The Hidden Lives of Learners

The Hidden Lives of Learners takes the reader deep into the hitherto undiscovered world of the learner. It explores the three worlds which together shape a student's learning - the public world of the teacher, the highly influential world of peers, and the student's own private world and experiences. What becomes clear is that just because a teacher is teaching, does not mean students are learning.

Using a unique method of data collection through meticulous recording - audio, video, observations, interviews, pre- and post-tests - and the collation and analysis of what occurred inside and outside the classroom, Graham Nuthall has definitively documented what is involved for most students to learn and retain a concept. In the author's lifetime the significance of his discoveries and the rare mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were widely recognised and continue to be one of the foundation stones of evidence-based quality education.

This book is the culmination of Professor Graham Nuthall's forty years of research on learning and teaching. It is written with classroom teachers and teachers of teachers in mind. But realising time was short and that his life's work was laid out in learned papers for fellow researchers, he wrote this brief but powerful book for a much wider audience as well: for all those who seek a better understanding of classroom learning.