Defensive and Expansive Cycles of Learning: A Study of Home Care Encounters
Open accessAbstract
This study examines learning in home care visits aimed at systematic facilitation of clients’ physical mobility. Building on the theory of expansive learning, we ask what kinds of learning cycles may be identified in home care encounters charged with implementing the new Mobility Agreement practice, what kinds of interplay may be detected between the parallel learning cycles of the home care client and the home care worker, and what the characteristics of defensive learning are. The data consist of 30 videotaped home care visits. The learning cycles of the encounters were found to be either predominantly defensive or expansive, which led to the identification of 4 basic types of combined learning cycles. Encounters in which the client’s and the worker’s cycles were aligned tended to contain fewer learning actions than encounters in which the cycles moved to opposite directions. The latter types of encounters were characterized by subtle orientational mismatches that left matters open and invoked further elaboration by the client and the worker. Defensive cycles were more reflective than expected and seemed to involve aspects of agency that are not commonly acknowledged.
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The smallest scale of mini-cycles of expansive learning consists of single intervention sessions or similar restricted episodes.
“The smallest scale of mini-cycles of expansive learning consist of single intervention sessions or similar restricted episodes (e.g., Nummijoki et al. 2018).”
From Using activity theory to transform medical work and learning (2021) · cites this paper as Nummijoki et al. 2018
If expansive learning is successful, participants will move through the seven learning actions in the learning cycle and qualitative transformation will occur in all aspects of the activity system.
“If this process is successful, the participants will move through the seven learning actions in the learning cycle (Table 2) and qualitative transformation will occur in all aspects of the activity system (Engeström, 2007, Engeström et al., 2013, Nummijoki et al., 2018).”
From SimLab: an intervention to promote expansive learning and organisational change in team-based emergency care simulation (2025) · cites this paper as Nummijoki et al., 2018
Several studies of expansive learning have required a prolonged study period of several years.
“Several studies of expansive learning have required a prolonged study period of several years (Engeström et al., 2007;Nummijoki et al., 2018).”
From SimLab: an intervention to promote expansive learning and organisational change in team-based emergency care simulation (2025) · cites this paper as Nummijoki et al., 2018
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- Authors
- Nummijoki, J., Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- University of Tampere (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Nummijoki, Jaana
- Venue
- Journal of the Learning Sciences
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-01-10
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 224-264
- ISSN
- 1050-8406 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-7809
- OpenAlex
- W2774026692
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 11.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- trepo.tuni.fi
- Locations
- Journal of the Learning Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Tampere University Institutional Repository (Tampere University) (acceptedVersion)
- Tampere University Institutional Repository (Tampere University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- the Academy of Finland (No. 253804)
- Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes (No. 2992/31/2009)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Innovative Education and Learning Practices
- Social Sciences › Education › Adult and Continuing Education Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational and Psychological Assessments
- Keywords
- expansive learning, learning cycle, home care, physical mobility, customer-employee interaction, reflective practice, agency, home care workers, client learning
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