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Cognitive theories of learning

Cognitive theories first appeared last century, but were usurped by behavioural theories earlier this century, only to re-emerge as the dominant force again. They are concerned with the things that happen inside our heads as we learn. They take the perspective that students actively process information and learning takes place through the efforts of the student as they organise, store and then find relationships between information, linking new to old knowledge, schema and scripts. Cognitive approaches emphasise how information is processed.

The three researchers Ausubel, Bruner and Gagné take different perspectives but each presents ideas that add to the discussion on how people learn. Ausubel's advanced organiser is a concept that considers the impact of prior learning. This differs from the behaviourists who do not consider the importance of this factor. Bruner's work on categorisation or the forming of concepts provides a possible set of answers to how the learner derives information from the environment. Gagné looks at the events of learning and instruction as a series of phases, using the cognitive steps of coding, storing, retrieving and transferring information.

These three cognitive theorists, Jerome Bruner, David Ausubel and Robert Gagné have not adopted a developmental perspective. Although they have adopted quite different theoretical positions, they share the following features in common.

they all put forward their ideas initially in the 1960s. At that time all three were established in their careers and recognised as authorities in their own right.

all three attempted to define cognitive theories of instruction. The advent of these theories coincided with a period in which Western educators were, for the first time since the 1920s, seriously pausing to consider their educational policies; the depression and the second World War had made such evaluations impossible for almost thirty years. Of equal importance was the fact that this period of questioning in the 1960s coincided with periods of tremendous growth in scientific knowledge and expansion of, what was now in these Western countries, universal secondary education.

Bruner

The ideas of Bruner, who advocated discovery learning, probably have had greater acceptance, at least in schools, than those of Ausubel or Gagné. In 1966, Bruner wrote Toward a theory of instruction, in which he explained how his ideas might be translated into practice in the classroom. A further factor which contributed to the popularity of Bruner’s ideas was that they were very much in tune with the mood of the times. His emphasis on discovery and ‘hands on’ learning was in accord with Piaget’s ideas. Certainly the constructivist nature of his theory appealed to teachers and many of his principles are still employed by practising teachers.

Bruner argued that we should teach the ‘structure’ of subjects. He advocated the introduction of the real process of a particular discipline to students. For example, when learning history students should become involved in genuine historical enquiry. This might involve examining a bridge, a building, or even a head stone in a cemetery, then using the information acquired to trace records of various kinds in order to answer the questions generated about the origins, purposes, and history of that structure, or the life of the person concerned.

The three stages in Bruner's theory of intellectual development are:

Enactive where a person learns about the world through actions on objects.
Iconic where learning occurs through using models and pictures.
Symbolic which describes the capacity to think in abstract terms.

Bruner's underlying principle for teaching and learning is that a combination of concrete, pictorial then symbolic activities will lead to more effective learning. The progression is: start with a concrete experience then move to pictures and finally use symbolic representation. Is that path familiar to any of the readers? Are there similarities between Bruner's principle and the procedure suggested for teaching numeracy? Have you ever taught algebra using this procedure? It works!

Another aspect of Bruner's theory, which has been enthusiastically included in some teachers' classrooms, is Discovery Learning. This is not an easy teaching strategy to employ.

Ausubel

Ausubel’s writings have not attracted the popularity of Bruner’s works. However because much of his theory has been developed from research in mainstream cognitive psychology, many of his ideas have survived as part of information processing theory. Ausubel’s most notable contribution was the notion of the advance organiser. We can think of the advance organiser as simply a device or a mental learning aid to help us ‘get a grip’ on the new information. Put in more difficult language, according to Ausubel, the advance organiser is a means of preparing the learner’s cognitive structure for the learning experience about to take place. It is a device to activate the relevant schema or conceptual pattern so that new information would be more readily ‘subsumed’ into the learner’s existing cognitive structure or mental depiction!

The other major contribution which Ausubel has made, is his emphasis on the active nature of reception learning. The distinction between rote and meaningful learning is an important one, and too often we as educators fail to make reception learning as meaningful as possible. The need to require learners to be active by underlining, by completing missing words, by rewording sentences, or by giving additional examples, cannot be overemphasised in this context. Can you see a link with behaviourism here?

Gagné

Robert Gagné built upon behaviourist and cognitive theories to recommend approaches to instruction. Much of Gagné’s early experience as an instructional psychologist was spent tackling practical problems of training airforce personnel. He dealt particularly with problems in determining just what skills and knowledge are required for someone to be an effective performer at a given job. Once job requirements were identified, the task then became one of determining how those requirements might best be learned by a person in training for the job. He suggested that a task would be best learned by following a specific sequence of nine events:

gaining attention;
informing the learner of the objective;
stimulating recall of prerequisite learning;
presenting new material;
providing learning guidance;
eliciting performance;
providing feedback about correctness;
assessing performance; and
enhancing retention and recall.

In addition he proposed that learning is like to a building process which utilises a hierarchy of skills that increase in complexity. He also identified five major categories of learning:

Verbal information
Intellectual skills
Cognitive strategies
Motor skills
Attitudes

His notions of task analysis and the importance of the correct sequencing of instruction are followed by most mathematics teachers when designing their programs. Gagné’s approach is really that of an instructional designer and, although his ideas have developed quite remarkably over the last quarter of a century, you can still glimpse the skeletons of the principles used when he was responsible for designing training systems for World War II pilots.

Gagné’s theory of learning hierarchies could be said to be a teaching theory, which is easy to apply in some circumstances, but is not easily applied in other circumstances.

Many of his ideas are readily transferable to computer-assisted instruction and no doubt at least some readers will be familiar with his ideas, even if not with Gagné himself as their advocate.

The concept of Gagné's knowledge hierarchy leads to the assumption that it is important to present all the necessary lower-level facts before proceeding to teach at higher levels. Related to this is the concept that people can reason with higher-level concepts if they have learned all of the prerequisite lower-level information.

Gagné's ideas have received wide acceptance in the training field although teachers have also accepted some of his principles.

NSW HSC Online Professional Development Node

Cognitive theories of learning

Bruner

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Ausubel

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Gagné

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