ABSTRACT
The Finnish National Board of Education published the framework for evaluating educational outcomes in 1995, of which learning to learn competences and motivation for lifelong learning were key objectives. These were viewed as outcomes that do not fall into the domain of any particular school subject; rather, they were to be seen as common pedagogical goals for all school subjects. The definition of learning to learn was the ability and willingness to adapt to novel tasks, or the adaptive and voluntary mastery of learning action. This means that learning to learn is seen to comprise a cognitive component – basic knowledge and (thinking) skills – and an affective component that steers the use of these competences. In the Finnish framework, ability or competence refers to thinking or reasoning, and to the knowledge of relevant facts; to the ease with which the student can access that previously learned and can apply general, earlier acquired procedures to adapt to new tasks. The scales cover reading comprehension, basic mathematical operations, deductive and analytical reasoning, and formal operational thinking. The affective dimension encompasses both self-related and context-related beliefs and attitudes, and is assessed using self-report questionnaires. In addition, the assessment includes questions regarding background data (gender, parents’ education, language spoken at home, school achievement). The objectives of the Finnish Learning to Learn Project are twofold: first, to provide ‘epidemiological’ data of the measured learning-related factors for system-level evaluation, and second, to serve individual schools and municipalities as a tool for school development.
The Finnish National Board of Education published the first framework for evaluating educational outcomes in 1995, and a slightly revised framework in 1998. Learning to learn competences and motivation for lifelong learning were key objectives of the framework. These intertwined constructs were viewed as outcomes that do not fall into the domain of any particular school subject; rather, they were to be seen as common pedagogical goals for all school subjects. The core definition for learning to learn in the Finnish framework can be stated as the ability and willingness to adapt to novel tasks, or the adaptive and voluntary mastery of learning action. The affective dimension encompasses both self-related and context-related beliefs and attitudes, and is assessed using self-report questionnaires. The objectives of the Finnish Learning to Learn Project are twofold: first, to provide epidemiological data of the measured learning-related factors for system-level evaluation, and second, to serve individual schools and municipalities as a tool for school development.
