Nuthall, G. (2007). The hidden lives of learners. Wellington: NZCER PRESS.

The hidden lives of learners describes a huge qualitative and quantitative study of individual student’s learning within classrooms. Data collection included recording individual students’ public and private talk, and semi-structured interviews about prior/post knowledge and learning.

Classrooms are complex social and culturally bound contexts: Teachers adapt to learners’ needs in here-and-now circumstances, making moment-by-moment decisions. However, recommendations to improve teaching often simply state what and how to teach and fail to include why. Also effective teaching judgements are often merely based on current (ever-changing) fashions in education, rather than students’ actual learning gains.

The public sphere of classrooms is only a partial reality. Engaged students are not necessarily learning. Classroom learning co-exists in three worlds: public worlds that we are able to hear and see, semiprivate worlds of peer relationships and social statuses, and private worlds within learners’ minds, that include thinking, knowledge, learning, beliefs and attitudes.

It is difficult see students’ learning. Tests do not measure students’ knowledge or skills: tests reveal motivation and test taking skills, and comparisons. Nuthall’s research shows that students of varying abilities achieve similar learning gains, and post tests mostly reflect prior learning rather than new learning.

Nuthall believes that students learn what they do (which can be copying notes and coping with boredom), and students’ social relationships determine learning. Effective activities are built around big questions, and effectiveness increases when students manage learning activities.

Individual students learn different things from the same activities because prior knowledge, experiences, interests, and motivation affect learning. New concepts are not created or transferred to long-term memory until enough information has accumulated to warrant the creation. If this does not occur, new experiences are treated as just another version and are forgotten. Analysis of students’ private-social and self talk shows that students need exposure to and interaction with three complete sets of relevant information to construct new concepts. Specifically, students need 1) explicit concept description, 2) implicit information, 3) additional background information, 4) preparatory context information, 5) mention/uninformative reference to concepts, 6) activities, and 7) visual resources. Students need time to interact with information—at least three times—to process new concepts. Peer interactions and social relationships greatly affect learning. Teachers can improve learning by becoming involved in peer cultures and shaping class culture.

Learning is highly individual and varied. About a third of a student’s learning is unique and not learned by others in the class.