Informal learning from university students' perspective

Abstract

The crisis of formal education leads to constant reconsiderations, both at national and global level. It is considered that educational theory, practice and policy focus dominantly on the formal context of learning while they ignore learning in all other contexts, especially informal. Learning in informal contexts, whether it is intentional or coincidental, conscious or unconscious, is usually perceived as less significant and worthwhile. However, the constructivist and cognitivistic theories of the learning processes emphasize the necessity of recognizing and appreciating all the acquired knowledge and experiences that a person brings to the learning situation. In other words, the quality of formal education cannot be ensured with ignorance of students' knowledge and skills acquired through informal learning. The aim of this paper was to determine students' perspective on their own informal learning. Using qualitative approach, we analyzed students' written statements to determine which informal learning outcomes they were aware of. The second aim was to determine who or what supported those informal learning outcomes from students' perspective. By grouping statements by similarity, we got 13 different categories of learned knowledge and skills (the most common informal learning was the skill of practicing different types of art) and 13 types of support for those learning outcomes (the most common support were information and communication technologies (ICT)). The paper proposes directions for planned integration of students' informal learning into the formal context of studies.

Kriza formalnog obrazovanja vodi preispitivanjima kako na nacionalnom, tako i na globalnom nivou. Jedan od problema je što obrazovna teorija, praksa i politika zanemaruje učenje u svim drugim kontekstima, posebno informalnim. Učenja u informalnim kontekstima, bilo da su namerna ili slučajna, svesna ili bez svesnosti da se uči, opažaju se kao manje značajna i vredna. Međutim, konstruktivističko i kognitivističko razumevanje prirode saznajnog procesa ukazuje na neophodnost prepoznavanja i uvažavanja svih stečenih znanja i iskustva koje osoba sa sobom donosi u situaciju učenja. Drugim rečima, kvalitet formalnog obrazovanja se ne može osigurati ukoliko se ignoriše i ono što su učenici/studenti stekli kroz informalno učenje. Cilj ovog rada je da utvrdi perspektivu studenata prema vlastitom informalnom učenju. Kvalitativnim pristupom analizirali smo pisane iskaze studenata da bi utvrdili kojih učenja su svesni i ko ili šta su im bili podrške ili modeli za učenje. Grupisanjem iskaza po sličnosti dobili smo 13 različitih kategorija naučenih znanja i veština (od kojih je najzastupljenije učenje vezano za praktikovanje različitih vidova umetnosti) i 13 vidova potpore tim učenjima (od kojih su najzastupljenije informaciono-komunikacione tehnologije (IKT)). U radu se predlažu pravci planskog i osmišljenog integrisanja informalnog učenja studenata u formalni kontekst studija.