Be prepared for assessment, be independent, creative, connected, and critical — students doing assessed self-regulated project work face extensive demands. Such work requires considerable capacity to undertake source criticism and think critically. In this article, I examine how secondary school students relate to demands concerning source criticism and critical thinking. Drawing on Goffman's frame analysis and social/cultural risk theory, I discuss how various conceptions of “what's going on” are connected to choices to be made. Various frames that can be related to an overall notion of an opaque and ubiquitous assessment regime simultaneously come into play. In examining dilemmas and analyzing various ways of framing them, I will try to illuminate and understand the obstacles students experience connected with demands for source criticism and critical thinking in project work. Although student handling of these demands can be questioned in relation to how a critical approach is traditionally described, I claim that what we observe can also be interpreted as a rational adaptation to a different framing of what school and education are really about, that is, being a “good student” by doing what is most rewarding in terms of how the school system displays appreciation.

Assessed, independent, creative and connected. The demands on students doing assessed self-regulated work are extensive. They are supposed to produce texts that require them to master a variety of competences such as genre knowledge, writing skills, ability to value and to use several institutional resources. The demands on their capacity to exercise source criticism and to think critically can be considered to be substantial in these modes of work.

In this article I examine how secondary schools students relate to demands concerning criticism of sources and critical thinking. The students are studied in situations where teachers and tutors are not physically present. Drawing on Goffman’s frame analysis and socio-cultural risk theory we discuss how different apprehensions on “what’s going on” correlates with estimations on potential dangers connected with choices that has to be made. Different laminations of frameworks are put in play which can be related to an overall notion of an opaque andubiquitousregime of assessment. In looking at dilemma situations, analysing different ways of framing, we will try to illuminate and understand obstacles students experience connected with demands for source criticism and critical thinking in self-regulated work. If the students’ handling of demands placed upon them in some ways can be questioned in relation to a critical approach, we claim that what can be seen also can be described as a rational adaptation to a different framing of what school and education really are about.

The empirical material has been drawn from video recorded sessions where students are participating in collaborative writing. Our data consists of 60 hours of video filmed interaction collected over a three year period. The filmed interactions were then merged with films of screen activity and analyzed in Transana.

I projektet följdes ett antal elevgrupper genom fokusgruppssamtal och klassrumsobservationer under deras gymnasiearbete (självständiga arbete). Samtalen har analyserats med hjälp av topikanalys (Marková, Linell, Grossen, & Salazar Orvig, 2007) och diskuteras primärt mot föreställningar om effektivitet (Imsen, Blossing, & Moos, 2017; Morrison, Ross, Morrison, & Kalman, 2019), rationalitet (Wegerif, 2017) och new public management (G Biesta, 2009; Gert Biesta, 2017)

I denna text diskuteras studenternas utsagor kring arbetsprocess, utmaningar, lärande och lärarstöd.

Resultatet visar en stark spänning i elevernas utsagor. Å ena sidan lyfter de fram den goda läraren som med planering, instruktioner och feedback guidar dem igenom processen på ett sätt som reducerar stress och får alla att känna att de har en möjlighet att lyckas om de bara följer lärarens instruktioner. Å andra sidan beskriver eleverna ett upplägg som i första hand är processorienterat och som försvårar eller förhindrar för dem att göra ett kvalitativt djupgående  arbete. Trots att eleverna upplever en sådan spänning så anpassar de sig till en ”skolans rationalitet” och ställer på det sättet viktiga frågor om vad som är effektiv undervisning? I förlängningen diskuteras också resultaten mot NPM som styrning och hur den valda strategin samspelar med det bedömnings och utvärderingssystem som svenska skolor måste förhålla sig till (Bunar & Ambrose, 2016).

Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 33-46. 

Biesta, G. (2017). The rediscovery of teaching: Routledge.

Bunar, N., & Ambrose, A. (2016). Schools, choice and reputation: Local school markets and the distribution of symbolic capital in segregated cities. Research in Comparative and International Education, 11(1), 34-51. 

Imsen, G., Blossing, U., & Moos, L. (2017). Reshaping the Nordic education model in an era of efficiency. Changes in the comprehensive school project in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden since the millennium. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 61(5), 568-583. 

Marková, I., Linell, P., Grossen, M., & Salazar Orvig, A. (2007). Dialogue in focus groups: Exploring socially shared knowledge. 

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. J., Morrison, J. R., & Kalman, H. K. (2019). Designing effective instruction: Wiley.

Wegerif, R. (2017). Dialogic education. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education.

This thesis studies how students do projects in a Swedish upper secondaryschool. The students have to produce products and at the same time provethem self as independent in relation to the teachers, and negotiate therequirements of the project setting and the written instructions within thegroup. The study focuses on what comes out as problematic for the students,how they solve these dilemma situations and what resources are used in orderto do so.A choice was made only to analyse student group interaction in parts ofthe project process where the teachers were not physically present thus fillinga research gap.The empirical material was collected during three years in sex secondaryschool classes through filmed sessions of groups or pairs working with theirproject.Each of the four articles primarily focuses a special dilemma; structure,independence, instructions and critical thinking. By combining Goffman’sframe analysis with the concepts of risk and uncertainty from a Risk – societyperspective, issues related to what it means to do project work asindependent, critical 21st-century learner are illustrated and discussed.The choice to look only at situations in which students have to managewithout the aid of a physically present teacher illuminates several practicalconsequences like an unwillingness to go to the teacher and ask questions andan increased concentration on and interpretation of the written instructions. Adevelopment of Miller and Parlett’s (1974) discussion of student approach tocues are suggested. The concept of the cue choosing student are constructedin order to better respond to demands from an individualised interactionsociety. The study also emphasises how the students have to balance differentframeworks in order to be both authors and assessed students. Byimplementing a risk society perspective new ways of analysing andunderstanding independence and classroom interaction is suggested and arecontextualization of critical thinking proposed.

Different modes of self-regulated work are becoming more and more common in Swedish schools as well as internationally. This can be seen as in line with a development in the society at large towards more individualization and increased individualized risk taking. The increase of self-regulated work takes place in a context where students have to balance and evaluate a variety of resources which makes their choices both more difficult and potentially more risky.

In this study students in two programs in a Swedish secondary school have been video recorded. The course they are working with was established with the explicit purpose of developing SRL and independence. Critical use and evaluation of material are considered to be among the fundamental skills that are to be developed.

In instructions handed out to students different standards on how to use information and make references are explicitly highlighted and self-regulated work are spoken of as preparation for upcoming academic work.

The overall research aim is directed toward how students relate to the demand for a critical approach? What different motivations are possible to deduce from their interaction? This paper focuses on the contradiction between students’ attempts to be independent in an assessed mode of work, having to consider a grade point average perspective and at the same time concentrate on developing skills primarily motivated with reference to an upcoming educational setting. We analyze the filmed interaction using interaction analysis and concepts from frame analysis and socio-cultural risk theory.

How the students’ discuss the choice and evaluation of texts that finally becomes parts of the reference section can be looked upon as important indicators of the critical competence that are ascribed such high value in self-regulated work. By studying the interaction connected with the choice of references we claim that it is possible to make different motifs behind the choices visible. These motivations will then be analyzed from a perspective of how different framing and risk considerations are brought in play and laminated.

Our preliminary findings points in a direction that the students’ lean more towards a grade point average perspective and chooses alternatives much more from calculations of what is beneficiary in the current situation more than relating to a critical, scientific academic discourse.

Keywords: Framing, Risk, Reference, Self-regulated work

I en pågående studie om gymnasieskolans kurs "gymnasiearbete" undersöks hur 20 svenska gymnasieelever resonerar kring sin undervisning och sitt självständiga arbete mot bakgrund av de förändringar som blev en följd av Lgy11. Vårt syfte är att utforska vilka värden, normer och premisser som ligger till grund för deras föreställningar om kursen. Detta gör vi genom att iscensätta och analysera fokusgruppssamtal samt klassrumsobservationer. Under denna presentation belyses forskningsprojektet såväl empiriskt som teoretiskt. Ett av våra huvudresultat visar att eleverna ser sig beroende av sin lärare i hög grad. De tillskriver henne en strukturerande roll, bland annat med avseende på tidsramarna i arbetsprocessen. Detta är intressant att diskutera och problematisera i relation till såväl deras ambitionsnivå som beskrivna arbetsinsats. Vidare pekar resultatet på att elevernas uppfattning om hur arbetet bedöms blir avgörande för synen på det egna lärandet.

All students in Swedish upper secondary school have to do one mandatory project work course aimed at developing general skills such as independence, initiative, creativity and imagination. The students have to pass the course to receive their upper secondary diploma. Our study aims to investigate how students talk about the task of doing ‘independent’ project works in the diploma course.

Three focus group conversations of totaling twelve students are filmed and analyzed through topic analysis, an analytical approach based on dialogism as theoretical framework. The empirical material is analyzed from a perspective of how the design of the project course and the assessment regime influences the students work. Findings indicate that the students rely heavily on help and instruction from the teacher. They perceive of this help as a crucial asset in passing the diploma course. They state that the kind of help they receive are strongly focused towards the dividing line between pass and fail. Help is hardwired towards the scientific form and the content of their essays are treated as almost uninteresting. Support for independence therefore seems to be significantly restricted in practice. The teacher is in fact working as a facilitator guiding students towards dependence. This is accomplished through framing doing project work as doing template science.

All students in Swedish upper secondary school have to do one mandatory project work course aimed at developing general skills such as independence, initiative, creativity and imagination. The students have to pass the course to receive their upper secondary diploma. Our study aims to investigate how students talk about the task of doing ‘independent’ project works in the diploma course.

Three focus group conversations of totaling twelve students are filmed and analyzed through topic analysis, an analytical approach based on dialogism as theoretical framework. The empirical material is analyzed from a perspective of how the design of the project course and the assessment regime influences the students work. Findings indicate that the students rely heavily on help and instruction from the teacher. They perceive of this help as a crucial asset in passing the diploma course. They state that the kind of help they receive are strongly focused towards the dividing line between pass and fail. Help is hardwired towards the scientific form and the content of their essays are treated as almost uninteresting. Support for independence therefore seems to be significantly restricted in practice. The teacher is in fact working as a facilitator guiding students towards dependence. This is accomplished through framing doing project work as doing template science.

Digitalt smarta lärare som arbetar med elever som ser det digitala rummet som bara ett av många klassrum behöver förhålla sig till upplösning av såväl tid och rum som arbetsformer. Flera av de sätt vi traditionellt sett har genomfört bedömning på kan komma att kollidera med arbetsformer som introduceras genom möjligheter som den digitala dimensionen erbjuder. Utan en grundligt genomtänkt vetenskapligt förankrad kunskap om möjligheter och problem förknippade med dessa arbetsformer riskerar vi att göra helt felaktiga bedömningar. I slutändan riskerar vi att underkänna eller anklaga eleverna för fusk, bara för att vi egentligen inte förstår de arbetsformer som är naturliga för eleverna. I detta kapitel kommer vi att diskutera uppgifter och bedömningsproblematik främst med utgångspunkt i forskning kring skrivande och bedömning.

This paper engages in a discussion about an aspect of what it means to become a 21st century learner. Our aim is to discuss ways in which students realize their subjectivity by using a number of positions derived from the empirical material such as independent critical students, subject oriented authors and risk conscious instruction followers, all resulting from project oriented education. The empirical material consists of approximately 60 hours of filmed group interactions collected over a period of three years in a Swedish upper secondary school during a period of three years. The material are analyzed with content categorization and interaction analysis Four different positions regarding approaches towards instructions, the assessed situation and the use of different cues were identified and used to discuss how different approaches to risk forms as us citizens. In our study, positions have been derived using Goffman’s frame theory and takes a stand in Becker, Geer, & Hughes and Miller & Parlett’s classical studies on assessment. The four positions describe different types of relations towards the demands of 21st century learners. The positions have been scrutinized with the aid of Beck’s “manufactured uncertainty” and the emphasis that Biesta puts on trust and resistance in the educational relation. We conclude that today/s students cannot effort to be cue deaf and are expected to be cue choosing facing the danger of making incorrect choices.

This study presents an approach to student interaction in self-regulated project work. By combining frame analysis and socio-cultural risk theory, the authors explore the importance of students' framing activities as a basis for their understanding of tasks. The increase in self-regulated work in Swedish schools can be seen as being in line with developments in Europe towards more individualisation. The authors argue that their data provide examples of how the global discourse imposes itself on local discourses. This mode of work, as it appears in the material presented in this article, exemplifies how complex assessment ideas have penetrated the school context. The authors emphasise the concepts of uncertainty, risk and complexity in analysing the framing process, and claim that the focus on these concepts is essential in analysing self-regulated work, contributing to better understanding of self-regulated learning processes.

Swedish educational policy underlines the importance of independence. In this paper we use socio-cultural theory and Foucault to explain how pupils’ independency is transformed into something else in their work. Our results derive from analyses of filmed sessions and entries in the pupils’ logbooks. Our findings demonstrate that the pupils’ definitions of independence differ from those of the course plan in several aspects: i) the use of certain resources is not considered to show lack of independence, ii) doing things yourself is considered being most independent and iii) to follow instructions, even if this means violating your unique personal thought, is considered a prerequisite for passing/getting good grades and as such a necessary adaption to the school context, sooner than a sign of dependency. Consequently we argue that pupil independency should be regarded as a phenomenon chiseled out within a community of practice rather than a personal capacity.

This paper is a theoretical paper that highlights some implications of a dialogic ontology in educational research. However, for the sake of clarity we will very succinctly setting off to describe the background which is our empirical point of departure. The aim of our current empirical study is to explore how 12 adult students in a Swedish secondary school interpret the school task of doing ‘independent’ project works, addressing the questions of how students talk and reason about their own processes and values of the activity-specific task. In brief, the method is focus group conversations (three participant groups) and the result reveals the fact that the participants appreciated their common teacher, who was considered as a very successful guide. The teacher systematically provided orders, instruction, feedback and, most importantly, planning and staging in a stepwise fashion. In doing so she paradoxically also indirectly fostered her students to be even less independent, that is, more easily adapted to the institutional requirements without bothering too much about how to manage the tasks themselves. Project work is commonly described as a self-regulated form of the task; a common mode of student work in Swedish schools (Eklöf, Nilsson & Ottosson, 2014). As Bergqvist & Säljö (2004) highlight, it could further be conceived of as a disciplining, student-centered practice that is widely used to produce self-organizing learners. Although the students are supposed to work independently, they are considerably dependent on the instructional, organizational and evaluative work of the teachers (Åberg, 2015).

Drawing on a sociocultural perspective on learning, as we do, the notion of individualistic independency is well-known as a problematic stance (e.g., Wertsch, 1998). In the sociocultural version of dialogism social interdependence is a dialogic premise on both the epistemological and ontological level (Linell, 2009). Wegerif (2008) describes how the functional role of difference between learners’ voices is of significance to the Bakhtin-influenced take on multi-voiced dialogue (cf. Kullenberg & Pramling, 2016; Lefstein & Snell, 2014). In such a dialogic framing the teacher is not striving to overcome these differences between, for example, the student’s and the teacher’s opinions. Such recognition holds interpersonal difference seriously and moreover address a fairly uncommon approach to the educational notion of intersubjective agreements (Matusov, 1996, 2015; Wegerif, 2011).

This dialogic approach stresses the issue of student agency and, thus, democratic values of teaching acts. When respecting and promoting students’ own voices a genuine interaction of consciousnesses is possible to create throughout the pedagogical dialogues (cf. Bakhtin, 2004; Matusov, 2015). Hence, what constitutes a genuine interaction is the other-orientation toward the difference of the other, recognizing the learning potentials of the gap between distinct consciousnesses. Philosophically speaking, it further suggests the conceptual need to stress alterity in other-orientation (cf. Linell, 2009).

Recalling our examined students, they report a situated learning that is basically grounded in a “teacher-pleasing relationship” (Matusov, 2011). While working successfully they are heavily dependent on their teacher’s agency rather than developing their own. Indeed, as sociocultural scholars we might notice that there exists a considerably confined teacher agency as well; an agency which is clearly bound to pre-determined institutional goals. This contextual condition did not facilitate the student (and teacher) opportunity to learn and experience something radically unpredicted, for example, being dialogically surprised or challenged by the genuine other. The students in our study do not neither regard themselves as truly independent nor creatively personalized. Due to a Bakhtinian approach to education, independency is an illusion anyhow, but being personalized, rather than socialized, in and through education is a central dialogue theoretical issue (Lobok, 2014).

In our fully elaborated paper we will dwell upon the dialogue philosophical issue on other-orientation and the role of alterity, briefly described above. In addition we intend to provide a more detailed sketch of our study and the implications for dialogic pedagogy, informed by Bakhtin and educational scholars within the field.

References

Åberg, M. (2015). Doing project work: the interactional organization of tasks, resources, and instructions. Diss. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet.

Bakhtin, M. M. (2004). Dialogic origin and dialogic pedagogy of grammar: Stylistics in teaching Russian language in secondary school. Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 42(6), 12-49.

Bergqvist, K. & Säljö, R. (2004). Learning to plan: A study of reflexivity and discipline in modern pedagogy. In J.V.D. Linden & P. Renshaw (Eds.) Dialogic learning: Shifting perspectives to learning, instruction and teaching (pp. 109-124). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Eklöf, A., Nilsson, L.-E., & Ottosson, T. (2014). Instructions, Independence and Uncertainty: student framing in self-regulated project work. European Educational Research Journal, 13(6), 646-660.

Kullenberg, T & Pramling, N. (2016). Learning and knowing songs: a study of children as music teachers. Instructional Science, 44(1), 1-23.

Lefstein, A., & Snell, J. (2014). Better than best practice: Developing teaching and learning through dialogue. London: Routledge.

Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically : interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publ.

Lobok, A. (2014). Education/obrazovanie as an experience of an encounter. Dialogic    Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 2, S1-S5. DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2014.84.

Matusov, E. (1996). Intersubjectivity without agreement. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3(1), 25-45.

Matusov, E. (2011). Authorial teaching and learning. In E. J. White & M. A. Peters (Eds.), Bakhtinian pedagogy: Opportunities and challenges for research, policy and practice in education across the globe (pp. 21–46). New York: Peter Lang.

Matusov, E. (2015). Comprehension: A dialogic authorial approach. Culture & Psychology,   21(3), 392-416.

Wegerif, R. (2008). Dialogic or dialectic? The significance of ontological assumptions in research on educational dialogue. British Educational Research Journal, 34(3), 347–361.

Wegerif, R. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6, 179-190

Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Within research on examination cheating, a common assumption is that plagiarism in the context of examination is increasing epidemically. A uniform definition of plagiarism does not exist, but plagiarism is the category most frequently used when students at Swedish universities are notified and sanctioned for deception. Text Comparison is frequently presented as an effective technology for addressing plagiarism. Plagiarism Detection Services (PDS) are used for detecting text overlaps, particularly in higher education. While Higher Education Institutions in some countries appear to have uncritically accepted the use of text comparison technology, the reception in other countries have been ambivalent or even critical. The present project studies consequences of the use of text comparison through teachers meaning making regarding the pedagogical task to grade students and the moral task, to report students that try to deceive. We hypothesize that teachers’ epistemological views are contingent on technology and discourses on technology. Text comparison technology, therefore, runs the danger of introducing consequential biases to the assessment of student performance. The material has been gathered in four focus group conversations. Focus has been introduced through the presentation of reports from a Plagiarism Detection System. A topical analysis has been performed on the transcribed conversations. From our results, we conclude that teachers’ epistemological views are contingent on technology and discourses on technology. Text comparison, therefore, runs the danger of introducing a consequential bias to the assessment of student performance leaving students open to the accusation about deception.

Within research on examination cheating, a common assumption is that plagiarism in the context of examination is increasing epidemically. A uniform definition of plagiarism does not exist, but plagiarism is the category most frequently used when students at Swedish universities are notified and sanctioned for deception. Text Comparison is frequently presented as an effective technology for addressing plagiarism. Plagiarism Detection Services (PDS) are used for detecting text overlaps, particularly in higher education. While Higher Education Institutions in some countries appear to have uncritically accepted the use of text comparison technology, the reception in other countries have been ambivalent or even critical.

The present project studies consequences of the use of text comparison through teachers meaning making regarding the pedagogical task to grade students and the moral task, to report students that try to deceive. We hypothesise that teachers’ epistemological views are contingent on technology and discourses on technology. Text comparisont echnology, therefore, runs the danger of introducing consequential biases to the assessment of student performance. The material has been gathered in five focus group conversations. Focus has been introduced through the presentation of reports from a Plagiarism Detection System. A topical analysis has been performed on the transcribed conversations. From our results, we conclude that teachers’ epistemological views are contingent on technology and discourses on technology. Text comparison, therefore, runs the danger of introducing a consequential bias to the assessment of student performance leaving students open to the accusation about deception.

School in a digital information society is, among other things, considered to be characterized by independent work. Pupils get instructed to produce different texts that require them to master a variety of competences such as different writing skills, adaptation to genre, and ability to value and to make use of a number of institutional resources. Decisions concerning their work are described as to be handled individually.

In Sweden a political controversy has emerged concerning the quality (expressed in grades) that self regulated, individual work forms lead to. Supported by results from studies like PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS it has been argued that self regulated work forms are one cause behind a decline in pupils’ results as compared to the results in other countries.

Drawing on perspectives on instructed action, and making a distinction between the text and the work, we discuss the transparency of instructions and pupils’ understanding of genre.

The empirical material has been drawn from video recorded sessions where pupils are participating in collaborative writing. Our results suggest a need to scrutinize how pupils deal with dilemmas of doing project work if we are to understand and value the work that is carried out. They also lead us to highlight the role of the teacher and question what is actually meant by an increase in independent, self regulated work forms and how these are organised. A focus on the work reveals that pupils often work as small epistemic communities and invoke different resources such as parents, tutors, and peers to guide their grappling with instructions 

School in a digital information society is, among other things, considered to be characterized by independent work. Pupils get instructed to produce different texts that require them to master a variety of competences such as different writing skills, adaptation to genre, and ability to value and to make use of a number of institutional resources. Decisions concerning their work are described as to be handled individually.

In Sweden a political controversy has emerged concerning the quality (expressed in grades) that self regulated, individual work forms lead to. Supported by results from studies like PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS it has been argued that self regulated work forms are one cause behind a decline in pupils’ results as compared to the results in other countries.

Drawing on perspectives on instructed action, and making a distinction between the text and the work, we discuss the transparency of instructions and pupils’ understanding of genre.

The empirical material has been drawn from video recorded sessions where pupils are participating in collaborative writing. Our results suggest a need to scrutinize how pupils deal with dilemmas of doing project work if we are to understand and value the work that is carried out. They also lead us to highlight the role of the teacher and question what is actually meant by an increase in independent, self regulated work forms and how these are organised. A focus on the work reveals that pupils often work as small epistemic communities and invoke different resources such as parents, tutors, and peers to guide their grappling with instructions

Many studies show that students self-report to having bought, downloaded and ghostwritten essays, as well as to failing to attribute quoted material and other similar actions. These actions are all classified as plagiarism, and based on this classification these students are positioned as cheaters. This study shows that there is reason to critically scrutinize such positioning. Using positioning theory, drawing on data from disciplinary inquiries, we show that such actions may be constituted as acts of complaining, justifying, blaming and the like. Students justify these actions using storylines about ambiguous instructions, failing technology and difficulties distinguishing between plagiarism and autonomous authorship. We find that there are four positions such students try to make available for themselves as they attempt to reposition themselves, those of victim, learner, professional and repentant offender. Being suspected of cheating or plagiarism is a malignant position to be in; however, while students may attempt to reposition themselves in less malignant positions, such as that of victim, such attempts generally fail to lead to exoneration.

This chapter employs video data together with screen captures for presenting cases where the students try to match questions to search expressions, make decisions about whether they are allowed to visit a certain site, and examine how the students make decisions about relevance and credibility. Information always appears to be unstructured to the students and restructuring of information poses a socio-technical dilemma involving appreciation of an ideological and ethical nature.