Exploration Project through the Prism of a Social Theory of Learning
This paper aims at investigating an exploration project drawing on a social theory of learning usually linked to communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). On the one hand, exploration projects are viewed as a collective learning process rather than a set of coordination mechanisms. On the other hand, situated learning is not limited to communities of practice (Amin and Roberts, 2008). We suggest articulating exploration projects with a social theory of learning to address the following research question: what can we learn, both theoretically and empirically, from studying exploration project teams through the prism of a social theory of learning? We investigate our research question with a field study of a Mars exploration simulation. We show that this project can be viewed as a structuring dynamic that combines meaning, participation and reification. Our results allow refining our understanding of situated collective learning processes in exploration projects.