Educational science and psychology put an emphasis on the development of individual competences and of individual performance when analyzing vocational and professional learning. Thus, intraindividual processes of skill formation are of utmost importance. Their psychological investigation mainly relies on information processing models and thus stresses cognitive components of competence. From an educational point of view, instructional models have been developed that aim at supporting the individual's acquisition of components of competence. Different opinions exist as to whether instructional support should mainly focus on reproducing systematically the to-be-learned domain knowledge, skills, and strategies, or whether instructional support should mainly focus on enabling learners to apply their knowledge in transfer situations. As a consequence, two rather different lines of instructional research can be distinguished: the one stressing formal learning processes, and the other stressing situated learning processes.

DISCUSSION ABOUT FORMAL AND SITUATED LEARNING

After the advent of the situated cognition movement, debates about formal learning and situated learning, as well as about the appropriate design of learning environments for skill acquisition, have been revitalized. The debates were grounded in the recognition of weaknesses that had been identified in so-called traditional formal learning settings. In particular, problems of knowledge application had been repeatedly observed in such learning settings: transfer from learning situations into application situations frequently failed. This was even true if the learners had proven to have mastered all learning requirements. Obviously, there is a substantial risk that knowledge that successfully was acquired remains inert (Renkl et al., 1996).