Nogueiras Gloria, Kunnen E Saskia, Iborra Alejandro
Department of Educational Sciences, University of AlcaláAlcalá de Henares, Spain.
Department of Developmental Psychology, University of GroningenGroningen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2017 May 3;8:667. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00667. eCollection 2017.
This study adopts a dynamic systems approach to investigate how individuals successfully manage contextual complexity. To that end, we tracked individuals' emotional trajectories during a challenging training course, seeking qualitative changes-turning points-and we tested their relationship with the perceived complexity of the training. The research context was a 5-day higher education course based on process-oriented experiential learning, and the sample consisted of 17 students. The students used a five-point Likert scale to rate the intensity of 16 emotions and the complexity of the training on 8 measurement points. Monte Carlo permutation tests enabled to identify 30 turning points in the 272 emotional trajectories analyzed (17 students 16 emotions each). 83% of the turning points indicated a change of pattern in the emotional trajectories that consisted of: (a) increasingly intense positive emotions or (b) decreasingly intense negative emotions. These turning points also coincided with particularly complex periods in the training as perceived by the participants ( = 0.003, and = 0.001 respectively). The relationship between positively-trended turning points in the students' emotional trajectories and the complexity of the training may be interpreted as evidence of a successful management of the cognitive conflict arising from the clash between the students' prior ways of meaning-making and the challenging demands of the training. One of the strengths of this study is that it provides a relatively simple procedure for identifying turning points in developmental trajectories, which can be applied to various longitudinal experiences that are very common in educational and developmental contexts. Additionally, the findings contribute to sustaining that the assumption that complex contextual demands lead unfailingly to individuals' learning is incomplete. Instead, it is how individuals manage complexity which may or may not lead to learning. Finally, this study can also be considered a first step in research on the developmental potential of process-oriented experiential learning training.
本研究采用动态系统方法来探究个体如何成功应对情境复杂性。为此，我们在一个具有挑战性的培训课程中追踪个体的情绪轨迹，寻找质性变化——转折点——并测试它们与所感知到的培训复杂性之间的关系。研究背景是一个基于过程导向体验式学习的为期5天的高等教育课程，样本由17名学生组成。学生们使用五点李克特量表对16种情绪的强度以及在8个测量点上的培训复杂性进行评分。蒙特卡洛排列检验能够在分析的272条情绪轨迹（17名学生，每人16种情绪）中识别出30个转折点。83%的转折点表明情绪轨迹的模式发生了变化，包括：(a) 积极情绪日益强烈或 (b) 消极情绪日益减弱。这些转折点也与参与者所感知到的培训中特别复杂的时期相吻合（分别为 = 0.003和 = 0.001）。学生情绪轨迹中呈正向趋势的转折点与培训复杂性之间的关系，或许可以被解释为成功应对了因学生先前的意义构建方式与培训的挑战性要求之间的冲突而产生的认知冲突的证据。本研究的优势之一在于，它提供了一种相对简单的程序来识别发展轨迹中的转折点，该程序可应用于教育和发展背景中非常常见的各种纵向经历。此外，研究结果有助于支持这样一种观点，即复杂的情境需求必然会导致个体学习的假设是不完整的。相反，个体如何应对复杂性可能会也可能不会导致学习。最后，本研究也可被视为关于过程导向体验式学习培训发展潜力研究的第一步。
