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Chapter 8

Psychological Theories

Family Tree of Major Learning Theories

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MY BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING

Please mark the items below in terms of your typical teaching practices: V=very important of you, N=not
very important , S=somewhat important, NA=not apply.
I BELIEVE TEACHERS SHOULD
1. Consider students' ages or stages of development when planning teaching __
2. Motivate students to learn so they get external rewards (e.g. grades, praise, higher salary )____
3. Model what they are to learn ________
4. Give lectures on topics to be learned ________
5. Help develop students' positive academic self concepts ________
6. Motivate students to learn based on the intrinsic value of the material________
7. Develop students' thinking, learning, and problem solving skills________
8. Gradually shape complex behaviors in students ________
9. Move from concrete examples/experiences to abstract principles_____
10. Help students make what they learn personally meaningful ________
11. Activate students' prior knowledge about material they are learning________
12. Have students give their own examples of concepts________
13. Help students develop good social skills for interacting with others________
14. Help students connect their efforts in learning to their outcomes________
15. Teach students to explain their successes and failures in ways that increase their chances of
improving their future performance________
16. Have students relate what they are learning to their own experience.________
17 Identify preconceptions and misconceptions that may inhibit learning________
18. Have students discover concepts through their own experiences.________
19. Inform students at the beginning how they should organize the material to be learned.________
20. Present material in different modalities (e.g. verbal, visual, auditory, tactile-kinesthetic)________
21. Have students identify relationships between concepts________
22. Help students organize content as they learn about it________
23. Help students think about how they acquire information.________
24. Help students think about how they remember information________
25. Have students apply what they learn to new situations________
26. Have students memorize ideas, even if they don't understand them________
27. Make sure students have prerequisite knowledge and skills before giving them
complex tasks to perform.________
28. Help students take responsibility for and control over their own learning.________
29. Ensure that students make some of their own choices when learning.________
30. Serve as a role model for students to observe and imitate________
31. Ensure students are actively involved in the learning process________
32. Structure lessons so students work with other students_____
33. Allow students to have more than one opportunity to master material_____
34. Provide students with hints, cues and prompts when needed to help them complete work on their
own instead of giving them answers._____
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Introduction to Behavioral ,Cognitive and Humanistic Theories

The Behaviorist view of learning is rather mechanistic and easier to apply, but limited in its
effectiveness because is does not seem to be appropriate for teaching higher-order thinking skills.
Behaviorists stress methods of changing student behavior. To apply behaviorism, set up a situation
where the student responds appropriately (correctly) and provide some type of reward. When the desired
learning takes place, the student responds correctly whenever the constructed situation occurs.
Behaviorists do not claim to understand (or care) what takes place within the student - the entire focus is
on student behavior.

The Cognitive view of learning seems better adapted to education because it emphasizes
changes in the student and sees behavior as a sometimes observable consequence of those changes. In
cognitive theory behavior is seen as a result of learning, rather than behavior itself is learned. In answer
to the question, "What is learned?" a cognitive theorist would say information or strategies while a
behaviorist would say behavior. (adapted from T. Schuell, 1991) Can you tell which of these two
theoretical frameworks guides this textbook? It is heavily influenced by cognitive theory.

Humanistic theories emphasize the roles of affect, social relations, personal meaningfulness in
learning and development.

BEHAVIORAL THEORIES

The mind is considered a blank slate or "tabula rasa". The environment is the source of learning.
The individual passively responds to cues in the environment. The goals of behaviorists are to transmit
the knowledge and values of the culture and to mold socially desired behaviors, such as giving the right
answer. According to Pressley & McCormack(1995) behaviorists concentrate on directly observable
behavior instead of internal, unobservable explanatory variables (p. 193). A behaviorist studying reading
would focus on activities such as turning pages and finishing books instead of summarizing strategies or
comprehension monitoring (adapted from Pressley & McCormack 1995). Teaching based on behavioral
theories is very teacher-centered; the teacher is viewed as the authority and source of knowledge.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning emphasizes the voluntary response the learner makes to a stimulus in the
environment and is based on Skinner's research and stimulus-response-reward model. The response
examined is directly observable behavior - not a mental response. According to this theory the learner
has some control over the responses that are made, but behaviorists emphasize that behavior is shaped
by environmental consequences of the behavior the rewards and punishment that follow the behavior
(Hamilton & Ghatala, 1994). Rewards increase the likelihood of getting the desired behaviors and are
sometimes referred to as positive reinforcement. Rewards can motivate behavior. For example, a student
may complete all the homework assigned in order to get a sticker or smiley face from the teacher.
Through rewards, students learn to make specific responses to specific situations. Punishment is
intended to weaken the likelihood of getting an undesired behavior. It involves either giving something
negative, such as making the student stay after school, or taking away something positive, like recess.
Generalization, discrimination, and extinction are important operant conditioning principles.
Generalization is when the learner makes the same response to a slightly different, but relatively similar
stimulus in the environment. For example, a student may complete homework assignments in reading as
well as math. Discrimination is when the learner makes a different response to similar but not identical
stimuli in the environment. For example, a student may misbehave when having a substitute teacher, but
behave acceptably with the regular teacher. Extinction is when a response or behavior stops because
the reinforcement or reward has stopped. This principle is used in education when teacher ignores
misbehavior, hoping that getting the teacher's attention is the reward the student is seeking, and when the
student doesn't get that reward, the misbehavior will stop.
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Behavioral techniques of shaping & behavior modification are based on rewarding desired behaviors.
Shaping, also known as successive approximation, involves giving rewards for responses that are
progressively more like the ultimate desired end state. This technique allows a complex behavior to be
broken down into a series of steps which gradually lead to the desired outcome. For example, when toilet
training, the ultimate goal is for the child to use the toilet appropriately and independently. However, this is
too complex to happen all at once, so parents often first reward the child simply for saying it is time to use
the bathroom. Then they only might reward the child when the child goes into the bathroom an announces
s/he has to use the toilet. Next the parents might only reward the child when the child goes into the
bathroom and sits on the toilet, and so forth. How could you use shaping or successive approximation in
the classroom?

Token economies and the Premack principle are other behavioral techniques based on
reinforcement or rewards. In token economies, students accumulate symbols of rewards until they
receive enough to cash them in for a real reward. When I was doing research in the psychiatric clinic at
Ohio State University as an undergraduate, a patient I knew received a token (a plastic chip) each time
she took care of her personal hygiene - taking a shower, brushing her teeth, getting dressed, combing her
hair and so forth. When she had acquired 20 tokens, she would cash them in and get to listen to an album
of classical music, which was her reward. The Premack Principle (Premack, 1965), sometimes is called
"Grandma's Rule", is when the teacher (or parent) observes what the learner likes to do in her/his spare
time, (a preferred response) such as playing games on the computer, and use that preferred activity as a
reward and incentive for making responses that are less preferred, such as cleaning up one's desk. The
teacher would say, "Clean up your desk, then you can play a game on the computer".

Lecturing is a common behavioral teaching strategy of transmitting information to students.

Students are given extrinsic rewards, such as grades, praise, stickers, and smiley faces. One of the
limitations of using rewards is that students tend to become dependent on extrinsic motivators, which can
undermine intrinsic motivation. Rewards are often useful for getting a student to begin making desired
responses, such as sitting quietly at the desk or completing homework assignments, but should be
gradually phased out to minimize dependence on extrinsic motivators. Using various schedules of
reinforcement can help teachers use rewards effectively. A continuous reward schedule means
rewarding the student each time the desired response is made. Intermittent reinforcement means
rewarding a response occasionally - either based on the passage of time or the number of responses and
can be either fixed or variable. Fixed would involve rewarding after a set amount of time (e.g. once a
week) or after a set number of responses (e.g. every 10 responses). Variable would involve an
inconsistent amount of time (e.g., once a week, then once every 3 days, then once every month) or an
inconsistent number of responses (e.g. after 10 responses, then after 4 responses). Teachers can start
out using continuous rewards, then once the student starts responding, shift to a variable schedule,
gradually reducing the rewards until they are eliminated altogether.

Punishment, as previously mentioned, is designed to decrease the likelihood of getting

undesired behavior. It involves either giving something negative or taking away something positive. An
example of giving something negative is making the student stay after school or yelling at the student.
Research on punishment shows that it often immediately stops the misbehavior. Does that automatically
mean it is a good strategy for changing behavior? Not necessarily. Research suggests that punishment is
often ineffective in changing behavior, despite quickly suppressing it. Mild punishment does not seem to
work very well, and even with severe punishment, the undesired behavior tends to recur when the
punisher isn't around. Students tend to get more clever and sneaky about their misbehavior; they don't
misbehave less often. Additionally, punishment often produces negative side effects that interfere with
learning e.g., it tends to lower students' self esteem. Decades ago, teachers and principals often used to
hit students with a paddle to punish them. Most states now have laws forbidding public school teachers
from hitting students as a form of punishment. One commonly used punishment technique is time out.
Time out, sometimes known as Type 1 Punishment, involves the teacher removing the misbehaving
student from the rest of the class, and putting the person by himself, and not including the student in the
class activity. Sometimes what is intended as punishment turns out to be a reward instead. In time out,
the student is often sent to a corner of the room, away from the other students so there is no possibility for
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support of commraderie. The strategy is based on the assumption that being nearby the other students
and participating in class with them is rewarding, so removing these rewards is a form of punishment.
However, for some disruptive students, time out from regular class activities is an incentive to misbehave
- not a discouragement! What the teacher sees as a punishment is a reward from the student's point of
view. Finally, in order to be effective, punishment must be immediate and relatively severe, which has
ethical and legal implications.

Social Learning : Observational Learning (Imitation) and Social Cognitive Learning

Like operant conditioning, social learning theories are primarily concerned with changing
behavior, however social learning theories differ from operant conditioning in their ideas about how new,
complicated behaviors are learned. Seeing others rewarded or punished for their behaviors is central to
observational learning. Bandura is the primary researcher and theorist associated with social learning
theories, and his theories have become progressively more cognitive (Hamilton & Ghatala, 1994).
Bandura's earlier theory (Bandura and Walters, 1963), Observational Learning is also known as
modeling. A teacher, parent, or other social stimulus, serves as a model, who executes the desired
behavior. The learner observes the model and imitates or copies the behavior observed in the model.
However, while Bandura believes that most learning occurs through observing the behavior of others, he
does not see imitating as the only way people learn from models (Bandura, 1986). Bandura identifies five
processes involved in this type of learning: attending to the model's behavior, identifying with the model,
retaining the model's behavior in long term memory, producing a copy of the model's behavior, and
motivation, wanting to behave like the model. While attention and retention are necessary for acquiring
new behaviors, production and motivation are required for the learner to perform the new behaviors. There
are two types of rewards in observational learning. Direct reinforcement is getting rewarded by someone
for performing the behavior observed in the model e.g. The teacher says to the student: "Good
Thelonious, you raised your hand before talking just like I showed you!", and vicarious reinforcement is
when one person imitates the behavior that someone else is rewarded for, e.g., if I study in a group like
my brother does, maybe I'll get good grades like he does.

Bandura's more recent social cognitive learning theory (1977, 1986) emphasizes the value of
what is learned, setting goals, learner expectations, feelings of self-efficacy, self-regulation and self
reinforcement, when someone performs a behavior to meet internal standards. According to Bandura,
self-efficacy affects motivation. If a person feels competent to perform a specific task in a specific
situation, s/he is more likely to attempt it than if s/he feels incapable of performing the task. This type of
theory is sometimes called an expectancy x value theory because it emphasizes the person's value for the
goal and the expectation of success. Bandura also emphasizes the importance of teacher-efficacy, which,
i.e. a teacher's belief that s/he can help even the most difficult students learn (Woolfolk, 1992).

COGNITIVE THEORIES

Cognitive theorists believe that learning and development occur through the interaction of the
learner (e.g. heredity) and the environment. They focus on the mind's role in learning, meaningfulness of
what is learn, and active involvement in the learning process. Cognitive theories emphasize mental
activities - not just observable behavior. Some of the most important mental activities in learning are:
acquisition, comprehension, retention, and transfer of what is learned. Learning is often viewed in terms of
schemata, which are basic structures or concepts for organizing knowledge. Piaget referred to
assimilation as the incorporation of new information into an existing schema or cognitive structure, and
accommodation as changing the existing schema or creating a new one to fit new information. Thus
assimilation involves the expansion of cognitive structures whereas accommodation involves the
refinement or modification of cognitive structures. Learning involves both assimilation and
accommodation.

According to Schuell ( 1991)cognitive theory has made the following contributions:

1. Learning is an active, constructive, goal-oriented process which involves mental activities including:
metacognition, selection, organization and use of learning strategies.
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2. Higher-level thought processes are always present in learning. All learning is hierarchical in nature
which means there are different levels of thinking (such as cognitive and metacognitive) involved in all
learning tasks.

3. Learning has a cumulative effect and this means that prior knowledge is of great importance when
introducing new material. Organized, structured bodies of information (schemata) that a learner already
has and can use in learning new material determine how the task is interpreted and what the learner
will understand and acquire from working on the task.

4. Learning requires knowledge organization and representation. Domain-specific knowledge plays an

important role in learning. Experts and novices in a content area approach tasks in different ways and
have different underlying knowledge structures.

5. Attention must be given to analyzing learning tasks and performance in terms of the cognitive
processes involved. Rumelhart and Norman (1978) suggest three different kinds of learning:
a. accretion, or encoding (registering) new information in terms of existing schemata ( like Piaget's
concept of assimilation); b. restructuring or creating new schemata; c. tuning or slowly modifying and
refining a schema as a result of using it in different situations. (Both b and c represent forms of Piaget's
concept of accommodation.)

There are at least three major types of cognitive theories: constructivist, information processing
and social interaction.

Constructivist
This theoretical perspective is derived from cognitive developmental theories, such as Piaget
and Bruner, and from Dewey's work. The theories of Piaget and Bruner suggest there are qualitatively
different stages of cognitive development which proceed from physical to concrete to abstract
representations of concepts. This perspective tends to emphasize similarities of people at the same stage
and differences from stage to stage. Children are viewed as thinking differently than adults. Like all
cognitive theories, constructivism emphasizes the active role of the learner in building understanding and
making sense of information. It includes: building one's own view of the world, building concepts,
building relationships between concepts, use own experience and prior knowledge, modalities for
structuring knowledge, spiral curriculum, inquiry, and discovery learning. Details on the constructivist
approach are presented later in this chapter.

Information Processing
The emphasis of this approach is on how the learner processes information. Learning results
from an interaction between the learner, who processes information, and the environment, which provides
information to the learner. According to Mayer (1996), this theoretical perspective views "the mind as an
information processing system, cognition as applying cognitive processes, and learning as the acquisition
of mental representations" (p. 155). Information is processed in stages: the input is encoded, sent to a
sensori-register for 2-3 seconds, then, if rehearsed, to short term memory and then if rehearsed
extensively and/or elaborated, retained in long term memory, and can be recalled when output is
required. Information processing theory focuses on understanding how people acquire, store and retrieve
information and how prior knowledge affects learning. Some of the important contributors to information
processing theory are Sternberg; Miller, Galanter & Pribram; and Gagne. There are limits on how much
can be processed at each stage. Limited capacity was demonstrated by Miller's (1958) classic "Magical
Number 7, + or - 2 ", which suggests we can hold approximately 7 units (range of 5-9) of information in our
working memories. Our limited cognitive capacity suggests that "chunking" of information into units is
important for maximizing memory with minimal strain. There is no limit on our absolute amount of learning,
but knowledge is best acquired gradually. Information processing theory distinguishes between lower
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level cognitive processes and higher level metacognitive processes and knowledge. Cognition includes
attending, encoding, recognizing, comprehending comparing, combining, remembering ( memory stores
and strategies) applying, analyzing, synthesizing. Metacognition includes executive management or
self-regulation processes of planning, monitoring, evaluating, revising and strategic knowledge: what,
when, where & why, and how . Information processing theory also considers the differences between
experts and novices in a subject or domain in terms of their amount and organization of knowledge and
how they process information. There are domain-specific differences in cognition and metacognition. For
example, reading metacognition is not identical to math metacognition. However, metacognitive
processes are similar across subjects or domain-general. Information processing theory also suggests
that information processing is interactive, that is, perception is influenced by our stored information (prior
knowledge), and our stored information is influenced by our perception. (Biehler & Snowman, 1990).

Mayer (1996 p. 157) identified the following contributions and limitations of information
processing theory: The contributions are: 1) it provided an alternative to behaviorism and cognitive
psychology was reborn; 2) it stimulated theory and research through its unified framework, including the
concept of limited information processing capacity; 3) it emphasized the importance of mental
representations, including the structure of knowledge, in learning; 4) it stressed the role of mental
processing in learning, including the role of learning strategies, domain-specific processing differences
and individual differences in cognitive processing and 5) it helped psychology shift from animal to human
learning research, which eventually resulted in seeing learning as an active process. Information
processing theory's initial limitations were: 1) it ignored the role emotional, social and physical factors in
learning; 2) it proposed a rigid model of the architecture of the mind; 3) its research focused on unrealistic
laboratory tasks instead of realistic academic tasks and 4) it viewed mental activity as automatic instead of
effortful and constructive. Sternberg's information processing theory of intelligent performance is
described later in this chapter.

Overview of Piaget’s Theory

Primary sources: Piaget 1937 and 1971& To Understand is to Invent. Pressley & McCormick; 181-193:;
Charles Brainerd Ch. 1-3

Organization: coherence, stability, consistency in cognition

Adaption (Adaptation): Assimilation & Accommodation - Assimilation is the incorporation of new

information into an existing schema or cognitive structure. Accommodation as changing the existing
schema or creating a new one to fit new information. Thus assimilation involves the expansion of cognitive
structures whereas accommodation involves the refinement or modification of cognitive structures.
Learning involves both assimilation and accommodation. They are responsible for changes in cognition.

Jean Piaget’s Stage Theory of Intellectual Development

Characteristics of stage theory:

1 Active Construction: Development of intelligence within and between stages depends upon one’s
interactions with the environment which enable the generation of thoughts and concepts which elaborate
on the existing cognitive structures or schemas.

2. Qualitative Differences. The differences in stages are in the kind or nature of thinking characteristic of
each stage - they aren’t differences in the quantity of information but in how information is processed and
interpreted.

3. Universal: The types and sequence of stages do not depend upon one’s culture but transcend cultures
and are the same for each culture.
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4. Invariant Sequence: The stages must occur in the identified sequence and no stage can be skipped.
This is because each new stage builds upon the achievements of the stage which precedes it.

5. Competence vs. Performance theory. Piaget’s theory focuses on the highest level a person perform at
during the stage. It doesn’t address the person’s typical performance, but the best the person is capable of
doing, whether or not the person typically thinks this way.

6. Age Does NOT =stage. Ages are just approximations in Piaget’s stage theory. They are rough
guidelines only and depend upon the individual person’s maturation and experiences.

7. Stage Mixture. A person usually operates at more than one stage at a time. One may be concrete
operational in one subject and formal operational in another subject. Stage mixture is also called
decalage, and there are two types, horizontal: and vertical. Horizontal (within-stage): not all problems at
the same logical operations are mastered at the same time (e.g. conservation of length before quantity).
Vertical (between-stage): person might be at one stage for some tasks and another stage for different
tasks (e.g. child could be Pre Operational in conservation of quantity but Concrete Operational in
conservation of length; Dave Griffiths - physicists FO in physics but not other subjects.

Stages of Development

1. Sensori-Motor: (roughly birth - 2 years) object concept; physical representation paves way for mental
representation, reflexes, motor activity, curiosity, global, imitation, egocentrism

2. PreOperational: (roughly 2-7 years) symbolic thought, language, but egocentric, missing logical
concepts of identify, reciprocity & negation (reversibility) that enable conservation. Symbols, egocentrism,
language, imagery, centration, concrete, static, irreversible. absolute

3. Concrete Operational (roughly 7-11 years): logical operations if concrete problems, decentration;
conservation, class inclusion- sets & subsets e.g. 5 robins and 4 bluebirds - Understand that there are
more birds than robins. Decentration, dynamic, reversible, identity, relative, reciprocity

4. Formal Operational: (roughly 11-years )abstract thinking, manipulate several dimensions at once,
combinatorial thinking (systematically generate all possible combinations) hypothetical (can think on the
level of possibility), hypothesis testing. Think like a scientist.

How Piaget Explains Cognitive Development: Total of 5 factors (Pressley & McCormick p. 187)

1.Maturation Physiological changes that automatically unfold during development. Piaget viewed
maturation as necessary but not sufficient for development to occur.

3 types of experience

2. Physical World. A person’s interactions with objects and features of the real world, e.g. a child playing in
the sand at the beach develops ideas about how water can change the texture and modifiability of
material.

3. Logico-mathematical. experience (effects of actions on performance) For example, a child learns about
counting as he counts 10 small beads from right to left and discovers that the number remains the same
even if he counts from left to right and that the number stays the same if he substitute large beads for
smaller ones. Or, if a student tries a reading strategy e.g. self questioning about the content, and finds
that it helps him understand what he reads, the student is likely to use the self-questioning strategy again
which will help him further improve his reading.

4. Social Experience - Home & school environments can vary in the amount and types of experiences with
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people (e.g. parents, siblings, teachers, students) they provide, which can affect the speed of movement
from stage to stage and the degree of elaboration within a stage.

5. Equilibration. The attempt to restore cognitive balance (equilibrium) when it is in disequilibrium. When
someone experiences the limitations of their logical operations - and recognizes that their answers don’t
make sense or are discrepant with other answers, there’s a cognitive conflict which causes disequilibrium
which results in equilibration. According to Piaget, equilibration is motivated by the desire to return to a
state of cognitive equilibrium. It occurs through the combined effect of assimilation and accommodation.

Educational Implications:

1. Elaboration Not Acceleration. Piaget’s distaste for American preoccupation with acceleration - trying to
push a child to think on a higher level than the child’s cognitive structures will allow.

2. A. theory of cognitive development: Active learning, Meaningful learning, Sequence of types of

materials by stage, Development of abstract thinking, stimulating environment, social interaction; don’t
correct students’ wrong answers - guide them to discover things they need to consider, stimulate conflict.
Not passive reception learning. Help students construct their own understanding of concepts.

3. Practical Learning Situations. For example, Kamii 1985) teaching math across the curriculum. Connect
math problems to every day life experience.

4. To Understand is to Invent: Emphasizes the need for educators to rethink education rather than just
continuing to teach traditional curricular content and methods. better teacher training, The goal of
education should be the development of critical and creative thinking - not just mastering an identified
body of knowledge.

5. Learning Cycle Model

The learning cycle (Karplus, 1974) model of instruction is based on Piagetian theory and involves a
constructivist approach to teaching. It is intended to help students progress from concrete to abstract
thinking about content (i.e., from concrete to formal operations). A learning cycle comprises three stages:
exploration, concept introduction/development and application.

Stage 1: Exploration

Exploration involves students getting hands-on experience working with the content to be focused on
during the Learning Cycle. The teacher provides students with materials and guides their experience with
them. For example, at the beginning of a unit on learning I hold up in front of the class a list of 13 words
which I ask students to remember, in any order, after looking at the list for one minute. Next students write
all the words they remember. Then students are asked what they wrote and HOW they learned the items
on the list. Students share learning strategies, which generally include: rote memorization, organization
into two major groups, and mental pictures of selected items in relationship to each other. This experience
serves as a basis for learning about organization and representation strategies.

Stage 2: Concept Introduction

Students' experiences from their exploration are used to introduce basic concepts to be learned. In this
example we have a class discussion about organization and representation in learning. For homework
students read a chapter on learning strategies, which includes how to organize and represent information
to improve comprehension, learning and memory and how to teach students these strategies. Students
meet in groups to discuss their experiences with different learning strategies and their effectiveness in
different situations.
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Stage 3: Application

The application phase of the learning cycle "challenges students to generalize the concepts of the lesson
to other situations. They solve new problems by applying what they learned during steps one and two.
Ideally, the teacher will assign tasks or problems that relate to students' everyday lives (Barman, Benz,
Haywood & Houk 1992, p.18-19). In this unit it includes homework assignments in which students apply
what they learned about organization and representation in learning by making graphic organizers of
information in their text, e.g. the main ideas and significant details in the article "Teaching Students to
Summarize".

By the end of this learning cycle unit, students are expected to have learned about how organization and
representation of information to be learned affect acquisition and retention as well as how to use this
knowledge. Their thinking is expected to have progressed from concrete thinking about organization and
representation in learning to being able to deal with this content on a formal, abstract level.

Barman, C., Benz, R. Haywood, J. & Houk, G. (1992). Science and the Learning Cycle. Perspectives in
Education and Deafness. 11(1) 18-21.

6. Intrinsic motivation

7. Stimulate conflict for conceptual change and development

8. Develop formal operational thinking

9. Goal of education = creative and critical thinking.

Criticisms of Piaget: His clinical method, number of subjects, using his own children, case study
approach, lack of parsimony, narrow scope -normal, lack of predictive validity, infants can do more, some
abilities came earlier & some later than Piaget said, not as extremely egocentric speech in preschoolers,
concepts, e.g. Equilibration is hard to operationalize, it does, not explain individual differences, does not
cover whole life span and is too biological

Additional Cognitive Theories

Structure of Knowledge

Activate prior knowledge

Make learning meaningful

Bruner Ausubel

mode economy power advanced organizer

enactive expository
iconic comparative
symbolic

Bruner
Jerome Bruner's theory of the structure of knowledge is that there are three ways to characterize
its structure: the mode, economy and power.

Mode. Bruner identifies three learning modalities or ways of representing information in any domain.
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They correspond to the different ways children perceive reality at different ages. Bruner believes that any
idea or problem can be presented to any learner in a simple enough way that the learner can understand it
in a recognizable form. Bruner believes that material should be presented to students and then
reintroduced to them in progressively more complex ways as they develop and mature. This is the
essence of his spiral curriculum.

1. Enactive: during early childhood (up through preschool) children tend to think about the world in
terms of their actions. Physical activity - movement is used for understanding. This is similar to Piaget's
sensorimotor stage.

2. Iconic : in middle childhood children tend to represent the world in terms of concrete models,
mental images, or pictures. These representations stand for the concepts but do not define them fully.
This is similar to Piaget's concrete operations stage.

3. Symbolic: during late childhood and early adolescence children begin to represent the world in
terms of abstract representations of verbal, mathematical and logical symbols, which more fully define the
concepts they represent. This is similar to Piaget's formal operations stage.

Economy Bruner defines the economy of a representation in terms of the amount of information which
must be held in mind and processed to achieve comprehension. The more items there are, the greater
the number of steps needed to complete information processing, and the less the economy. Economy
varies with the mode in which it is represented, the sequence in which it presented, and the manner in
which it is learned, e.g., "A picture's worth 1,000 words" .

Power Bruner defines power in terms of the generativity of a representation - how much it stimulates the
learner to make connections between matters which might, on the surface, appear to be quite separate.
This is similar to the knowledge acquisition skill of Selective Combination in Sternberg's triarchic theory of
intellectual performance. This skill involves combining into a new whole, relevant ideas which when first
thinking about them, might not seem to have any connection with each other, as in a creative insight.

Bruner's Major Contributions

1. Structure of Knowledge: the three modes of understanding information described above.

These modes are progressively more abstract. Bruner believes student should learn the structure of
subject area knowledge rather than memorize facts about it. This means students should learn a
subject's basic ideas and how they relate to each other.

2. Spiral Curriculum: Bruner believes that even young children can understand an idea, even if it's
only in a simplified way, if it is presented in the child's predominant mode of representing knowledge.
Based on this idea, Bruner argues for introducing concepts to children early in
their schooling in a simple form. Then later the concepts should be reintroduced in a more complex form.
This instructional procedure is known as the spiral curriculum.

3. Discovery Learning: Bruner believes that students should learn by discovering what they need to know
because it's more meaningful than when it's just presented to students. Discovery also
helps students become more independent learners. He suggests teachers should give students
problems (e.g. a provocative question that has no single, clear answer) and help them seek solutions,
either by working independently or in groups. However, Bruner does not believe that students should
discover everything they need to know. Discovery learning is too time consuming for that. In discovery
learning students need sufficient time to make initial responses, evaluate them, decide on followup, then
probe for more information, as appropriate, discuss what is learned, reach conclusions, and share them
with classmates. Sometimes complex problems need to be analyzed and subdivided. Bruner argues that
discovery learning is best for learning: how ideas connect with each other and how what is already
known is related to what's being learned. Bruner's Man: A Course of Study (MACOS) is a social
studies curriculum showing teachers how to use discovery with elementary school students. It is based on
 156
four techniques: emphasizing contrast, stimulating informed guessing, encouraging participation and
arousing awareness of how students think. (Biehler & Snowman 1990)

Ausubel

David Ausubel's theory of structuring knowledge is based on the concept that meaningful learning
depends upon organizing material in a way that makes material meaningful by connecting it with ideas in
the learner's cognitive structure. According to Ausubel, teachers can promote meaningful learning by
using advanced organizers. Advanced organizers are abstract, general, and inclusive introductory
materials that provide a framework which pre-organizes material to be learned. The framework provides a
stable, general cognitive structure which students can use to subsume (or incorporate) specific
information. They help the learner organize new material and connect new material to one's prior
knowledge, thereby increasing meaningfulness and the likelihood students will learn and retain it.

EXAMPLES OF AUSUBEL'S ADVANCE ORGANIZERS

The advance organizer is presented at the beginning of the lesson before the teacher gives
students information, (e.g., lectures). Then the teacher provides the information, which the
students take in or receive (reception learning) . The organizer makes the information to be
received more meaningful because it shows students in advance how the teacher organizes the
material and knowing concepts in advance helps the student activate relevant prior knowledge.
This is Ausubel's recipe for ''meaningful reception learning".

1. SAMPLE EXPOSITORY ORGANIZER

TODAY'S CLASS WILL COVER:

RECIPROCAL TEACHING
1. WHAT IS IT?
A. TAKING TURNS LEADING A DIALOG ABOUT TEXT.
B.. HIGHER-ORDER READING SKILLS

2 WHY USE IT?

A. IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION
B. SELF-REGULATED READING

3. HOW IS IT DONE?
A. DIRECT INSTRUCTION
B. SCAFFOLDING

2. SAMPLE COMPARATIVE ORGANIZER

LESSON FOR TODAY:

THEORIST CATEGORY BASIC CONCEPTS

(EVERYDAY LIFE EXPERIENCE | TOUCH & MOTION IMAGES, PICTURES TEXT, FORMULAS)
|
PIAGET STAGES | SENSORIMOTOR PREOP CONCRETE OP FORMAL OP
of intellectual development |
|
GARDNER INTELLIGENCES | TACTILE-KINESTHETIC SPATIAL LINGUISTIC
| MATHEMATICAL
BRUNER MODES of | ENACTIVE ICONIC SYMBOLIC
representing knowledge |
 157
In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms

from Jacqueline Grennon Brooks & Martin G. Brooks 1994 Association for Supervision & Curriculum
Development Alexandria VA.
Basic principle: We construct our own understandings of the world we live in.

Basic Processes: We search for tools to help us understand our experiences (p. 4). People make sense
of their world by synthesizing new experiences with their prior understandings. When something doesn't
make sense we either interpret it consistent with our current schema or generate a new set of rules that
better explains our perceptions or experiences.

Fosnot (in press) "Learning is not discovering more, but interpreting through
a different scheme or structure". (p. 5)

"To understand constructivism, educators must focus attention on the learner." (p. 22)

Constructivist teachers help their students construct new understandings. They also encourage
students to find their own problems, in order to promote the development of their abilities to organize and
understand their own, individual worlds. They help students: self-clarify the nature of the problems they
pose, pose questions in ways that enable them to pursue answers to their questions, and interpret results
in connection with other knowledge. How questions are posed affects how deeply they are answered.
They offer educational experiences that explicitly focus on the students' thinking (e.g., a lab that generates
understandings of how to quantify momentum, force, acceleration, and recognize their existence in other
settings (. 38) ((transfer)).

Constructivist educational settings are characterized by:

1.Focusing on large ideas instead of dreary, fact-driven curricula.
2. Helping students follow interests, make connections, reformulate ideas and reach unique conclusions.
3. Conveying the message of the complexity of the world, multiple perspectives, and truth is often a matter
of interpretation.
4. Acknowledging that learning and its assessment are at best messy, elusive, & not easily managed (p.
22)
5. Encouraging both students and teachers to think and explore. (p.30).

p. 26 " Piaget viewed constructivism as a way of explaining how people come to know about their world.
He buttressed this explanation with well-supported documentation of behaviors he witnessed and with
well-supported inferences about the functions of the mind. Piaget (1952) viewed the human mind as a
dynamic set of cognitive structures that help us make sense of what we perceive. These structures grow
in intellectual complexity as we mature and interact with the world we come to know and as we gain
experience Through maturation and experience, the groundwork for new structures is laid. . ...In
Piagetian terms, the temporary cognitive stability resulting from the balance of assimilation and
accommodation is called equilibrium. Piaget suggested that the creation of new cognitive structures
springs from the child's need to reach equilibrium when confronted with internally constructed
contradictions; that is, when perception and reality conflict. The quest for cognitive equilibrium is among
the most controversial of Piaget's notions" (p. 26).

Critics of this explanation of the development of new cognitive structures (the search for cognitive
equilibrium) include: Case 1985, Haroutunian 1983, and Gardner 1991b. According to Bruner (1964)
and Chomsky (1977), factors such as language and prior experience have more to do with the
development of new cognitive structures than seeking equilibrium.

Research on clarification (Hartman, 1980) shows both situations in which students do and do not
search for cognitive equilibrium upon encountering ambiguous references. Use of internal and external
clarification strategies shows an attempt to attain cognitive equilibrium. The "covering" strategy, where
students recognize ambiguity and give both interpretations, and the decision "not to clarify" are both
 158
designed to avoid equilibrium.

Some guiding principles of Constructivism Brooks & Brooks 1994

1. Pose problems of emerging relevance to students.
2. Structure learning around primary concepts
3. Seek and value students' points of view.
4. Adapt curriculum to address students' suppositions
5. Assess student learning in the context of teaching.
6. Teach for transfer (p.40-41)
7. "Changing one's mind is an invaluable element of the learning process" p. 42-3

Traditional vs. Constructivist Classroom Environments Brooks & Brooks 1994

Traditional Constructivist

Curriculum is presented part to whole, Curriculum is presented whole to part,

emphasizing basic skills emphasizing big concepts

High value for sticking to fixed curriculum High value for pursuing student questions

Activities rely heavily on textbooks and Activities relay heavily on manipulatives

workbooks and primary sources

Students viewed as "blank slates" onto which Students viewed as thinkers with emerging
information is etched by the teacher theories about the world

Teacher generally act didactically, disseminating Teachers generally act interactively,

information to students mediating the environment for students

Teachers seek the correct answer to Teachers seek students' points of view
validate student learning to understand students' present ideas
for use in future lessons

Assessment is viewed as separate from Assessment is interwoven with teaching

teaching and occurs almost entirely and occurs through teacher observations
through testing of students at work and through student
exhibitions and portfolios

Students primarily work alone Students primarily work in groups

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Criticisms of Constructivism

1. It subordinates the curriculum to students' interests. But constructivists believe this criticism misses the
point because posing questions of emerging relevance is a guiding
principle of constructivist pedagogy. Also, student interest/relevance can be stimulated
by the teacher; it does not have to be a pre-existing condition.

2. Constructivist approaches are more time consuming than traditional, lecture type i.e., reception theory
approaches, so less content is covered. But constructivists argue that "less is more"; students are better
able to retain, and apply what they learn from constructivist approaches, so they learn more through them
in the long run. p.39 "...constructivist teachers seek to ask one big question, give students time to think
about it, and lead them to resources to answer it."

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural/Social Interaction/Social Constructivism

Lev Vygotsky is the primary theorist associated with the sociocultural, social interaction or social
constructivist theoretical perspective. . Vygotsky's classic book Mind in Society: The Development of
Higher Level Psychological Processes (1978) broadened his impact in educational psychology, especially
through his concepts of the zone of proximal development and the role of social interactions in our
cognitive development (Pressley & McCormack, 1995). Originally he was just appreciated for his work on
the importance of inner speech in adults' learning and development (1962). Vygotsky's concept of inner
speech, which he argues is different from outer speech, emphasizes the relationship between language
and thought, highlighting the role that words play in the development of ideas. Inner speech is especially
important when doing difficult tasks.

The instructional technique of scaffolding (discussed in chapters 2 and 3) is based on

Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) " is
the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and
the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in
collaboration with more capable peers"... "The zone of proximal development defines those functions that
have not yet matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow but are
currently in an embyronic state". (Vygotsky, 1978 p. 86). Through scaffolding teachers and others can
help students perform at higher levels than they could if they were completely on their own, without the
benefit from social interactions with others who are more competent. More competent others help
students by providing them with information and temporary support which can be gradually decreased
as the students' competence increases. The goal of providing scaffolds is for students to become
independent, self-regulated thinkers who are more self sufficient and less teacher dependent. Using a
scaffolding approach in teaching is comparable to the scaffolding of a building which is gradually removed
as its structure becomes better able to support its own weight. Scaffolds are like training wheels on a
bicycle which provide temporary support while the rider learns to maintain balance. Once the bike rider is
secure about maintaining balance, the training wheels can be removed and the rider can self-balance.
Scaffolds can also be compared to crutches, supporting a person who can't walk on his or her own. The
intent is for them to be temporary walking tools, so eventually the person can walk on her or his own
without them. Scaffolding involves providing temporary support (models, cues, prompts, hints, partial
solutions) to students to bridge the gap between what students can do on their own and what they can do
with guidance from others. Teachers use scaffolding as a strategy for shifting instruction from others'
(teacher's) control to student self-regulation. The teacher's role shifts from being a model or an
instructor to being a manager, who coaches, guides, and gives timely, corrective feedback.

HUMANISTIC THEORIES

According to Woolfolk (1992) the humanistic perspective was developed as a reaction against
Freudian psychoanalysis and behaviorism in the 1940's because these theories gave inadequate
explanations of human behavior. Humanistic theorists believe that traditional schooling can actually be
harmful. Humanistic theorists believe teachers should emphasize both affective and cognitive aspects of
 160
learning. Basic principles of humanistic education are to: give students choices, develop values by using
real life examples as illustrations, and when providing critical feedback, comment on the behavior and
situation rather than the person's personality. Humanistic educational techniques include values
clarification, in which students are encouraged to choose, appreciate, and act on beliefs; role playing
and simulation games, to help students identify with others; and pass/fail grading instead of letter or
number grades, to promote students' positive feelings about themselves and others, which suffer with a
traditional grading system, where grading on a curve promotes competition and causes students who get
low grades to feel inferior. Purkey's Invitational Learning humanistic approach emphasizes the
development of students' positive self perceptions. He believes teachers can encourage students to have
positive self perceptions if they tell students they are responsible, able and valuable.

Rogers' learner-centered approach advocates trusting students to make decisions with teachers
offering them choices in learning activities. Rogers believes teachers should be sincere, trusting, they
should be sensitive to students' needs, value students and empathize with them (Biehler & Snowman,
1990). Reflecting the Feeling and Paraphrasing listening strategies described in Chapter 5 is derived
from this theory. These are forms of active listening which dignify the speakers' ideas and demonstrate
the listener's attention to them.

Gordon's Teacher Effectiveness Training, which emphasizes the importance of a positive

teacher-student relationship includes the No Lose Method of conflict resolution/problem solving and "I
Messages" as other humanistic educational techniques. "I Messages" involve telling a student how you
feel about a problem behavior and how her/his behavior affects you (Gordon, 1974). For example, "I feel
angry when I see you picking on Derek because I'm concerned he's going to get upset and stop coming to
class.” The important point is to focus on your feelings as a teacher instead of focusing on characteristics
of the student. Gordon emphasizes the importance of positive teacher-student relationships for effective
education. For details on these methods see Chapter 9 on the Social Aspects of Teaching. When a
conflict between a teacher and student arises, one of the important considerations, according to Gordon,
is problem ownership which refers to whose problem it is. The conflict situation needs to be analyzed to
determine if the teacher's needs are being frustrated (teacher-owned), or if the student's needs are being
frustrated (student owned), or if both the teacher's and the student's needs are being frustrated, which is
called a shared problem. Teacher-owned and shared problems can both be addressed by using I
Messages. When the situation involves student ownership, the teacher should engage in active listening
and reflecting the feeling. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory of motivation suggests that students'
basic, deficiency needs, such as safety, belongingness and self esteem, must be satisfied before they can
meet their higher level, growth needs, such as the desire to know/understand, appreciation of aesthetics
and self actualization. Although Maslow's hierarchy of needs has considerable popular appeal, and his
pyramid representation of the hierarchy of needs is well known, there isn't much research evidence to
validate this theory. Maslow also believed it is important for teachers and parents to trust children and help
them grow (Biehler & Snowman, 1990).

MOTIVATION THEORIES
The following charts summarize motivational theories from some of the major theories in
educational psychology: cognitive, humanistic, social learning and operant conditioning.
DESCRIPTION COGNITIVE
FOCUSES ON MIND AND INDIVIDUAL
BELIEFS/THOUGHTS
GOALS OF THEORY SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING &
DEVELOPMENT TO HIGHER
LEVELS, LEARNING GOAL
(FOCUS ON IMPROVEMENT,
REGARDLESS OF MISTAKES
& HOW JUDGED BY OTHERS)
TYPE OF MOTIVATION INTRINSIC - VALUE
LEARNING
FOR ITS OWN SAKE,
PERSONALIZED,
MEANINGFUL
APPROACH TO MOTIVATION STUDENT-CENTERED
HOW TEACHERS CAN ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT,
DEVELOP MOTIVATION ACCEPT INTERESTS,
STIMULATE CURIOSITY &
CONFLICT, GUIDE LEARNER,
EXPLORATION, DISCOVERY,
USE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE,
NEED TO KNOW, LINKS TO
SUCCESS, COOPERATIVE
LEARNING, CHALLENGE,
EXPECTATIONS, TAKE RISKS
THEORISTS BRUNER, WHITE, PIAGET,
WEINER, AUSUBEL
KEY PRINCIPLES OF BRUNER- DISCOVERY MAKES
THEORISTS STUDENTS WANT TO LEARN
MORE,
WHITE - DESIRE TO BE
COMPETENT
PIAGET - STIMULATE
DISEQUILIBRIUM, CONFLICT
WEINER - BELIEFS ABOUT
SUCCESS/FAILURE,
ATTRIBUTIONS , LINK
EFFORTS & STRATEGIES TO
OUTCOMES
161
HUMANISTIC
SELF, OTHERS & FEELINGS
PERSONAL GROWTH &
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS.
LEARNING GOAL
INTRINSIC -VALUE LEARNING
FOR ITS OWN SAKE,
PERSONALIZED,
MEANINGFUL
STUDENT-CENTERED
ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT,
ACCEPT INTERESTS,
STAY OUT OF NATURE'S
WAY, FREEDOM, DISCOVERY
EXPLORATION, CREATIVITY,
COOPERATIVE LEARNING,
TUNE INTO CHILD'S
INTELLECTUAL, SOCIAL &
EMOTIONAL NEEDS,
OVERCOME DEFICIENCIES,
GIVE CHOICES,
PROVIDE SAFE, SUPPORTIVE
CLASSROOM
ROGERS, GORDON, PURKEY,
MASLOW
ROGERS -LEARNER-
CENTERED, TEACHER
WARMTH, ACCEPTANCE, &
EMPATHY, AVOID BEING AN
AUTHORITY, LEARNER
CONTROL OWN BEHAVIOR,
SELF AWARENESS &
ACCEPTANCE
MASLOW - SATISFACTION OF
BASIC NEEDS E.G. PHYSICAL,
BELONGINGNESS, SELF
ESTEEM, IS PREREQUISITE
FOR LEARNING, SELF
 162
ACTUALIZATION

LIMITATIONS TEACHER CAN'T ALWAYS TEACHERS CAN'T KNOW ALL

TAP INTRINSIC MOTIVATION. STUDENTS' NEEDS,
SOMETIMES STUDENTS CAN'T ALWAYS TAP
MUST LEARN BORING INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
THINGS.
 163
SOCIAL LEARNING MOTIVATION THEORIES

DESCRIPTION OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING SOCIAL-COGNITIVE

LEARNING
FOCUSES ON SOCIAL INFLUENCES IN SOCIAL INFLUENCES IN
ENVIRONMENT, OUTCOMES ENVIRONMENT, EXPECTED
OF BEHAVIOR OUTCOMES OF BEHAVIOR,
INDIVIDUAL BELIEFS

GOALS OF THEORY ACQUIRE SOCIALLY DESIRED SELF REGULATION,

BEHAVIORS, PERFORMANCE LEARNING & PERFORMANCE
GOAL (FOCUS ON HOW YOU GOALS
ARE JUDGED BY OTHERS)

TYPE OF MOTIVATION EXTRINSIC BECOMES EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC

INTRINSIC

APPROACH TO MOTIVATION TEACHER-CENTERED TEACHER AND STUDENT

CENTERED

HOW TEACHERS CAN PROVIDING MODELS SET GOALS, EXPECTATIONS,

DEVELOP MOTIVATION STUDENTS OBSERVE and VALUE THE CONSEQUENCES
IMITATE MODELS OF BEHAVIOR

THEORISTS BANDURA &WALTERS 1963 BANDURA 1977, 1986

KEY PRINCIPLES OF IMITATION; OBSERVATION , EXPECTANCY (OUTCOME OF

THEORISTS ENCODING, IMITATION, BEHAVIOR) X VALUE (BELIEF
IDENTIFICATION, ABOUT WORTH): BOTH
VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT NEEDED FOR MOTIVATION
(BEHAVIOR OBSERVED TO BE
REWARDED IN OTHERS) SELF EFFICACY
(INFLUENCED
BY SEEING OTHERS
SUCCEED AND FAIL)

TEACHER EFFICACY

LIMITATIONS GOOD MODELS NOT ALWAYS TEACHER EFFICACY is

AVAILABLE, HARD TO ASSESS AFFECTED BY MANY
EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR FACTORS TEACHERS CAN'T
MODELS CONTROL, INCLUDING THE
CLIMATE OF THE SCHOOL
 164
OPERANT CONDITIONING BEHAVIORAL MOTIVATION THEORY

DESCRIPTION
FOCUSES ON BEHAVIOR AND ITS OUTCOMES

GOALS OF THEORY MOLD SOCIALLY DESIRABLE BEHAVIOR,

GIVE CORRECT ANSWER

TYPE OF MOTIVATION EXTRINSIC

APPROACH TO MOTIVATION TEACHER-CENTERED

HOW TEACHERS CAN DEVELOP MOTIVATION USE REINFORCEMENT & PUNISHMENT TO

CHANGE BEHAVIOR.
SHAPING - SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION
TOKEN ECONOMY

THEORISTS SKINNER, PREMACK

KEY PRINCIPLES OF THEORY STIMULUS, RESPONSE, REINFORCEMENT

(REWARDS) : STRENGTHENS RESPONSES.
I.E. INCREASES CHANCES OF STUDENT
MAKING THE DESIRED RESPONSE.
POSITIVE - GIVE SOMETHING POSITIVE
NEGATIVE- TAKE AWAY SOMETHING
NEGATIVE
PREMACK PRINCIPLE - FIND OUT WHAT
STUDENTS LIKE TO DO WHEN THEY HAVE
CHOICES AND USE THAT AS A REWARD.

EXTINCTION: STOP REINFORCING BEHAVIOR

AND IT WILL STOP OCCURRING.

PUNISHMENT: WEAKENS RESPONSES. I.E.

DECREASES CHANCES OF STUDENT MAKING
UNDESIRED RESPONSE.
1. GIVE SOMETHING NEGATIVE
2. TAKE AWAY SOMETHING POSITIVE

LIMITATIONS SATIATION: EXCESSIVE USE OF REWARDS

MAKES THEM STOP BEING EFFECTIVE.
SOME TYPES OF REWARDS E.G. EXPECTED
TANGIBLE REWARDS UNDERMINE INTRINSIC
MOTIVATION UNLESS THEY ARE
CONTINGENT UPON ACHIEVING A CERTAIN
LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE OR FINISHING A
TASK. (CAMERON & PIERCE 1994)
PUNISHMENT DOESN'T ELIMINATE
UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIOR, IT JUST CHANGES
WHEN IT OCCURS. PUNISHMENT DOESN'T
TEACH STUDENTS HOW THEY SHOULD
BEHAVE. IT HAS EMOTIONAL
CONSEQUENCES THAT INTERFERE WITH
LEARNING.
 165

QUESTIONS ABOUT LEARNING THEORIES

________________________________
NAME

PREPARE ONE QUESTION FOR EACH OF THE THEORIES LISTED BELOW.

ALL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE WHY OR HOW QUESTIONS.

1, OPERANT CONDITIONING

2. SOCIAL LEARNING

3. BEHAVIORAL

4. COGNITIVE

5. CONSTRUCTIVIST

6. HUMANISTIC
 166
Introduction to Intelligence

Definition of intelligence: ability or abilities to acquire and use knowledge for solving problems
and adapting the world. Some people believe intelligence is a general ability ("g" factor) ; others,
indeed most people today believe it is more complex than that and it involves many different
abilities.

Early theories of intelligence defined it as: 1) capacity to learn; 2) total knowledge

acquired, 3) ability to adapt successfully to new situations and to the environment in general.

What factors affect intelligence? heredity - sets broad limits; environment e.g..
sociocultural factors: nutrition affects birthweight, nutrition affects the quality of the prenatal
environment, interpersonal interaction, stimulation. The environment allows for learning and the
development of intelligence within the broad limits set by heredity.

What factors do not affect intelligence? sex, race, age after adulthood

What factors affect performance on intelligence tests? familiarity with content e.g. vocabulary;
anxiety; testing context e.g. familiar environment; assessment method e.g. individual (questions
asked and answered orally, given privately) or group test (pencil and paper test requiring reading
and writing, given in group); degree of development of thinking & learning skills; and the
relationship between the tester and the testee e.g. same vs. different ethnicity. (Shapiro, 1973).

What are major approaches to studying intelligence?

Psychometric (e.g. Binet): focus on individual differences between people in their scores on tests.
Cognitive Developmental (e.g. Piaget, Perry): focus on commonalities of people at the same
stage and differences between people at different stages.
Information Processing (e.g. Sternberg): focus on different intellectual processes used in the
problems to be solved on intelligence tests.
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences: focus on the domains in which intelligence is manifested. Based
on converging evidence e.g. neuropsychology, studies of prodigies, idiot savants, brain damaged,
gifted, normal children and adults, experts in different lines of work and individuals from different
cultures.
 167
The "Bell Curve"

(from R.J. Sternberg, 1995, For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls, Psychological Science)

History
1904 Binet was asked by the Minister of Instruction in Paris to devise a test to distinguish
students who were genuinely mentally retarded from those who just had behavior problems. The
goal was to prevent teachers from just getting rid of difficult students and put them in classes for
the retarded. They wanted to protect children from "callous labeling". The test became known as
the Stanford Binet because Terman, from Stanford, brought it to the USA.

1904 Spearman first published the "g" factor theory - a scientific theory that summarizes
all that is important about human abilities in a single number. He viewed "g" as general ability or
mental energy.

Sternberg notes the irony in how the test was intended and how it has been used over the years.
He says it's the combination of these two events that proved "explosive and lethal". Binet's test
wasn't based on a scientific theory about intelligence. It was just based on psychometric
properties of test items that distinguished between children of different ages. Spearman didn't
have a test. The two events combined suggested that the "g" theory was underlying the test
score.

Another irony Sternberg notes is that Binet believed that intelligence can be developed and raised,
and he even developed "mental orthopedics" for this purpose. Binet believed that intelligence isn't
just inherited, but depends upon the environment as well, to make a substantial contribution.
However others, like Goddard, insisted the test could be used to distinguish between ethnic, racial
and other groups. Lower test scores were interpreted as showing intellectual inferiority. At Ellis
Island IQ tests were use to screen out people seen as undesireables. See Stephen J. Gould for
an extensive treatment of this topic.

Herrnstein and Murray's (1994) The Bell Curve, is a study of the intellectual differences
between ethnic and racial groups. The basic arguments are:
1. Intelligence is important to many facets of life.
2. IQ is an adequate measure of intelligence.
3. IQ is highly inheritable, therefore it passes through genes across generations.
4. There are racial and ethnic group differences in intelligence that matter for society.
5. Many problems in our society today are due to differences in IQ.
6. If we don't deal with these differences we will have even more trouble.
7. Tests can and should be used as gates, letting some people in and keeping other
people out, because they tell us what we need to know about who will be better/worse in
a variety of pursuits.

Vygotsky pointed out that we can't really know someone's underlying capacity; all we can
do is infer it from some form of measurement.

Sternberg's concerns are: (the ultimate test of intelligence -adapt or die!)

1. A talented person with creative intelligence was rejected from graduate school because of low
test scores. (See Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence later in this chapter.)

2. Sternberg's own experience being viewed as "low ability" because of low test scores, which
were a result of his high test anxiety. Since he was perceived as low ability, his teachers had low
expectations for him and he tried to please them by meeting their low expectations.
 168
3. High test scorers are in powerful positions and value other people with high test scores.
4. Herrnstein & Murray base their whole argument on the edifice of their own, often wrong, interpretation of
statistics.

5. USA is obsessed with test scores.

6. The cultural and societal landscape of the USA is such that the poor grow up with substandard housing,
poor nutrition and high crime and drugs. Survival depends upon the development of adaptive skills, but
not those like IQ. Statistics - graphs, correlations, are predicated on this landscape. If the landscape
were different, so might be the test results.

7. The "heritability correlation" The Bell Curve uses so often is determined by time and place; it's not a
fixed number. The authors even point out that heritability can vary as a function of both the gene pool and
environments. However, they ignore the fact that people have to adapt to their environments and so the
skills developed may differ to best adapt to their different environments.

8. Herrnstein and Murray ignore the large body of research showing limitations of IQ. e.g., that many
successful (and wealthy) people do not have high IQ. There's much more to intelligence than what IQ
measures. Some research shows lower success of very high IQ people.

9. The skills valued in intelligence testing, such as speed on these timed tests, may not be valued in some
cultures. Many important decisions in everyday life, that truly require application of intelligence, are not
made in the few seconds allowed to solve IQ test items. Consequently, we're confounding a person's true
intelligence with how we assess it.

10. What's really important is not intelligence per se, but actualized intelligence. That is - intelligent
performance is more important than intellectual ability. Actualized intelligence requires a person to
recognize one's own strengths and weaknesses, capitalize on the strengths and compensate for or
remediate the weaknesses.

11. No one is really good at everything. A person smart in one environment may be stupid in another. e.g.
if Sternberg were a hunter or a boater navigating by stars at night, he'd have a hard time adapting
because he hasn't developed the required skills to perform intelligently in those environments. As the
environment changes, so does what's adaptive behavior.

12. IQ just measures just one aspect, a small part of our cultural adaptation to the environment.

Race and Intelligence

1. Herrnstein and Murray claim there are racial difference in intelligence. But we really don't know if there
are because we really don't know how to fully measure intelligence with sufficient reliability, validity and
comprehensiveness.

2. There are racial differences in IQ, but we really are not sure why.

3. None of the studies Herrnstein & Murray cite really address the causes of these racial differences. And
none even show racial differences in intelligence when intelligence is more broadly defined.

4. Different socio-cultural and ethnic groups sometimes emphasize different skills. e.g. some Anglos -
academics and some Latinos - social competence. Some people might be smart in an academic
environment, but not in a business environment.

5. Herrnstein & Murray "vastly underestimate the effects of home, community and schooling."...
"In the real world, when we talk about who's smart, we're not just talking about IQ,
nor should we be".(Sternberg, 1994).
Some criticisms of IQ tests:

1. They measure achievement, not intelligence.

2. No credit is given for good reasons behind wrong answers. Credit is given for right answers,
even if they're selected for the wrong reasons. There's too much emphasis on the product (the
answer) and not enough on the process (the reasoning).
3. IQ scores don't tell how much intelligence a person has, they just tell how one person's score
compares to others'.
4. Social and cultural biases aren't taken into account.
5. Labeling students because of a low test scores creates assumptions of inferiority and a self-
fulfilling prophesy cycle of failure.

Issues

What is IQ?: Intelligence Quotient, IQ is defined as mental age (test score) divided by
chronological age x 100. 100 is the average score for white, native born Americans with English
as their native language, with a standard deviation of 15, so 68% of the general population will fall
between scores of 85-115. Only 16% of people with these characteristics will score above 115.
An important consideration in interpreting IQ score is knowing whether the score is based on a
paper and pencil group administered test or whether it is based on an individually administered
performance battery of tests.

Speed: Sternberg argues that speed is overemphasized on intelligence tests. Most important life
tasks requiring intelligence don't involve making very quick decisions. More important than speed
is how time is allocated and how effectively information processing is automatized.

Culture: Sternberg, Gardner and others believe intelligence must be understood within the context
of one's culture. What's intelligent in one culture may not be in another.

What is the History of abuses of IQ?: In 1912 the U.S. Public Health Service hired Goddard to
test immigrants at Ellis Island for "feeblemindedness". Goddard was trained by Terman, a
hereditarian and co-developed of the Stanford-Binet IQ test. "Based on his examination of the
great mass of average immigrants, 83% of Jews, 80% of Hungarians, 79% of Italians and 87% of
Russians were
"feebleminded". Test results were interpreted as showing that black people and immigrants from
eastern and southern Europe were intellectually inferior. Polish people were at the bottom of the
list.
As a result the Immigration Code of 1924 adopted a policy of immigration quotas based on
national origins because a report to the Congressional Committee on Immigration and
Naturalization said that studies of intelligence showed that Americans could not "afford to ignore
the menace of race deteriorization or evident relations of immigrants to nation progress and
welfare". By 1930, 24 states had passed laws to sterilize people who were feebleminded,
criminals and paupers. In the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler justified extermination of Jews because of
their reputed "genetic inferiority". (from Racism, Intelligence and the Working Class).

Language barriers frequently result in misclassifying non or limited standard English

speakers as mentally inferior. In special education this is sometimes referred to as the "6 hour
retardant" because it is only for the 6 hours that students are in school that they are considered
mentally retarded. The rest of the time they are recognized to have normal intelligence.
Misclassification results in labeling students, which tends to produce low teacher expectations
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which leads to a self fulfilling prophesy of low achievement.

Modern Theories of Intelligence: Focus on Multiple Intelligences

Guilford's Structure of Intellect or Faces of Intellect Model was the first to recognize the complexity of
human intelligence and identify multiple intelligences. Guilford (1967, 1988) suggests the three basic
categories of intelligence are 1) mental operations or processes (six types: cognition, convergent thinking,
divergent thinking, evaluation, memory recording & memory retention), 2) contents -or what we think about
(5 types: visual, auditory, word meaning, symbols, behaviors), and 3) products, or the end product of
intelligent thought (6 types: units, classes, relations, systems, transformations & implications). There are
over 180 different combinations of intelligence according to this model (6x5x6). Although this model is
valuable for showing the complexity of intelligence, it is probably too complex to be very useful for a
classroom teacher.

Sternberg's (1985) triarchic theory of intelligence indicate there are three different, but interdependent
types of intelligence: analytical, creative and practical. Analytical intelligence is the type assessed by
traditional IQ tests and is the type emphasized in schools. Sternberg considers creative intelligence more
precious and rare than analytical intelligence. It involves novel approaches to solving problems in one's
experience. Practical intelligence involves knowing how to function effectively in the environment.
Sternberg uses the stories of three students trying to get into graduate school to illustrate the three
different types of intelligence. Alice had high test scores, which showed she was strong in analytical
intelligence as is needed for test taking and school work. She was accepted to graduate school because
of her high test scores. Barbara did not have high test scores, but was a very creative thinker who could
combine different experiences in insightful ways. This creative intelligence was not recognized by the
graduate school admissions process so she was rejected. Celia knew how to "play the game". She had
"street smarts" and was therefore able to manipulate her environment so she got into graduate school
although she didn't have high test scores. Sternberg's research shows that most people are better in one
type of intelligence than the others. He believes that creative intelligence is the most precious and rare of
the three. What is your opinion of your own strengths and weaknesses in these aspects of intelligence?

Analytical Intelligence

There are three major components of analytical intelligence, a metacomponent, which entails
metacognitive processes (e.g. planning) and knowledge (e.g. knowing when to use a particular skill or
strategy), a performance component, which is made up of cognitive skills that perform the work directed
by the metacognitive bosses, and a knowledge acquisition component comprised of three learning -to-
learn skills.

Metacognitive skills represent higher level cognition and they are different from the more basic,
cognitive skills. Cognition is to thinking what metacognition is to thinking about thinking. Metacognitive
skills are thoughts used to manage task performance. Metacognitive skills include those executive level
processes (planning, monitoring, and evaluating) which drive the rest of intelligent behavior. As such,
they are sometimes referred to as the boss skills. The cognitive skills carry out the boss's commands, so
they are the worker skills. Cognitive skills in a particular subject area are the skills used in actually
performing academic tasks. In reading, comprehending is a cognitive skill. Checking up on
comprehension or comprehension monitoring, is a metacognitive skill. In math, doing computations is
cognitive, deciding what computations need to be made is metacognitive.

The planning function of metacognition is crucial when a student looks for or fails to look for the best way
to study a subject, read a textbook, do an assignment, or prepare for a test. Some students are unaware
of this planning function and the tutor provides valuable assistance in dealing with this particular aspect of
the tutee's behavior. A common college student metacognitive problem is time management. Students
are often poor judges of how long it will take to perform an academic task. The result is that inadequate
 171

time is planned and failure to achieve is directly attributable to this lack of metacognition.

The monitoring and evaluating functions of metacognition help students judge whether they are going in
the right direction and self-correct as needed. Often students have only a vague idea of how well or
poorly they are doing. They are frequently unaware of what they know and what they do not know. Many
students don't self-check to see if they are using the right approach or if they should try a different one.
Successful students learn efficiently by using the feedback they receive from the monitoring and
evaluating to improve their future performance. Many students need help monitoring and evaluating their
performance. Just as students need to develop their metacognition, teachers must also learn to teach
metacognitively so they can be effective managers of the teaching-learning process. Teachers are more
likely to be effective helping students if they plan for a session before it starts monitor student
comprehension and progress as it proceeds, and evaluate the lesson (what worked and why; what did not
work and why not) when it is over. The I DREAM of A model in Chapters 4 and 10 show what these
metacognitive skills are and how to develop them.

Cognitive factors are the intellectual processes through which students acquire, comprehend,
and retain information and skills needed for mastering course material and achieving at an acceptable
level. Sternberg (1985) identifies cognitive processes of encoding (perceiving and storing information),
inferring, applying combining, comparing, justifying, and mapping relationships as cognitive skills basic to
intelligent performance. Applied to reading, these cognitive factors include identifying the main idea and
significant details, making inferences, drawing conclusions and understanding vocabulary. In math they
include doing computations, understanding mathematical concepts (e.g. exponents) and some aspects of
problem solving.

Sternberg also identifies three major knowledge acquisition or learning-to-learn skills. One is
differentiating relevant from irrelevant information, or selectively attending to and recording the material to
be learned. Students often treat everything they study as equally important and thereby overburden
themselves trying to learn unnecessary information. Another learning to learn skill is comparing what one
already knows with what is to be learned. This linking of new with old information performs several vital
functions: 1) by beginning with the old and leading to the new, the student (and teacher) can build from
existing, stable, knowledge to enriched knowledge and understanding ; 2) it helps the student see
familiarity and meaningfulness in apparently new material; and 3) it aids acquiring new information and
helps the learner store new information in a logical and accessible location, thereby making it easier to
remember when it is needed.

The final learning to learn skill is selectively combining relevant and apparently unrelated old and new
information into a new and meaningful whole. The skill requires knowing how to put the pieces together.
This new whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. One strategy teachers can use and teach this
skill is diagramming or drawing a representation e.g. a concept map of the "big picture" of how all the
different things studied in a course fit together to create a systematic body of knowledge. Teachers can
help their students make a "jigsaw puzzle diagram" of the major concepts and their interrelationships. This
could be done both in specific courses, and between students' courses, so that students can see how
what they learned before applies to what they're doing now. This will also show how what is being learned
now will be needed in later courses and in professional situations. Making these connections is likely to
increase students' motivation to learn.

Using these three skills together forms the basis of insight, or the "aha!" experience. This combination
of skills allows readers to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words in context. In the paragraph below,
(adapted from Sternberg 1986), use the context to figure out the meaning of the word in bold.

There's an exciting, new development in the food world. Livestock breeders have
recently developed a new breed of turkey with a high percentage of good meat and a low
percentage of waste. The best way for ranchers to improve stock is to hire a thremmatologist to
advise in the purchase and mating of different breeds . The key to producing good meat is to
have a higher proportion of white to dark meat.
What do you think thremmatologist means?________________________________________
___________________________________________________

How did you figure out the meaning?

1. From your prior knowledge, did you already have an idea about what any part of the
word meant? If so, what?

2. Which words in the paragraph were relevant for defining this term? Which were
irrelevant?

3. What ideas did you combine to define the word's meaning?

How do numbers one - three correspond to Sternberg's three learning-to-learn skills?

Creative Intelligence

There are two major characteristics of this aspect of intelligence: the ability to deal effectively with
novelty in tasks or situations, and performing mental tasks through automaticity. Overlearning
is another term sometimes used to describe automaticity. It means learning to the degree that the
knowledge or process has been internalized and can be used automatically or unconsciously,
without mental effort. The more that intellectual processes and knowledge are on automatic pilot,
the more mental capacity there is in working memory to deal with novel aspects of a problem, so
the two characteristics are interrelated. Sternberg and Davidson's research on the basis of
scientific insight suggests that there are three types of insight, which correspond to the three
knowledge acquisition (learning-to-learn) skills described above: selecting relevant from irrelevant
information. The creative individual combines disparate experiences in insightful ways. In contrast
to analytical intelligence - how people break down ideas, creative people tend to excel in synthetic
intelligence - how they put ideas together. This part of the theory involves applying the mental
components to one's experience, transferring knowledge and skills to new situations.

Practical Intelligence

Sternberg identified three strategies for successfully negotiating one's environment: adapting to
it, that is, changing one's needs, interests or actions to fit the demands of the environment,
selecting, or choosing a different environment which better suits one's needs, interests or
behaviors, and
shaping, or changing the environment so that it better fits one's needs, interests or actions.
Mental components described in the analytical part of the theory are applied to the environment
and are used to adapt, select and/ or shape. Part of intelligence is knowing the environment well
enough to understand when to adapt, and when not to - but when to select or shape instead. His
research showed that the ability to successfully interact with one's environment is often dependent
upon tacit knowledge, which is knowledge learned from experience rather than being explicitly
taught or even verbalized as being important. Although this kind unspoken expectation isn't
directly taught, it is often essential for thriving in one's environment. For example, in academia,
getting grants is often important for doing research, but in school they don't teach you that it's
important to get grants or how to go about getting them. Sternberg, Okagaki and Jackson (1990)
identify three categories of practical intelligence that are important for school success: managing
yourself (e.g., accepting responsibility, setting goals, knowing how you work best, making mental
pictures and using what you already know), managing tasks (e.g., thinking about what strategies
you are using,
 planning a way to prevent problems, getting organized, taking notes, following directions,
managing time, taking tests) and cooperating with others, (e.g., participating in class
discussions, putting yourself in another's place, understanding social networks, figuring out the
rules, and seeing connections between current experience and future goals)

Gardner (1983) developed a Multiple Intelligences theory in his book Frames of Mind, which
has become very influential in education in the 1990's. His research shows that all people have
seven different, relatively independent intelligences, and that most people are better in some
areas than others. Each type of intelligence is associated with specific careers or "end states"
during adulthood. These intelligences are conceptualized as being demonstrated through
activities that are meaningful in person's specific culture. Assessment of these intelligences must
take culture into account, so that people being assessed are familiar with the tasks and materials
. The seven intelligences are:
1. VERBAL/LINGUISTIC: involves written and spoken languages. It includes a sensitivity to
meanings of words, sounds, rhythms, and the different functions of language. Many
linguistic experiences can activate this form of intelligence. Practice and feedback in
reading, writing, speaking, and listening experiences can nurture linguistic intelligence.
This intelligence is associated with end states such as being a journalist or a poet.
2. LOGICAL/MATHEMATICAL: involves sensitivity to and the ability to identify abstract,
logical or numerical patterns and the capacity to deal with long chains of reasoning.
Activities that focus on developing analytical thinking abilities can nurture this intelligence .
It is associated with careers in science and math.
3. VISUAL/SPATIAL: involves abilities to see the visual-spatial world accurately and to
mentally transform one's perceptions. This intelligence can be developed through
experiences with mental images/pictures and graphic organizers. It is associated with
careers in art, architecture and navigation.
4. BODY/KINESTHETIC: involves the abilities to skillfully control physical movement,
objects and knowing the body. It can be enhanced through experiences with exercise
and sports. This type of intelligence is associated with careers in dance and athletics.
5. MUSICAL/RHYTHMICAL: involves the abilities to recognize tonal patterns, rhythms, pitch
timbre, environmental sounds, sensitivity to beats and rhythms. It also includes the
abilities to produce or appreciate these features. It can be improved through practice
observing and analyzing sounds and their effects.
It is associated with careers such as a conductor, pianist or music teacher.
6. INTERPERSONAL: involves sensitivities in social relationships and communications,
such as recognizing peoples' moods or needs and responding appropriately.
Interpersonal intelligence can be nurtured by tuning into non-verbal aspects of
communication and trying to look at situations from another person's point of view. It is
associated with careers such as therapists and salespeople.
7. INTRAPERSONAL: involves the capacities for self-knowledge of one's own feelings,
strengths, weaknesses, and using this information to guide one's own behavior. It can
be developed through reflection and metacognition. This type of intelligence is associated
with the end-state of accurate self-knowledge, but not particular types of careers.

What is your opinion of your own strengths and weaknesses in these aspects of intelligence?

Which of these intelligences do schools tend to emphasize? Which do schools tend to ignore?
Multiple Intelligences Toolbox, D. Lazear (1991) Seven Ways of Teaching
 Comparisons and Contrasts: Sternberg's and Gardner's Theories of Intelligence

Similarities

- believe standard I.Q. tests are limited in their ability to assess intelligence
- believe there are several varieties of intelligences
-believe we all have all the different types of intelligences to some degree
-believe that we all tend to be better in one than the others
-emphasize identifying your strengths and weaknesses
- believe the environment is an important factor influencing intelligence
- believe intelligence can be developed through education
-identify self awareness as a form of intelligence (Sternberg's metacomponent and
Gardner's intrapersonal intelligence)
-agree school-related intelligence is not the only important kind of intelligence
-agree an important aspect of intelligent behavior is how practical it is in the real world
-agree that what is considered intelligent behavior is affected by cultural
-consider creativity in relationship to intelligence
-attempt to integrate diverse approaches to looking at intelligence
-do not consider speed in answering questions on a test as an important characteristic of
intelligence
-theories can be used to develop a profile of one's intelligence
Differences
- the number of types of intelligence identified (3 versus 7)
- Sternberg say the intelligences are interdependent whereas Gardner says the intelligences are
independent
-Gardner connects intelligences to specific domains or careers where the intelligences are
manifested (e.g. visual/spatial to sculptor, bodily/kinesthetic to dancer, logical/mathematical
to scientist) whereas Sternberg connects intelligences to general areas of success (e.g
componential to academic excellence, experiential to creativity, and contextual to practical
use)
-Sternberg's theory is based primarily on the psychological research on psychometrics, and
cognition whereas Gardner's theory is based more on converging evidence in
neuropsychological and exceptional children research
-All of Sternberg's ideas about the types intelligence have been accepted by the psychological
community, whereas some of Gardner's types of intelligence have not
-Sternberg identifies specific types and levels of mental processes that characterize intelligent
performance whereas Gardner does not

PERRY'S THEORY OF INTELLECTUAL & ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT

This cognitive developmental theory focuses on the development of intelligence of

(predominantly white, middle class male) college students. The college environment challenges
students and through coming to grips with these challenges students restructure their thinking,
their identity and their lives - how they find personal meaning for their role in the world (King,
1978). Wm. Perry (1970) studied male undergraduates at Harvard and examined how students'
thinking developed during and through their college years. Research has indicated that the kind of
intellectual development Perry addresses is distinct from Piagetian concepts of intellectual
development. It is essentially a post-formal operations stage of development. The theory "traces
evolution in students thinking about the nature of knowledge, truth and values and the meaning of
life and responsibilities (King, 1978, p. 37-38) ."

A Center for the Study of Intellectual Development has a Perry Network, a relatively informal
"support group" for people around the country interested in both research and practice related to
the Perry scheme." (Wm. Moore, 1994). Moore (1994) feels that the Perry scheme attempts to
address a gap, " namely a more fundamental meaning-making perspective that somehow
underlies the skills and thinking processes and strategies typically addressed in critical thinking
approaches".

According to the Perry scheme, as adults thinking progressed through a sequence of nine
positions. There are transitional benchmarks within each position. The scheme begins with
dualism (Positions 1 - 2), which emphasizes the expertise of authority and absolute visions of
right and wrong. Next it moves to the modification of dualism, which raises questions about
authorities regarding uncertainties and different opinions Multiplicity is the chief perspective
developed in Positions 3-4. Students acknowledge that people who have different beliefs aren't
simply wrong. They recognize multiple perspectives on a topic, multiple approaches to solving
problems and multiple answers to some questions. They can't adequately evaluate these multiple
points of view, and are just beginning to separate factual bases from conclusions/opinions drawn
from them. Then comes discovery of relativism, which emphasizes that knowledge is relative
and contextual. The multiple perspectives recognized in the preceding phase are seen as pieces
of a larger integrated, big picture. Analytical thinking enables students to see that points of view
exist within a context. Evaluative thinking develops so they can assess the multiple perspectives.
( Positions 5 -6 ) By Position 6 students recognize they need to use the multiple truths that exist in
a relativistic world to evolve and endorse their own choice. Students may resist making decisions
that involves accepting roles and responsibilities because they see the merits of alternatives.
The final major phase is commitments in relativism ( Positions 7- 9). Students who reach this
level have established their identities, they make active affirmations of themselves and their
responsibilities. Their life style in a pluralistic world is consistent with their own personal
convictions.

Women's Ways of Knowing

As noted above, Perry's research was conducted on white, male undergraduates at Harvard and
published in 1970. To what extent are his findings generalizable to women, minorities and non-
college students? Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1986), who were influenced by
Perry's research and theory, conducted a similar study with women - white, minority, and both
college and noncollege (urban, rural and suburban). They were concerned with why women
students often reported problems or gaps in their learning and doubted their intellectual
competence. Their results showed that women did not fit neatly into Perry's categories and
therefore developed their own categories to better account for women's intellectual development.
Whereas Perry's categories are seen as stages, each building upon the last, they are not sure
about whether there is a clear, sequential ordering of the ways of knowing they identified. Instead,
their five categories, silence (women view themselves as mindless, voiceless and subject to the
whims of external authority) , received knowledge (women see themselves as able to take in
and reproduce knowledge from external authorities, but not as able to create knowledge on their
own) , subjective knowledge (truth and knowledge are seen as personal, private, and
subjectively known or intuited) , procedural knowledge (women are invested in learning and
applying objective procedures for obtaining and communicating knowledge) and constructed
knowledge (women view all knowledge as contextual, experience themselves as creators of
knowledge, and value both subjective and objective strategies for knowing) are viewed as simply
epistemological categories.

Jean Piaget and Robbie Case: Notes on Recent Views of Cognitive Development
Hamilton and Ghatala 1994 Learning and Instruction Ch. 6 Piaget and NeoPiagetians

Major differences between Piaget and Case: Case's stages are more detailed than Piaget's in
two ways: 1. He focuses on a variety of strategies involved in performing simple tasks e.g. visual
tracking of objects; 2. He tries to explain individual differences in development by looking at both
qualitative (complexity and focus of cognitive strategies) and quantitative (increases in the number
of strategies and automatization) changes in cognitive strategies.

Case has both a structural model and a process model of development. His structural
model focuses on the stages of development and the mechanisms for transitions between stages
(executive control structures: identify problem situations; set specific goals and objectives &
activate procedures or schemes to achieve goals), reflective abstraction: ability to separate out
invariant characteristics from those tied to perceptual and physical experience). His process
model focuses on specific procedures or operations used to manipulate information and the
factors which constrain the manipulation of information (working memory - short term storage
space STSS, operational efficiency, figurative schemes, operative schemes, consolidation or
chunking). Whereas Piaget is strictly a constructivist, Case is both a constructivist and an
information processing theorist.

Case's Stages (ages are given in parentheses)

1. sensori-motor control structures (birth- 1 1/2): mental reality linked to physical reality
2. relational control structures (1 1/2- 5): detect and coordinate relations along one dimension only
3. dimensional control structures (5-11): extract significant dimensions in physical and social
world; able to compare along two dimensions
4. abstract control structures (11-18): acquire abstract thought system enabling use of
proportional reasoning, solving verbal analogies & inferring psychological traits of others.
 Piaget vs. Case Differences in views of Stages and Development (p. 233)
1. Domain specificity of stages: Case emphasizes development in relationship to specific content,
such as social versus mathematical information.
2. Mechanism responsible for development from one stage to another. For Piaget, equilibration is
the self-regulatory mechanism; for Case self regulation is the tendency to structure interactions in
terms of problem situations and development of skills to solve these problems.
3. Role of instruction in development: Piaget - it's one of many environmental influences; it doen
not have a critical role. In contrast, to Case instruction has a critical role in development because
it allows practice of schemes and skills which directly influence cognitive development. Instruction
also allows for transmission of important cultural knowledge and skills.

Positions of Piaget and Case on Core Issues (p. 241)

1. How does cognition develop? Case puts relatively more emphasis on environmental versus
organic factors, whereas Piaget puts relatively more emphasis on organic than environmental
factors.
2. What is the source of motivation for development? Both Piaget and Case emphasize intrinsic
motivation rather than extrinsic motivation. For Piaget, motivation is viewed in terms of
Equilibration. Case looks at it in terms of problem solving.
3. How does transfer occur? For Piaget, transfer occurs through a wide variety of experiences at
appropriate level. For Case, transfer occurs through practice & operational efficiency and it
occurs within domains, but not necessarily across them.

HOMEWORK

SUMMARIES OF INTELLIGENCE THEORIES

________________________________________
name

Using your own words, make 3-5 sentence reader-based summaries of the theories
listed below.

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory

Perry's Theory of Cognitive & Ethical Development

Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule

 179

Name(s)____________________________________________________________

Questions Based on Theories of Intelligence

1. What are some of the connections between your experiences in school (elementary, secondary and
college) and the intelligence theories of Sternberg, Gardner, Perry and Belenky et.al.?
Theories of Intelligence
School Experiences Sternberg Gardner Perry Belenky et.al.

Elementary

_____________________________________________________________________
Secondary

_____________________________________________________________________
College

_____________________________________________________________________

2. How could you apply these three theories of intelligences to the following situations?
Theories of Intelligence
Situations Sternberg Gardner Perry Belenky et.al.

arguing with a friend

(pick your own
argument)

__________________________________________________________________
buying a television