Sciences of Learning
Learning is the core business of education and higher education in particular. In what is now known as a learning society, learning transcends and underpins a large part of human activities. In light of global socio-economic, cultural and technological changes, we need to develop educated citizens with an increased capacity to learn and to innovate. Learning is pivotal, and an understanding of human learning should have essential implications for our lives.
Researchers have long recognized that learning is a central focus of research, but they usually come from a diversity of fields. Only in recent years have various research efforts on learning been integrated to form what is now called “Learning Sciences”, an interdisciplinary field of scientific inquiry into how learning takes place and how it can be fostered in complex settings. Within this context, HKU has established a Strategic Research Theme (SRT) on the Sciences of Learning, which builds on the University’s existing strengths and seeks to bring together expertise from across the faculties as a platform for research and innovation on human learning.
Vision and Mission
We intend to develop the theme of Sciences of Learning as a vehicle for sustained growth and research excellence. In light of imminent curriculum reform in higher education and secondary schooling, research into the sciences of learning is of paramount importance.
We believe that it is time to establish a platform so that the diversity of research themes to the sciences of learning can be gathered to form a collaborative cross-disciplinary community of researchers, pooling knowledge to advance the frontiers of our understanding about human learning. The theme will provide the initial catalyst for researchers to share information and enter into academic dialogue; initiate and undertake substantial and significant collaborative research; respond to issues of learning locally, nationally and internationally; and explore the implications of collaboration for advancing learning in a wide range of educational contexts and beyond.
Focus & Research Goals
The SRT Sciences of Learning follows and expands on the research field of “Learning Sciences” as a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research theme with a focus on the theoretical and scientific inquiry into learning. This theme is broad in encompassing a diversity of theoretical paradigms, perspectives and domains of inquiry, but also focused with a concentration on several key research goals:
(1) Investigating learning as a human capacity and examining how learning takes place in various dimensions of human development (e.g., neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental science, language learning, learning disability, motor learning, and affective learning).
(2) Examining and designing how human learning can be better achieved through pedagogical and technological designs that are enacted in complex and novel educational contexts (e.g., problem-based learning, technology-enhanced learning, science and math inquiry, medical education, and pedagogy in higher education).
(3) Understanding the nature of individual and collective participation and learning processes directed at growth and development in academic, research, teaching, and policy-making endeavors in pursuit of excellence (e.g., knowledge building, learning networks, learning communities, and sustained innovation).
(4) Examining and analyzing the social, cultural and contextual dynamics within which human learning takes place, and how to respond to and improve their dimensions (e.g., culture and learning, workplace learning, early childhood and girl education, educational reform, policy reorientation).
This research agenda, although broad, is underpinned by a key focus on examining the fundamentals of human learning.