based on this comparison, I discuss the
limitations of these theoretical approaches stemming from their philosophical,
methodological, and ideological backgrounds, including disproportionate emphasis on
selected developmental factors, implicit one-way causality, and the dominant role of an
individual over social influences.
I argue further that the discrepancies of these psychological theories might be reconciled
within a systemic framework that acknowledges the complexity of reciprocal interactions
between the key developmental factors proposed by the psychological approaches. I
implement this systemic framework as an analytic tool in a series of studies which
illustrate the systemic nature of the competence development and I discuss benefits of
such systemic approach for theory as well as educational practice.