Educational Learning Theory

Kelly YL Ku, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

Sivanes Phillipson and Shane N Phillipson, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

A broad orientation to the principles and mechanisms underlying three major views of learning, namely, the behavioral
perspective, the cognitive perspective, and the sociocultural perspective are presented. The focuses are on how these
perspectives differ in their grounding assumptions and beliefs on how learning occurs and what constitutes the results or
products of learning, as well as their impacts on research, practices, and educational policies.

This article presents a broad orientation to the principles and
mechanisms underlying different views of learning, with an
emphasis on how different representations of learning have
affected and will continue to affect educational research and
practice.
A brief account of the development trends of the paradigms
of learning is first presented. Three major perspectives of
learning are discussed, namely, the behavioral perspective, the
cognitive perspective, and the sociocultural perspective. The
focus is on how these perspectives differ in their assumptions
and beliefs about how learning occurs, what constitutes the
results or products of learning, and how they impact research
and instructional approaches.
Introduction
Increasingly, research focuses on the link between learning
needs and culture, particularly within the ethnically diverse
classroom (Phillipson, 2011b). Hence, current research on
learning recognizes the important contributions of parents,
teachers, peers, and wider sociocultural influences and seeks to
understand how the social environment can be manipulated to
enhance learning outcomes. Table 1 gives an overview of the
attributes of the behavioral, cognitive, and sociocultural
learning theories.
The remaining sections elaborate on the three major para-
digms in education, beginning with the behavioral and
cognitive. This is followed by a description of the sociocultural
view. The final section describes individual differences under-
lying learning processes and learning outcomes. The article
closes with a brief account of current trends and related
educational policies.

Modern learning theories originated in the behavioral view of

learning, which took a straightforward approach to learning as
a stimulus–response relationship. The behavioral perspective
on learning has been applied in many educational settings
since the 1920s. Instructional strategies that are now widely
adopted in classrooms, specifically those of classroom
management and behavioral modification, are rooted in
behavioral principles. How the mind makes it possible to
understand, know, and think became a revolutionary focus in
the 1950s as cognitivism challenged the behavioral view of the
mind as a ‘blank slate.’ The cognitive perspective views
knowledge as the key learning outcome. In learning, cognitive
processes and functioning determine knowledge acquisition
and construction. Cognitive processes are, therefore, important
for educators to know and to incorporate into the design of
instruction to best facilitate learning.
Learning can also be conceptualized as a socially engrained
activity. Sociocultural perspectives have been used to explain
this kind of learning. Modern learning theory recognizes that
learning depends on the interaction of components within
a developing system. In other words, learning depends on the
maturation of the individual in his or her social context. As
a consequence, research in educational learning theory seeks to
understand the interactions between these components and the
immediate and extended environment. Modern learning
theories take into account the special educational needs of
students with emotional and behavioral disorders, and those
with the potential for exceptional academic achievement.
The Behavioral Perspective: Learning as Responding
to Environmental Stimuli
Behaviorism, which originated in psychology, asserts all
human behaviors result from interacting with the environment.
Behaviorists regard a learning outcome as a relatively perma-
nent change in a person’s behavior caused by environmental
influences such as experience or practice. J.B. Watson (1878–
1958), an American psychologist and the founder of behav-
iorism, regarded learning as fundamentally physiological and
mechanistic. In other words, learning is an automatic and
involuntary reaction to external stimuli. Later, B.F. Skinner
(1904–90) expanded the behavioral perspective of learning
into the investigation of voluntary action. What is central to
both involuntary and voluntary learning is the rejection of
introspective examination of the mind; cognition, feeling,
purpose, aim, and will are excluded in seeking to understand
the mechanism of how we learn, as these internal processes
cannot be publicly observed, controlled, and studied. This view
encouraged and emphasized the importance of formulating
principles of learning through the empirical study of observ-
able behavior.
Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning and Skinner’s
operant conditioning characterized the behavioral principles of
learning involuntary and voluntary actions respectively. They
both describe the stimulus–response relationship that results in
a person learning to perform an act or to respond in a certain

238 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.92150-0
Table 1 Overview of the three major learning theories
Principles of learning
Factors affecting learning
Role of learners
Products of learning
Key theories
Educational implications
Behavioral
Learning occurs as a result of stimulus–response
relationship. Motivation to learn comes from external
sources. Internal mental processes are irrelevant.
Environmental influences, reward, punishment, etc.
Passive and have little awareness of the learning
process
Overt behavior changes
Classical conditioning (Pavlov), operant conditioning
(Skinner)
Widely adopted in creating learning environment that
shapes behavior in desirable ways; strategies derived
include token economy, response cost, and time-out
procedures, etc.
Paradigm
Cognitive
Learning occurs as a result of the development of cognitive
abilities and use of cognitive strategies in remembering,
integrating, and making sense of the world. Learning might
take place without observable changes.
Cognitive development, environmental influences, cognitive
strategies, beliefs, self-efficacy, etc.
Engage mentally in active and purposeful construction of new
information and experience
Intellectual growth and knowledge acquired
Model of cognitive development (Piaget), information processing
theory (Atkinson and Shiffrin), levels of processing (Craik and
Lockhart)
Essential to contemporary understanding of how learners store,
retain, and reason information; allow educators to create
pedagogical strategies that facilitate the organization and
transmission of knowledge
Sociocultural
Learning occurs as a result of the maturation of an
individual in his or her social context through
interaction with others who are more skilled and
knowledgeable in the system. Learning takes
place in reciprocal conditions.
Cognitive development, significant other
environmental influences, cognitive strategies,
beliefs, etc.
Engage with others and the environment in active
and purposeful construction of new information
and experience
Intellectual growth, adaptation to the environment,
and knowledge acquired
Zone of proximal development (Vygotsky), cultural
behavior (Wertsch), apprenticeship (Rogoff),
ecological system (Bronfenbrenner), social
cognitive theory (Bandura)
Widely adopted as effective ways in structuring
learning where teachers are active facilitators in
Educational Learning Theory
scaffolding strategies in classroom teaching and
assessments; pedagogical strategies target
individuals to reach his or her potential in
learning.
239
240 Educational Learning Theory
way. In particular, commonly used strategies, such as the token
economy, response cost, and time-out procedures, arise from
the theory of operant conditioning. These strategies aim at
managing observable behaviors through consequences. If
applied consistently, they can be effective and powerful in
inducing learning motivation and modifying inappropriate
behaviors.
Involuntary Learning: The Theory of Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning demonstrated involuntary or reflexive
learning through association with stimuli. The founder of the
theory, Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), was a Nobel Prize-winning
Russian physiologist and neurologist whose earlier research
focused on involuntary reflexes of animals and later extended
to children. In Pavlov’s (1927) experiment on animals’
digestive systems, he found that dogs learned to salivate when
the sound of a bell was repeatedly paired with the presenta-
tion of food. Later, the learned response to salivate upon the
sound of the bell continued even without the presentation of
food. This automatic form of learning is what is called
‘conditioning.’ Watson extended Pavlov’s finding into the
study of more complex reflexes, such as emotional response.
In a controversial experiment, he conditioned a young child
named Albert to develop a fear of rats and objects that
resembled them.
In education, the theory of classical conditioning provides
the basis for understanding and treating test anxiety, school
phobia, and similar conditions. For instance, test anxiety is
a physiological response that can be unlearned if the presen-
tation of tests is repeatedly associated with a stimulus that
elicits pleasant emotion in students (Legge and Harari, 2000);
teachers should consistently present nonthreatening testing
environments to induce a positive reaction in their students.
Voluntary Learning: The Theory of Operant Conditioning
The word ‘operant’ refers to what we do to operate and func-
tion. Edward Thorndike (1894–1949) formulated the Law of
Effect, which states that a positive consequence will lead to
repetition of a behavior and that a negative one will discourage
a behavior from being repeated. This stimulus (consequence)–
response association forms the basic mechanism behind
operant conditioning. The theory, which was named by
Skinner in 1930s, describes the effect of consequences on the
learning of voluntary behaviors. Based on the principle that
a behavior is contingent on the desirability of consequences,
two concepts are central to operant conditioning: reinforce-
ment and punishment.
Strengthening a Behavior
Reinforcement is the addition of desirable, or the removal of
undesirable, stimuli from the environment immediately after
a behavior is performed so as to cause the particular behavior to
happen again. Academic performance can be reinforced by
praise, teacher recognition, opportunity to engage in a certain
school activity, and tangible rewards such as food and prizes.
The same reinforcer may not appeal to all students. For
instance, the token economy is a reinforcement strategy
whereby students are rewarded with a token (e.g., a sticker) that
can be used to exchange things with an inherent value, such as
extra activity time or access to computer learning materials. In
contrast, the strategy of response cost involves taking away an
earned reward for misbehavior. It maximizes the effect of
a reinforcer when used in conjunction with the token economy.
Providing reinforcement at the right time is the key to
sustaining a learned behavior. In general, reinforcement needs
to be provided consistently. Yet the schedule of reinforcement
can also be varied in terms of interval or ratio so that a behavior
is not reinforced every time.
Recent research has been exploring the effect of a combina-
tion of adding desirable and removing undesirable stimuli on
task performance (Bouxsein et al., 2011). Moreover, research
has also begun to examine the physical and neurological effects
of reward and punishment on learning different tasks.
Weakening a Behavior
In contrast, punishment reduces the probability of a behavior
being repeated. When a behavior is followed by an unpleasant
stimulus (e.g., public reprimand), or when a pleasant stimulus
is removed (e.g., recess time), the behavior is less likely to
happen again. Although punishment can immediately stop or
suppress a behavior, it can instill fear, anxiety, and avoidance of
the punisher. A popular strategy that is used by teachers and
psychologists to modify disruptive classroom behaviors in
young students is the time-out. A time-out is a form of
punishment whereby a student is temporarily removed from an
environment that reinforces a bad behavior. There are several
ways to impose a time-out, and factors such as its duration, the
location, and the student’s understanding of the reasons
underlying the time-out may affect its effectiveness.
Punishment is not considered effective for promoting
learning as it very often leads to negative emotions, which are
counterproductive to learning (Baumrind, 1997). Psycholo-
gists have called for caution in using physical punishment on
young children as it could lead to aggressive behaviors in
childhood and adulthood. Meta-analyses (Gershoff, 2002) on
parental punishment and children’s behavior have revealed
that parental corporal punishment is related to higher levels of
immediate compliance, but also to aggression and lower levels
of moral internalization.
The Cognitive Perspective: Learning as Mental
Operations and Reasoning of Information
The study of cognition can be traced to Gestalt psychology in
the late nineteenth century – a school of psychology that
studied how the mind perceives and organizes pieces of
information into a structured whole, and derives from it
a meaningful representation of the world. Leading cognitivists
Jean Piaget (1896–1980), George Miller (1920–2012), Allen
Newell (1927–92), and Herbert Simon (1916–2001) argued
that mental activities define a human as an active learner who
selects, filters, evaluates, and predicts according to his or her
needs and goals.
Cognitive learning theories demonstrate a variety of types
of cognitive functioning including how we remember, how

new information is integrated with prior knowledge to create
new knowledge, how cognition develops, and how meaning-
ful learning occurs. Together, they exert a strong influence on
modern education as they reveal how knowledge is trans-
mitted from teachers to students, and how students transfer
knowledge from one domain to solve new problems in
another.
Knowledge Acquisition
Piaget’s view on human cognition has greatly influenced
educators’ understanding of children’s minds. When a child
learns, he or she navigates the world through two mutually
dependent processes: assimilation and accommodation. In
assimilation, previously learned information is used to make
sense of new information. When the new information fails to
fit in to existing understanding, accommodation takes place by
altering and adding to prior understanding. In addition, the
acquisition of knowledge requires our mind’s readiness.
Piaget’s (1970) model of cognitive development describes
children’s changes in cognitive functioning as they grow. He
regarded human cognitive advancement as a function of bio-
logical maturation and proper environmental stimulation.
There are individual differences in the speed of development
yet all children go through universal stages in the same
sequence. Each of Piaget’s stages (sensorimotor, preopera-
tional, concrete operational, and formal operational) presents
distinct cognitive characteristics for teachers to take into
consideration when preparing learning materials. For instance,
abstract mental manipulation does not take place until the
child has reached the formal operational stage (around
11 years of age); hence mathematical and logical operations
that require deductive inferences are not within the develop-
mental stage of very young children. Piaget’s model highlights
the importance of teaching children what is within their
developmental stage. He opposed teaching children beyond
their mental capability.
Knowledge acquired must be properly retained for effective
retrieval and application. The analogy of how a computer
works best describes how the mind processes information.
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) multistore model describes
a three-stage information-processing sequence of encoding,
storage, and retrieval. As human memory is selective and has
a limited storage capacity, instructional aids have been
designed to facilitate the transformation of information into
long-term storage. For instance, students’ attention can be
engaged by combining visual and verbal forms of teaching
materials and using advance organizers that enable teachers to
present information in hierarchical and graphical ways that
would enable students to sort through what is relevant and
what is not. The use of analogies and concept maps is also
helpful for making connections between new and prior
concepts explicit and concrete.
Teaching to Facilitate Knowledge Construction
The levels of processing theory, proposed by Craik and
Lockhart (1972), describe knowledge retention as a function
of the depth of analysis. Elaborated perceptual analysis results
in less forgetting. Material that relates to a person’s own
Educational Learning Theory 241
interests is better memorized and more effectively transferred
to the solving of new problems. Therefore, learning materials
must be understood in a meaningful manner, and not through
mere repetition, if true learning is to take place. This view has
prompted modern education to move from knowledge reten-
tion to knowledge construction. The nature of knowledge
construction is purposeful and dynamic, with the aim for
students to reason about subject knowledge critically and
independently. Its process emphasizes the integration of new
information with prior knowledge, metacognitive controls, and
strategic use of cognitive skills.
The traditional direct instructional method has been chal-
lenged by inquiry-based learning (see Dewey, 1938; Lashley
et al., 2002), which encompasses many instructional strate-
gies, including, but not limited to, inquiry learning, expository
learning, discovery learning, problem-based learning, and
experiential learning. These modes of learning are characterized
by elements of collaborative learning activities, investigation of
ill-structured problems, hands-on field experience, and an
interactive classroom context. These elements call for students
to work together to define, examine, analyze, evaluate, and
present their own ideas. This practice allows students to use
their higher order thinking skills to make decisions and judg-
ments, and solve problems. At the core of inquiry-based
learning is the principle that students as learners do not
merely process and repeat information but actively make sense
of it to generate new knowledge. The use of inquiry-based
methods does not dismiss the significance of direct teaching
as some base of knowledge must be taught systematically for
inquiry-based learning to take place.
Constructing Beliefs about Knowledge
Students’ conception about the nature of knowledge is
essential to knowledge construction. Personal epistemology
refers to a person’s beliefs about and representation of the
nature of knowledge and knowing. Kuhn (1992) has posited
a developmental model that describes four stages of episte-
mological development: realist, absolutist, multiplist, and
evaluativist. Kuhn’s stages reflect a progression from an
entirely objective regard of knowledge to an entirely subjec-
tive one, and eventually to a relative view of knowledge. In the
early stages, learners rely on external sources to make deci-
sions; those in the later stages view knowledge as less absolute
and rigid. In line with Kuhn’s model, a five-dimension model
of epistemological beliefs developed by Schraw et al. (2002)
is also commonly used instrument for assessing individual’s
personal epistemology. The five dimensions include simple
knowledge (knowledge as isolated information vs complex),
certain knowledge (knowledge as absolute vs tentative), omni-
scient authority (knowledge is drawn from authority), quick
learning (learning occurs quickly or not at all), and innate
ability (intelligence is a fixed entity). Together, they describe
a person’s understanding of what knowledge is and how it is
acquired. Individuals with sophisticated beliefs of knowledge
tend to hold a more open-minded view of conclusion and
judgment, and would value more the use of reason and
evidence in supporting one’s point of view. Epistemological
beliefs have been shown to influence students’ approaches to
argument analysis and critical thinking, and their academic
performance.
242 Educational Learning Theory
Controlling Cognitive Processes
Efficacy in learning is a function of how much we learn as well
as how we go about learning. Self-regulatory learning consists
of monitoring, evaluating, and reflecting on one’s task
progress and performance. These strategies are called meta-
cognitive strategies. Metacognition is the control of cognition
(Flavell, 1979). It includes applying a set of metacognitive
strategies to the use of cognitive skills on a given task. Self-
regulatory learners devote their attention to completing the
task to their best ability, make plans for how to go about
completing a task, seek alternatives, and constantly evaluate
their own path of thought. Self-regulatory learning can be
developed in young children. Effective instruction should
include guidelines on self-monitoring and reflect on the way
to go about learning, which will help students to link the
learning method, as opposed to ability, to performance. The
responsibility of learning is borne by the learner, and sup-
ported by the teacher, which creates independent learners
who are clear about their goals, strengths, and weaknesses,
and strategic in their approach to learning.
The Sociocultural and Systems Perspectives:
Learning as Social Interaction
Sociocultural theory highlights the importance of society’s
contribution to individual development by building upon the
interaction between developing and learning individuals, and
the society and culture in which they live. The basic assumption
of sociocultural theory in relation to learning is that a learning
context should be observed and interpreted in the broader
social system in which the learning is taking place. This would
allow a sociocultural theorist to understand an individual’s
thinking and learning based on his or her participation in
a socially and culturally integrated activity. Sociocultural theory
draws from Lev Vygotsky’s (1896–1934) work from the early
1930s, which has been elaborated on by theorists such as
Aleksei Leontiv (1903–79), James Wertsch (1985), Michael
Cole (2010), Harry Daniels (2001, 2008), and Barbara Rogoff.
Parallel to sociocultural theory is the system type of
approach to learning, specifically the Bronfenbrenner model
and the social imitation theory of social cognitive theory. These
two theories again make society the nesting place where
interactions or links established within a society provide the
basis for learning.
Sociocultural Theory
Sociocultural theory, according to Vygotsky, requires the
researcher to probe the environment surrounding students in
order to understand their mental development. Two over-
lapping aspects of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory are impor-
tant for the purposes of explaining learning: the observation of
students’ cognition within a sociocultural plane; and media-
tion and internalization, which take place between the social
environment and the individual to facilitate learning and
development.
Vygotsky (1978: p. 57) viewed students’ cognitive devel-
opment as existing on two planes: the social or ‘between the
people’ plane, and the individual or ‘inside the child’ plane.
The ‘between the people’ or interpsychological plane is the
catalyst of the development of students’ higher mental func-
tions. The interpsychological plane is the platform for the
development of mental functions through social interactions,
which take place between students and other people who are
more competent, including parents and peers.
The way in which a student learns and develops is deter-
mined by mediation between the student’s psychological self
and his or her social or cultural environment. Vygotsky (1978)
regarded mediation as central to the acquisition and progres-
sion of students’ higher mental functions. Mediation occurs
initially between the student and the social plane, and is fol-
lowed by internalization within the student’s intrapersonal
self. Together with signs and symbols, language is seen as
a tool of culture and psychology that is part of the mediation
process.
Vygotsky argued that mediation and internalization
exposed students to ‘mature cultural forms of behavior’ that
linked the external and internal planes in a ‘genetic’ relation-
ship. In practice, this means that parents, teachers, peers, and
others who have more knowledge and experience of the
sociocultural environment become filters for students’ learning
and cognitive development. With guidance and instructions
from more skilled partners, students can then absorb and
internalize the information and thinking tools provided to
them at different levels and in different ways.
Neo-Vygotskians such as Wertsch and Rogoff extended the
premises of learning that happens on the social and personal
planes to include aspects of cultural behavior and apprentice-
ship, respectively.
Wertsch used Vygotsky’s thesis to demonstrate that without
the social and cultural interaction, minimal learning happens.
Wertsch, however, illustrated the learning that happens in
classrooms. He showed that the cultural aspects of language
and the associated psychological tools or mediatory individ-
uals such as teacher or parent mediate classroom learning.
Wertsch demonstrated that when language and cultural
competence are integrated into learning, optimal learning
results (Wertsch, 2007).
Rogoff expanded Vygotsky’s thesis of the significant other in
the process of learning. Rogoff’s research centered on the idea
that a young apprentice could learn constructively and
productively by being mentored (Rogoff, 1990). Rogoff also
showed how apprentice learning could happen on the social,
personal, and institutional planes. She stressed that for learning
to happen, the interaction between apprentice and mentor
must transcend the social and personal within the institutions
from which they are learning.
Research using sociocultural theory as a framework has
adopted two approaches to explain the interactional and
mediatory aspects of the learning process. The first approach is
observation of the processes between student and teacher
within the learning context. Through her intrapersonal, inter-
personal, and cultural lenses, Rogoff applied the methodology
of observation as a valid method of documenting learning.
Other researchers have used statistical modeling to show the
mediation process of learning. This is usually the case when the
learning is within a context that has embedded social, cultural,
and personal planes.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System
In Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) bioecological systems theory,
it is possible to see the influence of Vygotsky’s sociocultural
theory where the child’s social setting is an important aspect of
his or her development. Bronfenbrenner’s model focuses on
the child and interactions between the child and the various
social contexts. Some of these interactions will encourage the
child’s learning; others will inhibit it.
This system theory is represented as a series of environ-
mental levels with the child in the first level known as the
microsystem, which represents the most direct influences on
the child’s development. In addition to biological factors, these
factors include the child’s family, friends, classmates, and
teachers. Here, interactions add to the child’s experiences and
development, which in turn affects the people around the
child.
The next level, the mesosystem, represents the interactions
among the components of the microsystem. For example,
parents and teachers may work together to support the child’s
education. However, the child’s immediate friends or class-
mates may discourage the child from participating in school.
The third environmental level is the exosystem, which
describes the link between the child’s immediate contacts and
the social setting of these contacts. For example, the child’s
teacher attends a university course as part of his or her
continuing professional development and learns about a new
teaching strategy that may indirectly affect the child’s learning
experience. Other elements in the exosystem are the interaction
between the child’s parents and the parents’ occupations.
The final level in the model is the chronosystem. This level
explains the changes that occur over time. For example, the
parents may divorce and remarry, the child moves from Grade
2 to Grade 3, or there are political or social changes in the
country where the child lives.
Social Cognitive Theory
Albert Bandura’s (1971) social cognitive theory explains how
children can learn by imitating other modeled behaviors
through reciprocal interaction among cognitive, behavioral,
and environmental influences. Bandura stressed that for
learning to occur, several cognitive and affective elements must
exist in the reciprocal interaction of modeling between
a person such as a teacher and a child as a student. These
elements are attention paid to learning, retention of what is
remembered and learned, reproduction or application of
learned concepts, and the motivation or intention to learn
(Bandura, 2001).
Similar to Vygotsky’s view of dynamic interaction, Bandura
believed in ‘reciprocal determinism,’ which assumes that a
person’s behavior is a result of his or her social world and that
the world is a result of that person’s behavior and action.
Ultimately, when we think of learning in terms of Bandura’s
theory, we see it as a consequence of one’s attention to what is
being taught and one’s intention to remember what is attended
to. Following on from this is the person’s motivation to learn
and ability to apply what is learned. In many instances, this is
seen as an imitation process of the person who is teaching by
the person who is being taught.
Educational Learning Theory 243
Educational Implications of Sociocultural Perspectives
Vygotsky suggested that meaningful and dynamic instructions
that form the social and cultural nature of interactive and
reciprocal learning encourage the psychological development
of a child. From this notion, Vygotsky conceptualized the zone
of proximal development (ZPD), which is the difference
between a child’s ‘actual development level as determined by
independent problem solving’ and the increased level of
“potential development as determined through problem
solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978: p. 86). The ZPD focuses on the
interaction of learning and development that emphasizes
thinking and speech as two essential components of verbal
thought that dynamically work together for children to make
meaning and sense during the learning process.
Vygotsky (1960) saw the dynamic activity as a social process
where the participants bring to the process their own knowl-
edge and experience. He suggested that children are capable of
solving problems beyond their actual developmental level or
of engaging in higher order thinking when interacting with
a teacher or parent. This process can also be situated within the
imitation process of social cognitive theory and the broader
system process. From this notion, dynamic assessment is a
probing procedure that is constructed on an empirical
assumption that the beginning and the last levels of a learning
task are better remembered and learned than the ones in the
middle. Structured scaffolding or hinting and probing take
place when a student fails at each level of learning task until
retaining enough of the learning to reach the next level or his or
her full potential.
Individual Differences in Learning
Differences in educational outcomes might be attributable to
individual differences in intelligence, creativity, motivation, and
aspects of self such as self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.
Research concerning the bases of individual differences has been
highly influential in education. For example, Strenze (2007)
concluded that psychometric (g) intelligence is a powerful
predictor of educational, occupational, and financial success.
Although teachers do not routinely test their students’
intelligence, a number of alternative models of intelligence,
such as Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory, have
become popular among educators because they are inclusive
and can provide a framework for curriculum development.
Creativity research notes the link between cognition and
learning. Gelman and Gottfried (2006), for example, have
argued that creative processes are necessary for the develop-
ment of language and the construction of new knowledge.
Many models of learning are based on the relationship
between academic self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and
academic achievement (Hattie, 2009). Hattie concluded
that academic self-concept and self-efficacy begin with past
academic achievement, but that self-esteem does not. In the
classroom, teachers focus on raising the academic self-
concept and self-esteem of students.
Achievement goal theory focuses on the relationships
between goal type (learning goals and performance goals),
244 Educational Learning Theory
cognitive processes, and academic achievement. Although there
is broad agreement that learning goals lead to better educa-
tional outcomes, research suggests that performance goals can
also be effective, particularly for Chinese students (Phillipson,
2011a). The causal link between the classroom structure and
the development of the different goal orientations is an
important area of educational research.
Changing Paradigms and Related Educational
Policies
Educational policies are based on paradigms of ‘quality’
education, with quality defined in terms of economic indica-
tors such as efficiency, effectiveness, economy and account-
ability, and educational outcomes. The development of
educational policy is influenced not only by our understanding
of the psychology of learning but also by advances in the
psychometric instruments that measure student learning. For
example, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in the United
States relies on research on psychometrics to define standards
and to measure student academic achievement.
Educational systems around the world are more responsive
than ever to international tests of academic achievement,
including the Program for International Student Assessment,
coordinated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development, and the Progress in International Reading
Literacy Study and Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study, both coordinated by the International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
Again, the results of these tests impact the development of
educational systems and policy on student achievement, and
are dependent on advances in psychometrics.
In response to these changing paradigms, many educational
systems are implementing educational reforms. In Hong Kong,
for example, these reforms include a reorganization of the
secondary and tertiary school structure, the reintroduction of
Liberal Studies into the curriculum, the adoption of an
outcomes-based curriculum, and the selective implementation
of English as the medium of instruction. In broad terms, the
purpose of these reforms is to enable all students to ‘develop
their potentials (sic) and lead a rich life in the new century’
and places no numerical limit on the number of students
capable of achieving exceptional levels of performance.
With a greater focus on accountability in education, teachers
have become increasingly aware of the importance of research
about assessment theory. With a foundation in statistics,
educational assessment takes into account the validity and
reliability of assessment results and the need for measurement
objectivity. Accordingly, many teacher education courses
include training in assessment theory and practice, and
advances in item response theories such as Rasch modeling.
Modern learning theories have recognized that learning
outcomes are affected by the interactions between students and
their immediate and wider environments. Based on Bronfen-
brenner’s bioecological systems theory of human development,
the immediate environment includes peers, parents, and
teachers. Attempts to model the interactions between students
and their environment include systems models of learning such
as Ziegler’s (2005) actiotope model of giftedness (AMG).
Although focusing on the development of exceptionality, the
AMG can be used to understand the impact of the environment
on academic achievement more broadly as well as to identify the
basis of underachievement. In particular, the AMG integrates
research across a number of paradigms, including motivation;
aspects of ‘self’ such as self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy;
and the educational and cultural environment.
Hattie’s (2009) meta-analysis of the effects of influence on
student learning concluded that the most important predictors
of student learning originated from the teacher, including
feedback related to attributions of success, instructional
quality and type, and classroom environment. In terms of
learners, the most important predictor of student learning
apart from past success was their learning disposition. At the
same time, parental expectations of academic achievement
were the most important predictor of learning originating from
the home. However, the discrepancy between research and
classroom practice is often significant, and teacher education
programs need to strengthen the relationship between research
and practice. In addition, mechanisms need to be developed to
ensure that teachers remain cognizant of research on learning.
See also: Cognitive Development: Mathematics Learning and
Instruction; Education and Learning: Lifespan Perspectives;
Learning Theories and Educational Paradigms; Metacognitive
Development: Educational Implications; Piaget’s Theory of
Human Development and Education; Vygotsky’s Theory of
Human Development and New Approaches to Education.
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