Martin Oliver
London Knowledge Lab, University of London, UK

The problem with affordances

The concept of affordances has played a growing role in research in cyberspace education. For example, it features in key texts such as Laurillard's Rethinking University Teaching (2002: 117) and is central to developing research agendas (e.g. Conole & Dyke, 2004). However, uses of this concept have been critcised within related disciplines such as Human-computer interaction (McGrenere & Ho, 2000), where a drift has been noted from the original sense of the term. Contemporary use of the term within learning technology has also been criticised for this slippage (Boyle & Cook, 2004). This paper will critique contemporary use of the term, from historical and philosophical perspectives.

The term was coined by Gibson (1979) as a component of his theory of ecological perception. Importantly, the focus for his work was not about learning or social change, but about the link between environment and perception. So important was this focus to him that he commences his account with the clear message, "this is a book about how we see" (ibid, p1). Central to this is the idea that "the words animal and environment make an inseparable pair" (p8). Consequently, there is a relationship between them, and part of this relationship is the way in which the persistent (invariant) features of the environment permit the animal do things - such as perceive things. These permitted actions are 'affordances'. He further asserts that affordances "explain the sense in which values and meanings are external to the perceiver" (p.127), thus reduces meaning to ecological relationships. Gibson emphasises, "the niche [defined as a set of affordances] should not be confused with what some animal psychologists have called the phenomenal environment of the species […], the 'subjective world,' or the world of 'consciousness'" (p.129). These claims place affordances well outside the concerns familiar to educationalists.

These ideas were taken up, but altered, by Norman (1979):

The term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. (p9)

Although he discusses some examples along Gibson's lines ("A flat plate affords pushing, an empty container affords filling, and so on": p. 82) he focuses primarily on the interpretation of visible cues - a divergence he recognised (p.219) and later regretted (Norman, 2002).

Both of these uses, however, differ from the way in which they have been taken up by researchers in cyberspace education. For example, Laurillard et al (2002) assert:

Examples for education would be: A large lecture affords listening A small group also affords preparing to speak. In each case the features as perceived by an observer create the possibility for a certain kind of behaviour. (p3)

Conole & Dyke (2004: 116) simply list "a list of the potential themes and commonalities" from the current literature on the use of technology, including qualities attributable to the technology (e.g. non-linear), to its user (e.g. reflection) as well as to the two in relationship (e.g. immediacy).
The coherence of these contemporary approaches will be challenged philosophically, focusing specifically on the inconsistencies between the positivistic nature of affordance and socio-cultural views of knowledge.
Finally, the paper will conclude by considering whether another theory of perception (Polanyi, 1969) can provide an alternative, more educationally-relevant explanation of people's relationship with technology.

References

Conole, G. & Dyke, M. (2004) 'What are the affordances of information and communication technologies?' ALT-J, 12 (2), 113-124.

Laurillard, D. (2002) Rethinking University Teaching: a conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies (2nd edition). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

McGrenere, J. & Ho, W. (2000) 'Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concept'. Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2000, Montreal, May 2000. http://www.graphicsinterface.org/cgi-bin/DownloadPaper?name=2000/177/PDFpaper177.pdf

Gibson, J. (1979) The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Boyle, T. & Cook, J. (2004) 'Understanding and using technological affordances: a commentary on Conole & Dyke'. ALT-J, 12 (3).

Norman, D. (2002) 'Affordances and Design'. Available online: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances-and-design.html

Polanyi, M (1969) Knowing and Being. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.