Intentionality and Other “Nonsignifi cant” Issues in Learning: Commentary on Margaret Martinez’s “Intentional Learning in an Intentional World”

The backdrop facilitating Margaret Martinez’s study and the increased interest in studies of learners and of alternative learning environments is a complicated one. Most certainly, technological advances during the last decade have invigorated educational institutions and corporate interest in providing alternative educational opportunities for under-represented audiences. Additionally, numerous educational researchers have noted the increased pressure to provide improved educational experiences that are driven by both internal and external pressures on traditional educational institutions. Internally, educational institutions are responding to concerns about student quality and learning issues related to existing instruction. Koshmann, Kelson, Feltovich, and Barrows (1996), in their discussion of what graduates should be but are frequently not, suggest that many believe that “existing educational systems are producing individuals who fail to develop a valid, robust knowledge base; who have diffi culty reasoning with and applying knowledge; and who lack the ability to reflect upon their performance and continue the process of learning” (p. 85). Moran (1992) argues that the public perception of higher education is not particularly favorable, noting that there “is the widespread perception that we are not now doing our job very well” (p. 9). Internally, university administrators have suggested that the need to revise existing instructional structures has as much to do with fi nancial pressures as it does with the demands of emerging student populations. Hanna (1998) suggests that educational reform is occurring due to the rapid growth of customer-oriented approaches to education, in addition to the university’s increased “focus on responsiveness to learner needs and desires such as convenience, timing, engagement, application of knowledge to the workplace, and learning by doing” (p. 91). Unfortunately, how this struggle plays itself out at the administrative level is likely to bear only a slight relationship to empirical developments related to learner types, instructional approaches and settings. Still, Martinez’s study challenges us to address a shortcoming with traditionally cognitive approaches to the problem that I applaud.