The Role of Epistemology in Practice-Based Learning: The Case of Artifacts

Abstract

One way that higher education institutions attempt to promulgate and standardise practices around practice-based learning is through the use of artifacts: forms, workbooks, documented practices, narratives and the like. This chapter examines the functioning of practice-based learning artifacts. In particular, the chapter is concerned with understanding how artifacts, whose official purpose is to educate about and standardise practice-based learning, are used in positive ways to promote best practice while at the same time they may work against development and implementation of best practice. We employ Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital to theorise the reasons for variations in the effectiveness of artifacts in standardizing practice-based learning activities. We bring Michel de Certeau’s concepts of strategy and tactic to bear on understanding ways in which academics use artifacts to inform their implementation of practice-based learning.