Learning power

Learning power refers to the collection of psychological traits and skills that enable a person to engage effectively with a variety of learning challenges. The concept emerged during the 1980s and 90s, for example in the writings of the cognitive scientist Guy Claxton, as a way of describing the form of intelligence possessed by someone who, to quote Jean Piaget's phrase,"…knows what to do when they don't know what to do." The forms of learning envisaged are typically broader than those encountered in formal educational settings, for example those that are of most use in learning sports or musical instruments, or in mastering complex social situations.

Though Learning Power is conceived as a form of intelligence, it differs from some more familiar notions of intelligence in a number of important ways.

Different authors have produced lists of the ingredients of Learning Power that differ somewhat, but largely overlap. Those of US authors such as Costa, Perkins and Ritchhart tend to be more focused on the kinds of intellectual learning typical of high schools and universities, while that of Claxton and his associates in the UK (Ruth Deakin-Crick, Bill Lucas) attempt to cover learning in informal as well as formal settings.

Within his Building Learning Power framework, for example, Guy Claxton proposes a list of 17 learning capacities grouped into four clusters called resilience, resourcefulness, reciprocity and reflection.

More recently the framework has been developed in collaboration with Bill Lucas to more explicitly cover non-academic or 'real-world' learning. Practical tools for schools have been developed that are aimed at enhancing students' confidence and capacity as learners, both within the institution and beyond. The tools embrace Art Costa's [Habits of Mind] programme, Ruth Deakin-Crick's ELLI (Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory) self-report questionnaire for assessing the development of learning power and Guy Claxton's Building Learning Power (BLP) publications and materials. Some of these concentrate on practical routines and methods for use by classroom teachers, while others attempt to take a broader approach towards whole-school culture change.

Most of the educational approaches based on the idea of Learning power are still in development, so large scale evaluations are thin on the ground as Ritchhart records in his work on dispositional development. The ELLI instrument is well trialled and several reports of its development and use have been published. Guy Claxton's Building Learning Power programme has produced several hundred action research reports.

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