Abstract Situativity theory refers to theoretical frameworks which argue that knowledge, thinking, and learning are situated (or located) in experience. The importance of context to these theories is paramount, including the unique contribution of the environment to knowledge, thinking, and learning; indeed, they argue that knowledge, thinking, and learning cannot be separated from (they are dependent upon) context. Situativity theory includes situated cognition, situated learning, ecological psychology, and distributed cognition. In this Guide, we first outline key tenets of situativity theory and then compare situativity theory to information processing theory; we suspect that the reader may be quite familiar with the latter, which has prevailed in medical education research. Contrasting situativity theory with information processing theory also serves to highlight some unique potential contributions of situativity theory to work in medical education. Further, we discuss each of these situativity theories and then relate the theories to the clinical context. Examples and illustrations for each of the theories are used throughout. We will conclude with some potential considerations for future exploration. Some implications of situativity theory include: a new way of approaching knowledge and how experience and the environment impact knowledge, thinking, and learning; recognizing that the situativity framework can be a useful tool to ‘‘diagnose’’ the teaching or clinical event; the notion that increasing individual responsibility and participation in a community (i.e., increasing ‘‘belonging’’) is essential to learning; understanding that the teaching and clinical environment can be complex (i.e., nonlinear and multi-level); recognizing that explicit attention to how participants in a group interact with each other (not only with the teacher) and how the associated learning artifacts, such as computers, can meaningfully impact learning. p. 1

Situativity theory versus information processing theory p. 1

A number of theories can be broadly classified into situativity theory. Situated cognition or ‘‘SitCog’’ is perhaps the best example, but others include ecological psychology or ‘‘Ecopsych’’ and distributed cognition. p. 1

Situativity theory evolved from cognitive psychology. The prominent tenet of situativity theory is the perspective that knowledge and thinking (cognition; i.e., situated cognition), as well as learning (i.e., situated learning), are situated in experience. Experience includes the participants (i.e., students, teachers, and patients), the culture, and the physical environment where thinking and learning occur. p. 1

situativity theory stresses the social nature of cognition, meaning, and learning, with emphasis on the importance of the participants and the environment, as well as the evolving interaction between the participants and the environment within which thinking and learning occur. p. 1

In information processing theory, knowledge is something transferred from the teacher to the learner and becomes stored in the learner’s memory for later use. Proponents of situativity theory do not see knowledge in this fashion. Knowledge is not an inert, self-sufficient, abstract, self-contained, symbolic ‘‘substance’’ independent of the situations in which it is learned and used. Instead, proponents of situativity theory view knowledge more like a tool (Whitehead 1929; Brown et al. 1989). One can own a tool without being able to use it (in this sense, one might say the tool is ‘‘inert’’). Using the tool helps build an increasingly rich understanding of both the world and the tool, both of which change as a result of the tool’s use. Further, different groups of individuals, or communities, can use the same tool in different ways – compare, for example, how a carpenter and an archeologist might use a hammer. In other words, the tool, the participant(s) using the tool, the environment, the specific context, and the culture are all interdependent – you cannot meaningfully understand one of these components without understanding the others; they are situated. Thus, situativity theorists view ‘‘when and how’’ to use knowledge (the situations in which knowledge is applied) as the key issue – knowledge is a tool applied in certain circumstances or situations. As such, a key take-home message from a situativity theory perspective is that in teaching and learning situations, instead of focusing primarily on content (information given from the teacher to the learner), teachers must also pay close attention to demonstrating when and how (or, the situations in which) this information could and should be used. This is a key distinction between proponents of situativity and information processing theories and will be described in more detail later in this Guide. p. 2

Ecological psychology focuses on the agent (participant)-environment interaction. Learning and cognition emerge as a result of an intentionally driven (goaldriven) participant interacting with a rich informationcontaining environment. p. 2

Ecological psychology adds to situated cognition by providing an explanation for how individual participants interact with other participants and their environment – through goal-directed activity. p. 2

Norman (1993) posed the following question: Does symbolic cognition (or information processing theory) accommodate situativity, or does situativity accommodate symbolic (abstract) cognition? We will argue the latter in this section, as we believe situativity theory can serve as an integrating framework. Information processing theory emphasizes individual participants (memory and symbolic representation of knowledge in an individual’s head), while minimizing the potential contributions of other participants, the environment, and artifacts in the environment, such as computers and other tools. Indeed, these other components are often considered to be ‘‘noise’’ from the standpoint of information processing theory. p. 2

Distributed cognition puts a special emphasis on the social setting and how social interactions facilitate thinking and learning. p. 2

In Scrabble, the words that participants place on the board, as well as the tiles chosen, influence the thoughts and actions of other players. Also, the act of moving the tiles (environmental artifacts) around augments thinking. p. 2

Therefore instead of the information processing view of the ‘‘the world inside the head’’, situativity theory places an emphasis on ‘‘the head inside the world’’. p. 2

when writing a manuscript with a colleague, the authors write and revise the text together, and the written document is based on the interplay between the individuals, the words on the page, and the environment (to include artifacts, such as the computer and books or articles on the subject). p. 2

Two positions on the origin of knowledge (and, by extension, the origin of thinking and learning) find their roots in Plato and Aristotle. These two positions are rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism (Plato) refers to the idea that knowledge derives from the mind alone and not from the senses (experiences); its counterpart, empiricism (Aristotle), argues the opposite – experience is the only source of knowledge. Cognitive theories are typically rationalist and behaviorist theories are 190 prototypically empiricist. Situativity theory arguably represents a blend of these two classic positions. p. 3

situativity theory extends on the social constructivist theory of Vygotsky (1962, 1978), the social cognitive theory of Bandura (1986), and educational theory of Dewey (1938, 1981). Situativity also has roots in dynamic (complex) systems theory (termed chaos by Prigogine 1984). p. 3

Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory highlights the reciprocal relations between learners and social environmental features and, as such, is also consistent with situativity theory. p. 3

artificial intelligence’s knowledge acquisition model, consistent with situated cognition (and important implications of situated cognition in and of themselves) that break from information processing theory tenets, argues that (Robbins & Aydede 2009): p. 3

(1) learning is an active, willful, process not a passive comprehension and storage of facts and procedures (i.e., symbols) to be later applied, p. 3

when organizing instruction, teachers who identify with an information processing approach are likely to consider their students’ cognitive processes, such as the storage and retrieval of information from memory. As such, they might structure their classroom to facilitate such processes by presenting a lecture that simplifies ideas to be learned, clearly organizes and categories information, and provides both concrete and abstract examples of important concepts. p. 4

instructors who identify with a situated approach worry less about their learners’ mental representations of the world and the nature of input/output transformations, and instead prefer to focus on situations and the parts that people play. For these instructors, human knowledge is about interactions with the world and the mutual accommodation of individuals and the environment. As such, instructors who identify with a situated approach are likely to teach from a single, overarching imperative – create learning environments that situate virtually all learning in authentic contexts, using a variety of teaching formats which may take the form of small-group, large-group (i.e., lectures), and one-on-one instruction. Authentic contexts are truly ‘‘authentic’’ if they share some of the important aspects of real-life problems, including being ill-defined, having complex goals and multiple solutions, and containing collaborative activities among learners and with practitioners in society (Young 1993; Jonassen 1997). By situating learning in authentic contexts, students are expected to construct extensive, flexible knowledge through the integration of information across multiple domains, instead of learning non-contextualized (facts that have been organized for them). p. 4

teachers who work from a situated perspective would be less likely to use lecturing as their sole teaching modality because the typical lecture is much less authentic than other instructional formats, such as small-group learning. p. 4

(2) understanding requires experience, whether physical or in the imagination (often termed vicarious), p. 4

Lave (1988) and her exploration of learning (i.e., situated learning) in everyday activities. In particular, her work revealed the distinct (and immense) differences between learning in schools and learning in everyday activities. She focused on the behavior of students and non-students (typical persons in a community) and found that the way a typical person learns (and thinks) is quite distinct from the way a student is asked to learn (and think) in school. The typical workers’ activities are situated in the culture of their working environment, and within this environment individuals negotiate meaning and construct understanding with other participants and artifacts, or tools, in the environment. Compare this approach to typical learning in school, where formal definitions, well-defined problems, and symbol manipulation often encompass the bulk of scholastic activity. Thus the situativity perspective offers a different view than more traditional classroom instruction with attendant implications. p. 4

(3) conceptual understanding relies on perceptual-motor experience and simpler ideas, such that learning can be viewed and usefully guided in stages, which themselves require time and exploration to develop. p. 4

a key distinction is that constructivists view learning and thinking as being ‘‘constructed’’ in an individual participant’s head. As such, many constructivists, like most information processing theorists, still emphasize what goes on in the head; whereas situativity theorists place knowledge and understanding at the intersection of the individual and the environment. p. 4

Lave’s work also led to three other principles often considered to be common components of situativity – cognitive apprenticeships (learning by working with mentors within a social and cultural context), communities of practice (the social and cultural group or ‘‘community’’ involved in the activity; e.g., a practice), and legitimate peripheral participation (or how ‘‘newcomers’’ and ‘‘old timers’’ in a community relate to one another, which includes activities, identities, and knowledge). p. 4

Situativity theory (also known in some circles as grounded cognition) represented a significant shift in cognitive science theory, occurring largely in the 1980s and 1990s. Information processing theory (also known as cognitivism in some circles) was the pervading cognitive science theory at the time. Within information processing theory, community and culture enter into the equation only as they can be broken down into discrete elements that the participant can manipulate in their head in the stable, objective realm of experience. Therefore, for practical purposes, community and culture are largely considered noise by cognitivists (Kirshner & Whitson 1997) p. 4

Situated Cognition or ‘‘SitCog’’ is a perspective that has been embraced by many (Brown et al. 1989; Resnick et al. 1991; Greeno 1993; Salomon 1993). Another related perspective, Ecological Psychology or ‘‘Ecopsych’’ considers cognition as the interaction of learners and the properties of their environment, particularly the affordances (or potential) and effectivities (abilities) for action that individuals possess. For example, a person opens a closed door provided the individual recognizes the affordance (a door knob, which is turnable) and has the effectivity (ability to act on the affordance, can turn the door knob) for action. Importantly, like situated cognition, ecological psychology argues that if learning occurs at all, it occurs within a social context – with learner goals and intentions (prioritization of goals) largely determining how learners perceive and act (and thus learn) in a given situation. From an ecological psychology perspective, it therefore becomes impossible to separate the learner from the context in which learning occurs (Lave 1988). Ecological psychology is likewise embraced by many (Gibson 1977; Young 1993; Heft 2001). Finally, distributed cognition, as perhaps first described by Hutchins (1995) and Hutchins and Klausen (1996), emphasizes the notion that an individual participant’s thinking and ability to solve problems is complemented by (and often dependent upon) other participants’ cognition. p. 5

embodied cognition (Robbins & Aydede 2009), which refers to how the body shapes thinking. Without the cooperation of the body, there can be no sensory inputs from the environment and no motor outputs from the individual, hence no sensing or acting, which makes thought essentially empty. From this perspective, the mind is not a storehouse of abstract representations; instead, we receive specific sensory inputs. Further, as the above cooperation example illustrates, perception, thought, and action are co-constituted or interdependent. This is why situated cognition theorists talk about the importance of environment to thinking as discussed below. p. 5

Situated cognition does not only argue for the embodied mind as described above. It also argues for the embedded mind and the extended mind. The embedded mind argues that thinking is not only dependent upon what goes on in the individual participant; we need to also consider the complex transactions that occur between our embodied minds and the embedded world. An example here could be what is referred to as cognitive off-loading – or putting cognitive work onto the environment. Consider how a skilled grocery packer will sort items into heavy, light, and fragile areas as groceries come off the conveyer belt. This rearrangement significantly decreases the load on working memory relative to the alternative of trying to place each item into its optimal position of the grocery bag as it comes down the conveyer belt. The extended mind argues that the ‘‘boundaries’’ of cognition lie outside the envelope of the individual organism, encompassing features of the physical and social environment. p. 5

affordances are possibilities for action and, importantly, they are not stable for all participants at all times. A participant’s ability to act in ecological psychology is termed effectivities. This environmentparticipant dynamic dyad (affordances and effectivities) are codetermined (i.e., neither stands alone) – affordances (and their effectivities) only exist for certain classes of participants and vice versa. For example, a television provides the affordance of being ‘‘watchable’’ and a car the affordance of being ‘‘drivable’’. These affordances are only available to participants with appropriate effectivities – a blind person does not have the effectivity to watch a television and an infant does not have the effectivity to drive a car. Furthermore, an affordance is only important when a potential need (or intention) arises based on the agent’s goals and objectives. p. 6

Another key dyad in the ecological psychology perspective is intention and attention. An individual’s intention is driven by his or her goals and objectives, while an individual’s attention is his or her ability to perceive an affordance. Importantly, one’s intention drives one’s attention. Stated another way, intention and attention depend upon each other just like affordances and effectivities. As a participant’s goals and objectives evolve (intent is a dynamic construct), his/her attention, or focus, likewise evolves (another dynamic construct). p. 6

In ecological psychology, the unit of analysis is the agent ( participant)-environment interaction. In this view, learning and problem solving are not the product of learners’ internal cognitions (information processing) but emerge as a result of an intentionally driven (goal-driven) participant interacting with a very rich information-containing environment. From an ecological psychology perspective, it is impossible to separate the learner, the content to be learned, and the environment in which learning takes place. In other words, if learning occurs, it occurs within a particular context, and the participant’s goals and intentions direct the participant’s perception and action (and thus the participant’s learning). p. 6

Finally, ecological psychology views intelligence as the interaction of a participant with his/her environment; it is not a property inherent to an individual – the emphasis is on perception (and interaction with an environment) as opposed to the static notion of memory. Indeed, learning is seen as a tuning of the agent within the environment (i.e., when and how to use the ‘‘tool’’ as discussed above) as opposed to putting knowledge into symbolic memory. p. 6

Distributed cognition, however, puts a special emphasis on the social setting and how social interactions lead to thinking and learning. The unit of analysis is individuals engaged in cognitive activities within social and material contexts (Salomon 1995). Like situated cognition and ecological psychology, distributed cognition considers a ‘‘person plus’’ unit of analysis, whereby artifacts (non-humans, such as computers) can, and do, augment participants’ cognitive capabilities. Within the literature, distributed cognition has also been referred to as distributed learning and distributed p. 7

intelligence (Bell & Winn 2000). All of these terms imply the socially shared nature of thinking and learning. p. 8

Ecological psychology. Like situated cognition, ecological psychology argues that educators need to be aware of participants, their environment, and their inter-relations. p. 8

a learner’s goal (intent) could be to outperform their peers. As such, s/he reads multiple textbooks and articles in preparation (affordances) and then is able to answer questions raised by participants during the session (effectivities) due to his/her extensive preparation. Considering the dynamic dyads that ecological psychology endorses – agent–environment, affordance–effectivity, intent–attention – has implications for instructional design as discussed in the following section. p. 8

In this theory, which accounts for social, cultural, and physical components, communication between and among components is the sine qua non. Importantly, components can be either people or objects; the latter are often referred to as artifacts. An example of an artifact is a computer, and theories of distributed cognition explore how such artifacts can extend human capabilities in learning settings, such as our prior example of a grocery handler. p. 8

when cognition is distributed with a view to helping students learn something, students’ conceptions (both of the discussant and the peer group) would be expected to converge toward an agreement with the expert (teacher). In distributed learning systems, one needs to be able to deal with unexpected events that increase the uncertainty (entropy) in the system as opposed to reducing uncertainty. p. 8

(1) the importance of more than just content in teaching and learning; (2) the implications of a potentially nonlinear, even chaotic 196 system; and (3) a way to diagnose (and propose solutions to ‘‘treat’’) a less than ideal teaching or clinical situation. p. 9

an illustration of productive dynamic systems which are self-organizing. That is to say, the amount of uncertainty (or variation in performance) within the system would be expected to decrease over time as student’s conceptions converge toward agreement with the teacher’s. p. 9

The implications of these theories for instructional design are numerous p. 9

Teachers and designers seeking to investigate the effectiveness of their teaching approaches should consider the use of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), structural equation modeling (SEM), and chaos theory mathematical approaches, which can address how these components can (and do) interact. p. 10

References p. 11