Ryan Valley
ETEC 512
Cognitivism
Cognitive theories stress the acquisition of knowledge and internal mental structures . . . [they] focus on the conceptualization of students’ learning processes and address the issues of how information is received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 51).
What is quintessentially cognitivist ?
Cognitivist educational theories emerged from behaviourism’s inability to account for or explain internal mental processes related to learning. Early cognitivists were interested in understanding and describing how external stimuli is processed and stored for future recall, which represented a shift from thinking about learning as a simple cause and effect physical reaction (Yilmaz, 2011). Importantly, cognitivists had also come to see learners as active participants in the learning process rather than merely subjected to it. According to Ertmer and Newby (2013) “educators began to de-emphasize a concern with overt, observable behavior and stressed instead more complex cognitive processes such as thinking, problem solving, language, concept formation and information processing” (pp. 50-51).
Cognitive learning theories focus on conceptualizing learning processes while recognizing that learners are active and engaged:
- How information is received
- How information is processed and organized
- How information is retrieved, remembered, and used
Early Influences
Notable early influencers of the cognitivist movement include Piaget, Vygotsky, the Gestalt psychologists, and Edward Tolman in the early 20th century (Yilmaz, 2011). Piaget and Vygotsky are seen as instrumental in the development of both cognitivist and constructivist theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the importance of the relationship between context and learning processes, and the Gestalt movement in Germany brought attention to the importance of perception, and how “objects or events are viewed as organized wholes . . . people use principles to organize their perceptions” (Schunk, 2012, p. 175). Early cognitivists laid the groundwork for many critical concepts such as schema as a way of describing how new data is organized based on past knowledge and experience, and challenging the assumptions of behaviourism.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget attempted to explain cognition, arguing that children actively try to understand the world around them in distinct and sequential stages of cognitive development (Yilmaz, 2011):
- Sensorimotor (0 to 2 years): Development of goals
- Preoperational (2 to 7 years): Symbolic representation of objects and events in the mind
- Concrete operational (7 to 11 years): Logical problem solving
- Formal operational (11+): Abstract concepts, higher level thinking
Schemata are central to Piaget’s theories as the cognitive structures responsible for organizing and interpreting environmental patterns and events (Yilmaz, 2011).
Vygotsky’s Social Cognitivism
Vygotsky’s theoretical lens explained cognition through social interaction and dialogue. Perhaps most famously, Vygotsky developed the theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as the gap between a learner’s ability to independently solve a problem and their ability to solve it working together with the guidance of an expert or peers (Yilmaz, 2011).
Gestalt Psychologists and Theory
Gestalt psychology was foundational to contemporary views of perception and information processing theory. Kohler, Koffka, and Wertheimer are famous for their challenges to behaviourism due to their work toward understanding cognitive processes in the early 1900s (Schunk, 2012).
Gestalt theory attempted to understand how we perceive and organize information, arguing that “meaningful perception and insight occur only through conscious awareness” (Schunk, 2012, p. 176) and that how we perceive objects can be described through organizing principles.
Tolman’s Theory of Sign Learning
Like many psychologists, Tolman experimented with rats in mazes. In the 1920s, Tolman discovered that the rats seemed to recognize which maze they were in as if they had a “mental map”. Tolman argued that motivation guided behaviour; that “behavior had both purpose and direction and occurred without reinforcement” (Yilmaz, 2011, p. 205)
It is against this backdrop of the early 20th century that the two main cognitive theories I will focus on in this presentation came to fruition: Social Cognitive Theory and Information Processing Theory.
Major Cognitivist Learning Theories
The triadically reciprocal relationship model describes how internal processes, behaviour, and environmental factors all influence each other. SCT posits that “people learn from their environment” (Schunk, 2012, p. 159), explaining that learning can occur:
- Enactively: by doing
- Vicariously: by observing modeling
“Humans are processors of information. The mind is an information-processing system. Cognition is a series of mental processes. Learning is the acquisition of mental representations.” (Mayer, 1996, p. 154)
IPT sees the mind and memory as being similar to an information processing system such as a computer (Orey, 2002). The main components of the theory are sensory registers, short term memory (STM, aka working memory), and long term memory (LTM).
Sensory registers mostly refer to hearing and seeing, they are the inputs to the computer. Data enters the system through your eyes or ears and makes its way to the sensory registers. Each new piece of information that reaches the sensory registers is like an external drive that automatically turns off if you do not access the files stored on it. If you decide to use the new data for something, it is transferred to STM for immediate use, “STM is a working memory and corresponds roughly to awareness, or what one is conscious of at a given moment” (Schunk, 2012, p. 167).
STM is where data is temporarily cached while you address it, but not stored permanently. It is not possible to fully describe how STM works without referring to LTM. STM is kind of like LTM’s executive assistant. It is a gatekeeper to LTM, and functions as a representative of LTM. Data shows up from the sensory registers and STM answers the call, responding based on LTM (what you already know). If your appointment with LTM is something simple STM can deal with itself, it takes care of it and kicks you out; if the data is used and no longer needed it is wiped from the system. If someone else barges into the waiting room (new information interferes) your appointment may be lost. STM is said to only be able to handle five to nine items at a time (Miller, 1956). Rehearsal can aid STM through repeating the information, like when you are trying to remember a phone number before you can write it down (Schunk, 2012, p. 166).
LTM admits information for storage through elaboration, building meaningful connections with existing schemata. This can be done through executive processes to help connect ideas and concepts, weaving them into memory for long term storage. According to Schunk (2012), executive or control processes include:
- coding (putting information into context)
- imaging (visually representing information)
- implementing decision rules
- organizing information
- monitoring level of understanding
- using retrieval
- self-regulation and motivational strategies (p. 168)
- Declarative: rules, facts and concepts
- Procedural: “how-to”, performing tasks, processes
- Episodic: anecdotal memories of events
Digital Instructional Practices
“Cognitive theories emphasize making knowledge meaningful and helping learners organize and relate new information to existing knowledge in memory” (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 54)
Ertmer and Newby (2012) describe a variety of approaches to cognitive instruction. I have adapted their examples to create a tip sheet for instructors who wish to take a cognitive approach to their educational technology practice.
- Recognize and treat learners as active participants; “learner control, metacognitive training (e.g., self-planning,
monitoring, and revising techniques)” (p. 53). On an LMS this could mean allowing them access to their dashboard so they can see their progress. - Chunk information into its most essential elements, eliminate irrelevant information
- Streamline learner creation or adaption of mental models through clearly structured sequencing “use of cognitive strategies such as outlining, summaries, synthesizers, advance organizers, etc.” (p. 53)
- Find out what your learners already know so you can effectively connect new concepts. Online this could be a discussion forum, pre-assignment or a survey
- Know your learners’ attitudes and motivations around learning
- Get to know how your learners maintain and direct their own learning
- Let learners practice and give them tailored feedback (projects, recall, retrieval, quizzes)
Discussion Prompts
Which aspects of your practice are rooted in cognitivism?
To what degree do you use principles based on SCT or IPT?
References
Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y. (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological Review, 111(4), 1036-1060. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.111.4.1036
Bandura, A. (2011). Chapter 17: Social cognitive theory. In P. A. M. van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychological Theories (pp. 349-373). London: Sage.
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71. https://doi.org/10.1002/piq.21143
Mayer, R. E. (1996). Learners as information processors: Legacies and limitations of educational psychology’s second metaphor. Educational Psychologist, 31, 151–161
Orey, M. (2002). Information Processing. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology (pp. 25-26). A Global Text.
Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6th ed.). Pearson.
Yilmaz, K. (2011). The cognitive perspective on learning: Its theoretical underpinnings and implications for classroom practices. The Clearing House, 84(5), 204-212. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2011.568989