Many wheelchair-users have few models from which they can learn something in their everyday life. For this reason, a course in wheelchair technique is important. A rehabilitation course where participants have different and contrasting experiences and levels of skill provides a singular opportunity to learn from the more experienced user.

This provides a fine possibility to learn, says researcher Øyvind Standal, who has written his doctoral dissertation on learning and rehabilitation.

 

Physical and social learning
Standal has studied the physical and social learning processes involved between participants in a rehabilitation involving the wheelchair at Health Sport Centre Beitostølen. Here, participants learn both wheelchair skills and appropriate physical activities.

– In my research I have looked at the learning process which occurs during rehabilitation, both from a pedagogic and a philosophical standpoint, and two forms of meaningful relations are discussed.

 

The learning process prior to closer consideration
Observation and imitation are central themes. In this connection, imitation is not a question whereby one decides to imitate another: physical learning is essentially reflexive. That is to say that it occurs before we have time to think about it.

The French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty maintains that ‘the decisive present’ in the learning process emerges when a meaningful relation arises between a situation and a physical subject.

This is to say that before we understand the word, we are affected by our own opinion. Imitation is an important path to bodily learning.
Participants in a group also form their own opinion in an active group relationship.

When encountering others, they find a standard by which they can compare themselves, and acquire a language (words, expression and narratives) which enables them to understand their own situation as a wheelchair user.

 

Not possible with comprehensive planning
Learning is a dynamic but unpredictable project, and as such cannot be planned or managed in detail.

In his research, Øyvind Standal emphasises the importance of learning. That is to say one adopts a ‘hands off’ pedagogical approach. Educators may well renounce control and power, and prefer to contribute to the learning process through restructuring resources which already exist in all practical communities.

– The rehabilitation process has developed from one which was purely medical to being regarded in a far more comprehensive perspective. Rehabilitation also includes pedagogical work, Standal points out.

– My doctoral dissertation presents a theoretical viewpoint of the learning process during rehabilitation. I show that the rehabilitation course provides a welcome opportunity to meet others in similar situations, and that meaningful relationships which arise between participants is an important resource in the learning process, Standal concludes.

 

Background: On 12 June 2009, Sandal defended his thesis ‘Relations of meaning. A phenomenologically-oriented case study of learning bodies in a rehabilitation context’ for the PhD degree in the Department of Physical Performance and Pedagogy at the Norwegian College of Sport Science. The thesis is available in Brage (institutional archives).