The notion of learning progressions has recently attracted a good deal of attention in science education, and has become an active theme of research. Learning progressions are concerned with the development of students' knowledge, understanding, skills, and attitudes towards the targets set out in curriculum. The focus on learning progressions can be understood as a logical development from some decades of work exploring the contingent nature of students' learning about science topics in order to inform pedagogy. This line of work, often associated with the label 'constructivism', has, since its inception, highlighted a tension between a recognition of the often idiosyncratic nature of learners' ideas and learning trajectories, and the need to offer practical guidance to teachers who have to largely plan their teaching on a class/course basis. This tension has been evident in research methodologies adopted in studies, and in terms of how research findings are described, as well as in the kinds of guidance it has been possible to recommend based on research. This tension has sometimes been somewhat obscured by ambiguity in some of the language used, so that the same terms can be understood in ways that can involve (and obscure) important shifts in meaning, affordances, and implications. This ambiguity can be sensed in some of the developing work around learning progressions. The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. Firstly, ontological distinctions and shifts relating to the use of the term 'learning progression' are highlighted. It is argued that substantive distinctions need to be made explicit to avoid such ambiguity and ensure that the community (of researchers, teachers, curriculum developers, and policy-makers) share a common understanding of the nature of learning progressions and related concepts. Secondly, the nature and characteristics (strengths and weaknesses) of two different research traditions into students' ideas and learning are explored to highlight the challenge of building stepped models of student learning capable of authentically representing the complexity of student thinking and conceptual change. It is suggested that if the learning progressions research and development initiative is to have maximum impact through informing instruction it will need to seek to 'square the circle' of representing the complex, multi-facetted, and meandering nature of conceptual learning within models that have utility for classroom teachers.

Keywords:

learning progression, learning pathways, learning trajectories, science learning, individual differences

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