Table of Contents | Ch 1 | Chapter 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Conclusions | References

Chapter 2 The Psychology of Learning

Introduction

The concept that new technologies delivering instruction in new learning environments, which then may lead to new ways of learning, intrigues many educationalists. These components are all continuously evolving regardless, and because, of each other. But can technology and new environments create new ways of learning? Or are we just seeing different ways of attaining knowledge compared to what we have been used to in the recent past?

What components of our current education systems will make the transition to the new media and what will the roles be of the present key actors when shifting from place to space?

2.1 Questions of Knowledge

How, why and when do people learn? These fundamental questions are becoming more crucial than ever for educators as budgets are increasingly defined by the outcomes of the system. As the government of the day and taxpayers govern and fund the system, the education sector as a whole tends to be conservative when confronted with new teaching and learning styles. As shown in Chapter One the conditions for change in education are ripe with technology shattering the concept of one classroom, one teacher and presenting all sorts of new possibilities. But the on-line educator must be even more aware of the above questions so as to justify to investors, cynics and students alike that people will learn in an on-line environment.

If the major reason for an education system is to efficiently achieve stated educational objectives then the investigation of learning theory should define what changes, if any, are required since learning theory affects teaching practice and vice versa. (Any change in those stated objectives is presumably a matter for society, not educationalists). Hence there has been a whole industry built around psychological and educational research into the questions of learning and the effects of changing styles with many opposing theories being put forward, fine tuned, abandoned and revisited.

What then will be the dominant teaching styles or learning theories of the on-line environment? Conclusions remain sketchy with some schools of thought convinced they have the right methods, with others being equally sceptical. Who is right and how can it be resolved? This in many cases depends on your values, epistemology and, to a certain extent, your ability for critical thinking.

2.2 Theories of knowledge

Newton and others' successes in measuring the natural world and the initial achievements of the Industrial Revolution set the standard for all enquiry coming into the twentieth century. This objective application of scientific methods governed by rules, procedures, and techniques attempted to minimise the effects of subjectivity and divorce social values from research. Enormous gains were made in the sciences of biology, chemistry and physics. Extremes were reached, where many believed that if you couldn't measure it, it didn't exist. It seemed only natural that if, as the positivist believed, everything is observable and already exists, then by applying the same techniques to humans we must eventually find the answer to such questions as `how do we learn?'. "Scientific researchers believe that through observation and experiment, universal laws governing human behaviour can be found." (McKinlay,1993:2)

Whilst the scientific world could in many cases claim near 100% objectivity on the actual research being carried out it could never deny that there is always at least one subjective component, the question of what to research. The methodology can be objective but at some point a person, community or nation is asking and shaping the questions and parameters of the research and those individuals or groups must draw upon their values to shape those questions and parameters. Hence educational research can be interpreted in a number of ways. Governments traditionally use the education system to 'shape' the populace and since they invariably fund the research into the system, research becomes a shaping tool. (Owen,1992; Jennings,1993; Reeves,1996; McKinlay,1993)

A dissatisfaction with the scientific method lead to a number of movements from the middle of the nineteenth century. Naturally they came from developing areas of the study of human behaviour such as psychology and sociology. Constructivists, as they are known, have a view of the world that, our realities about the social world are socially constructed and not value free and, social life cannot be explained by simple cause/effect relationships. One organisation, the Frankfurt School, was founded in 1923 on the basis of "the rejection of science and its positivist, empirical, quantitative, methods of investigation and explanation of reality (Pusey 1987)"(Jennings,1993:13). This school developed the Critical paradigm of the Constructivist approach by seeking knowledge for its empowering function so as to understand and criticise the construction of human meaning. This is an important extension to Constructivism which goes beyond the mere understanding of social reality but seeks to change that reality to something better (Jennings, 1993).

Out of this critical approach grew worldwide movements such as the women's movement or feminism, which exposed yet another obvious flaw in the positivist approach to enquiry, the fact that most of the scientific questions were being asked by men. More recently indigenous viewpoints have shown scientific enquiry has in the main been patronising, dismissive of cultural evidence, "sexist and elitist" (Jayaratne and Stewart,1991) and, whether scientists intended it or not "has provided resources for some people's domination of others." (Harding,1991:36)

Multi-culturalism and Diversity programs in the workplace make it a benefit to modern organisations to have greater understanding of others' belief systems and cultural requirements so as to participate successfully in local and international markets. This more critical, versus the previous authoritative, approach may be a first requirement for any emerging on-line institute as it takes its place in the world. Accordingly any evaluation of the institute should seek new and different 'measurements of excellence' which relate to the user of the system. These are more than likely to be found in a qualitative assessment and not in the empirical confirmation of the rigid values of typically conservative existing institutions.

2.2.1 How do we know?

Jennings lists four fundamental sources of knowledge:

Believing (or Authoritative Knowledge);

Thinking (or Rational Knowledge);

Sensing (or Empirical Knowledge);

Feeling (or Intuitive Knowledge) (1993:15).

These four sources seem to interplay with each other in the learning process to build knowledge. We can either start from scratch and use a rational logic to come to a conclusion or we can accept an authoritative conclusion. Further these could be modified via new intuitive or empirical `evidence'. Many of the questions of learning theory revolve around whether learning methods can be isolated, presumably as no teaching method can incorporate all at once. If the first decision of learning is what to learn, then we must be aware that "decision-making requires both critical thinking skills and consideration of values (Facione,1986). Personal, social, and cultural values initiate and inform the decision-making process from beginning to end" (Coxwell,1996). Add epistemology as another important factor.

There is a strict definition of epistemology as a `view of knowledge' or as Guba puts it "the nature of the relationship between the knower (the inquirer) and the known (or knowable)"(1990:18). As outlined above, philosophers have over the centuries formed many such relationships with knowledge or "theories of knowledge" (Jennings, 1993). This relationship has many complex influences which shape an individual's or nation's epistemology, not the least being the dominant epistemologies of family, religion, education and community etc., which of course are all influenced by the theories that came before.

This epistemology which a student carries into the learning process is of the utmost importance as it will shape their relationship with any body of knowledge placed in front of them.

"Student's views of scientific knowledge range from absolute to tentative, from fractured to integrated, from fact-based to theory-based (Rubba & Anderson, 1978; Lederman & O'Malley, 1992). In many ways, the development of students' views of a discipline may mirror the discipline's own development; in the case of science, the historical progression from a logical-positivist orientation to a more personally and culturally-constructed view of inquiry must be made individually". (Coxwell, 1996)

The study of knowledge theories is an important first step to understanding the context in which educational instruction finds itself.

2.3 Cognitive Science and Learning Theories

Look in a psychology text book and you may find a definition of learning such as "learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour (or behaviour potential) produced by experience" and not caused by physical maturation or growth (Baron, 1989:136). This was a view which treated the learner as a `black box', that is classic systems theory where inputs are varied to change outputs (or new behaviours) which are fed back to reinforce the inputs. While programmed instruction failed to grow in school use it appears in many other forms such as program planning techniques and competency based training. Much of the early and simple Computer Based Training relied on this technique as it matched the capabilities of the available software.

From the days when Socrates employed the discovery method in his teachings and Plato believed that all knowledge was already known but just needed to be exposed, learning theories have been fluctuating on a continuum suggested by Biggs (Romiszowski, 1981:179) from Programmed Learning through to Impromptu Discovery. Romiszowski further develops this continuum and comes up with the concept of "programmed discovery learning" which is very close to what much of the current Instructional Design theories are based upon. In other words the best of both worlds. Bigg's list is:

Impromptu Discovery;

Free Exploratory Discovery;

Guided Discovery;

Directed Discovery;

Programmed Learning.

These fundamental questions of how we attain knowledge need to be confronted at every step of the teaching and learning process. Is it perhaps better to program the learning (such as teaching the alphabet) or to allow guided discovery (such as riding a bike)? All are appropriate at different times. Airline pilots work in program mode for much of the time but should have the ability for impromptu discovery if something goes wrong.

2.4 Is learning Theory Evolving?

Most learning theory was developed before the advent of the personal computer. Since then the debate has meandered down many paths and tangents compounded by the addition of the personal computer to the teacher student dyad. This new extension to educational technology has created many of its own sub-sciences and cultures which have distracted research away from the core questions of "how do we learn?" etc. and replaced them with "how do we learn with computers?" or "do we learn any better with computers?" and so on.

So what are the new "battlegrounds" for learning theory? There are new names like Instructivist vs Constructivist in the area of Instructional Design (ID). New instructional theories are continually emerging such as Cognitive Flexibility Theory (Jonassen, 1992), Instructional Transaction Theory (Merrill, Li & Jones, 1992) and Prescriptive Decision Theory (Seel, 1992). Many of these add to, or build upon, already existing theory. But apart from the added complexities (distractions?) of Information Technology (IT), are we really battling over new learning theory or still sliding back and forth on theory continuums with the extremities terminated by polemic epistemological viewpoints? Many contemporary Instructional Designers are quick to publicise their grounding epistemology upon which they build theory. Some almost religiously.

In a discussion of educational research, instructional design or any pursuit where the results of investigation or a product are aimed at producing a change in the learner or system we must always be aware of who is asking the questions, designing the instruction or setting parameters and what their interest is in the outcome. Harding believes intellectuals in the fields of science and technology are gaining more and more power in higher education and government and that science is a politics by other means (1991). Of course it is, because core beliefs are at the root of any pursuit and therefore must surface in what we create, whether it is new knowledge, scientific discovery or a new computer interface. If, as discussed earlier, one's objectivity is impossible to maintain then at least a portion of one's views must be present in every endeavour or waking moment. This is a crucial concept which is hard to refute, that no matter what your roles or interests are, whether as a learner-teacher or voter-abstainer etc., any decision you make will always be dominated by not only what you know but how you came to know it.

It is your value system and epistemology which decides!

2.5 When and where do we learn?

Tiffin and Rajasingham (1995) in an attempt to explain the essence of education consider that four factors - a learner, a teacher, knowledge and a problem in a particular context - constitute the fundamental communication process that is education. Presumably the teacher holds the knowledge and the learner holds the problem. Referring back to Jennings in section 2.2.1, one would presume then that the learner could use authoritative knowledge (trust in the teacher) or intuition or rational thought or even sensory input to convert the problem to new knowledge. Probably a combination of the above would be used. But where does the learner start? Where can the teacher start to help the learner's process? The teacher may have knowledge of the answer but not enough knowledge of the learner to help correctly and may end up confusing the learner. The teacher may go too fast. The teacher may miss important feedback and go too slow, further confusing the learner. What are the paths or steps they can take to reach a solution to a problem in an efficient manner and time frame?

Psychology has also shown us that we `absorb' the basic unit of knowledge, new information, in a number of ways and the synthesis of this information into knowledge may be affected by a myriad of variables.

" We learn in different ways. Of our assorted brains, some are left-dominant, some are right-dominant, some are neither. Some of us learn better by hearing, others by seeing or touching. Some visualise easily, others not at all ."(Ferguson,1987:299 in Thiele, 1993:620)

Further we gain knowledge in different phases. We don't, except for very trivial tasks, become experts overnight. Jonassen (1992:387) describes three such phases:

Introductory Knowledge acquisition, epitomised by the naive learner with no prior subject knowledge;

Advanced Knowledge acquisition which must be attained to solve complex domain or context-dependent problems and;

Expertise, where experts have an interconnected knowledge structure. All of these require different forms of instruction.

From the above it should be apparent that it would be all but impossible to write an algorithmic problem solving procedure for all but the simplest of tasks, which if followed correctly in the appropriate circumstances, is bound to lead to the correct solution or outcome (Romiszowski, 1983:18). But many have tried.

If one was to observe the teacher-learner path to a solution it would become apparent that "problem solving involves a lot of jumping forward, based on sudden insights, and feeding back to complete or alter earlier steps"(Romiszowski, 1983:18). This is a systems approach to problem solving which is not algorithmic; it is heuristic. A heuristic problem solving procedure is based on general strategies rather than precise rules. Using these strategies improves the chances of coming up with a solution, but does not guarantee a correct solution. Romiszowski also points out that for some simple tasks algorithmic procedures are easier to apply initially, but heuristic procedures are more efficient in the long run (Romiszowski,1981:23).

So the lessons from learning theory are available to all yet so many of the current CD-ROM and on-line offerings use a simplistic algorithmic approach. This dissertation will argue that this educational defect is a direct result of poor technology affecting poor solutions.

2.6 The Roles of Teachers and Learners

The methodology of giving learners facts and then testing them on recollection is diminishing. Rather we are teaching them how to learn as opposed to remember. We are starting to teach them heuristic problem solving skills which they can apply themselves. " The idea of `imparting knowledge' via the human teacher is a restrictive view and does not acknowledge the active part the learner can play "(Thiele,1993:625). Adult education in its many forms is driving this acknowledgment of the learner in that adult learners want their learning experience to be relevant, participative, non threatening, and flexible in its delivery time and place.

Merril talks of transactions between an instructional system and a student in which there is an exchange of information (Merrill, Li, Jones, 1992:17). How much of this future exchange will include the human teacher as the mouthpiece? If some components of the system could be siphoned off to technology to help fund the expansion of the system, would the teacher, being an expensive component, be the first to go? Forsyth considers that:

"in education the transformation is from a teacher centred student throughput model, to one of learner initiated and supported information seeking to expand the learner's knowledge"(Forsyth,1993:260).

The teacher as a facilitator of learning is an oft heard phrase. It is not a new concept. In the past, teachers have facilitated access to libraries for self learning. It usually required some technical knowledge of how a library worked, such as storage, indexing and retrieval. This task is now seen as part of the language of computing and teachers will teach it like they do other languages. But then it may be the last role left for the teacher as we know it, for as Forsyth points out they are no longer in charge of information since, as learners conduct themselves, all they require is an environment that is conductive to the activity of learning (1993).

2.7 Anytime, Anywhere Learning

Educational delivery systems will, in the not too distant future, allow the chronological and geographical constraints of education delivery to be broken. Learning anytime, anywhere will be possible as the communications and technologies are made inexpensive and accessible. The term `distance education' was coined when distance was the problem. In the move from place to space distance diminishes as an issue, but others emerge. The focus should change from the ability of the technology to traverse distance to its ability to provide a quality learning experience. This requires a foundation of strong learning theory, implemented via flexible instructional/learning design all embedded in a well thought out educational system.

Similarly, concentration on the interface and the delivery medium has seen some very expensive tax payer funded experimentation with dubious results, because impact without content, and content without context, soon pales. Lundin describes "Open Learning" (Lundin,1992:426) as a philosophy and system whereby all options are kept open. This approach is characterised by flexibility in terms of entry, program components, modes of study and points of exit where learners are encouraged to negotiate and manage their own learning arrangements to meet their special needs (Lundin,1992). To provide true learner independence will require the design of a complete instructional system.

Conclusion

The challenge of developing the on-line institute is to realise that it's more than a technological design problem. It is to challenge what an educational system is and why it is there. Its continuing challenge will be to ask "how can it serve the learner?". The principles of Just In Time Training (JITT), Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) and other task support strategies are already well thought out. The wholistic learning environment though, based on the cognitive and affective domains rather than performance indicators, is still just a twinkle in the futurist's eye.

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Table of Contents | Ch 1 | Chapter 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Conclusions | References
© 1997 Paul McKey