Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing as an approach to learning: VCE Psychology Unit 3

Answer: C. This is a 1 mark multiple-choice item.

C names the features that make these ways of knowing distinctive: learning is relational (embedded in relationships), tied to kinship, and organised through Country. The examiners' report says students should recognise these ways of knowing as unique, complex and sophisticated systems that differ from Western concepts of learning.

A is true of many Western classrooms too, so it is not a unique aspect. B describes a transmission model of teaching, which is the opposite of learning embedded in relationships. D misreads "multimodal system": it is not a collection of artefacts but a system of knowledge carried through story, song, dance, art, Country and relationships at once.

Source: VCAA 2023 VCE Psychology examination, Section A, Question 11, and the 2023 examination report. The explanation is our own.

Answer: B. This is a 1 mark multiple-choice item.

A yarning circle is a structured, culturally safe group conversation. The study design lists yarning circles as one of the methods that can be used in fieldwork, one of its scientific investigation methodologies, so it is a practice that can be used to research ways of knowing.

A (modelling) is a methodology, but it is not an Indigenous Australian practice. C and D describe parts of how knowledge is held (along tracks on Country and through relationships), not a way of collecting data about it.

Source: VCAA 2025 VCE Psychology examination, Section A, Question 18, and the 2025 examination report. The explanation is our own.

1 mark for stating that knowledge is held and passed on through relationships (between people, across generations and with Country); 1 mark for an example or consequence of this, such as kinship determining who holds and who can receive particular knowledge.

Sample answer: Knowledge is not a set of facts that exists on its own; it is held within relationships between people, across generations and with Country. Kinship shapes who holds certain knowledge, who it is shared with and when, and passing it on is part of a person's responsibilities to others.

1 mark for explaining multimodal (knowledge is carried in several modes at once); 1 mark for two correct modes, such as story, song, dance, art, symbols or places on Country; 1 mark for explaining 'patterned on Country' (knowledge is organised by and linked to specific places and the relationships between them).

Sample answer: Knowledge is multimodal because the same knowledge is held in more than one form at once, for example in a sung story and in a dance, so each mode reinforces the other. It is patterned on Country because the knowledge is organised around particular places, features and the connections between them, so moving through or recalling Country is also a way of organising and retrieving what is known.

1 mark for a valid similarity; 1 mark for each of two valid differences, each stated for both approaches (2 marks); 1 mark for accurate use of terminology from both approaches (antecedent, behaviour, consequence; relationships, Country, multimodal).

• Similarity: in both, learning happens through experience and involves the learner actively doing something (operant behaviour; participating in story, ceremony or activity on Country).
• Difference 1 (unit of analysis): operant conditioning focuses on an individual's behaviour and its consequences; ways of knowing situate the learner within a system of relationships with people, kin and Country.
• Difference 2 (what drives learning): in operant conditioning behaviour is shaped by reinforcement and punishment; in ways of knowing learning is guided by relationships and responsibilities, with knowledge shared through multiple modes rather than acquired through consequences.

Marks: 1 identifying the elements of observational learning that are present; 1 identifying what the claim leaves out; 2 explaining the ways of knowing features in this scenario (relationships, multimodal, patterned on Country); 1 a supported judgement.

• Partly supported: students do attend to a model (the Elder), may retain and later reproduce parts of the story or art, and may be motivated to do so, so parts of the attention, retention, reproduction, motivation and reinforcement process could be present.
• What the claim misses: observational learning describes an individual copying a model. It does not capture that the knowledge is embedded in relationships (shared by an Elder with authority to share it, within a relationship of respect and responsibility), that it is carried in several modes at once (walking, story, place and art reinforce each other) and that it is patterned on Country (the knowledge is tied to the places visited).
• Judgement: the claim is only partly accurate. Observational learning explains some individual processes, but the experience is better described as an approach that situates the learner within a system of relationships and Country, which is how the study design frames Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing.

1 mark for a feature of the yarning circle (a culturally safe, relational group conversation, led with the community); 1 mark for linking it to the nature of what is studied (knowledge that is relational, shared in context and tied to Country); 1 mark for a limitation of the controlled experiment in this context (removes learning from its relationships and Country, may not be culturally safe, and so would lack validity).

Sample answer: A yarning circle is a respectful, community-led group conversation that fits the way knowledge is shared through relationships and story, so it can collect rich qualitative data in a culturally safe way. A laboratory experiment would isolate one variable away from Country and kin, which removes the very context in which this learning happens, so its findings would have low validity for the research question. The study design asks researchers to consider the cultural appropriateness and cultural safety of each methodology.