Lecture 1: (Social) Learning theories: Mapping notions of learning
There are many different ways of
understanding learning. Here we will focus
of 3 short papers; one main paper and 2
commentaries to that paper. This will lead
to an interesting discussion on what will
theories of learning do in order to help us
understand learning and explain learning;
what are the differences and what are the
commonalities? These 3 papers pose an
interesting academic discussion.
Learning theories
Before we go into the papers, we should review a little but, at least in a very simplistic way. At least we
can distinguish some main theories that have been exposed and touched upon in these papers and some
that haven’t been actually as well. But there are main theories and train tracks of thinking about learning
that are very influential in literature and education.
So, one you would be very familiar with probably is behaviorism. The way behaviorism understand
learning is basically focusing on behavior. There is this sort is input-output metaphor: stimulus-response.
Basically, it understands/explains learning – or actually behavior – by the fact of the existence of
incentives. So, there are incentives outside and therefore a person, due to that, behaves in a certain way
and therefore doesn’t really focus on what happens within that person in order to act in that way.
In contrast, a cognitive theory will focus exactly on those mental activities that take place within the
person. The whole point of cognitive theories is to understand how we process information, how we
store it, how we retrieve it for example. Those kinds of questions research the level of cognitive load we
can handle. So, those are questions in cognitive theories, focusing then on cognitions and meta-
cognitions (how we regulate our own cognition).
Another very influential theory is social-cognitive theory. One known representative of this theory is
Bandura with the more social aspect of learning theories. What individuals do and the way individuals
interact within the environment is crucial here. We interact in the environment with our cognitions and
with our behavior. So, these 3 elements are in constant interaction. One very important mechanism for
learning in socio-cognitive theory is observation and imitation, so we learn from seeing others and from
seeing what happens to others when they do something. What is important here is also the way learners
think about themselves as learners, for example what believes they hold. That will also influence the way
they behave and interact with the environment. So concepts as, for example, self-efficacy (the way we
think about ourselves as learners) are important constructs within these theory.
Another important theory is constructivism, which is mostly linked to Piaget. Constructivism highlights
the active nature of the learner in constructing learning. So, it’s not an acquisition metaphor anymore.
It’s not just something we take from outside and put inside us; it is something we construct in interaction
,with the world of with others. They focus on how we construct knowledge and how we organize it and
how we reorganize it the moment we learn and get to more sophisticated levels of learning. So, for
example Piagets theory, there are these phases of development in which there is a base of interaction
with the world to much more abstract and high-level order functions at higher stages for older children.
There is also the bioecological theory (not the 3 papers mentioned). What the biological theory,
especially represented by Bronfenbrenner, does is to understand learning processes as something that
happens embedded in many complex systems. This theory is also called the Process-Person-Context-
Time-model. That means that persons interacting with their immediate environment is the main process
of development. Those are called the proximal processes and is the main engine for development. But
how the person interacts depends on the characteristics of the person, of the context (and not only
specific mediate context, but also the larger context up to societal level) and time. So, there is a constant
interaction of these 4 elements in order to sort of explain learning. In that sense this theory is quite
strong in helping sort of break down and understand individual differences in learning, because it does
connect many elements.
Another very dominant theory, especially in education, is the socio-cultural theory. It is actually older
than other theories here, but it became known in the western world later because it comes from Russian
psychologist Vygotsky. And actually, bioecological theories also strongly influence Vygotsky’s work. What
socio-cultural theory does is focusing on the participation in social-cultural contexts, so it states very
strongly that learning is distributed across communities and it is situated in those communities and in
those contexts. It understands learning as changes in participation and identity. So, evidence of learning
is that a person is able to participate in their communities in a more sophisticated way and become
members of hat community.
These theories are not necessarily organized in chronological order here.
What is learning anyway? (About the first paper)
Trying to understand this common ground in these conceptualizations of learning is one of the main
goals of this particular paper (principle of learning). And trying to identify principles of learning that are
present in all theories (dimensions of learning). Also, trying to understand the main elements a learning
theory should have. So in that sense, it’s a rather ambitious goal what they have, because they say all
,theories should include reference to these certain dimensions of learning, which we are going to review
now.
Learning defined
So again, the first very ambitious task was for
them to define what learning is. They define
learning as a multidimensional process that results
on a relatively enduring change in a person of
persons, and consequently how that person or
persons will perceive the world, and reciprocally
respond to its affordances physically,
psychologically and socially. So, it’s the element of
change, the element of being multidimensional and
the fact that this change also determines how a
person perceives the world and also responds to the world. The process of learning has as its foundation
the systematic, dynamic and interactive relation between the nature of the learner and the object of the
learning, as ecologically situated in a given time and place as well as over time.
Process of learning
In this part of the definition they outline those main dimensions of
learning. They say the systematic, dynamic and interactive relation
between the nature of the learner (the ‘who’ of learning), the object of
the learning (the ‘what’ of learning) as ecologically situated in a given
time (the ‘when’ of learning) and place (the ‘where’ of learning) as well as
over time (back again to the ‘when’).
These four dimensions outline the who, the what, the where and the
when and in one of the commentaries Geary (2009) adds also the why.
Geary says there is a missing element of why people learn something and
that will also determine what they learn, who learns it, where they learn
it, when they learn. So, it is kind of a connecting factor between the other
dimensions.
What Alexander and colleagues say is that diverse theories occupy the places in this multidimensional
space. For example, some theories will focus much more on the nature of the learning on the who; a
cognitive approach will focus much more on describing the way a person’s cognitions are organized,
while other theories will focus much more on the when or the where for example (e.g. socio-ecological
theories).
What of learning
They say that what we are learning can come from very sort of low-level of abstraction, low-level of
effort and low-level of enculturation learning processes. For example, sometimes they use the more
rudimentary aspects of learning to speak and sound recognitions. They are basically habits and are
acquired because we interact in a very simple way with the world. This is getting more and more abstract
, and requires more effort every time and becomes more enculturated the more we go towards more
concepts and actions and the way we go to scientific concepts and practices. So, there is this process of
what they call interactive complexification between these 3 elements. The more effort, the more
abstraction, the more enculturation is present in the learning process, the more sophisticated it
becomes. In order to go up into this complexification spiral, there is a reconstruction process of the
previous element, which links a little bit to the constructions in constructivism.
What they also say is that it is important
to, although these 3 elements are there, it
is important to know that learning is not a
unitary process; it’s not the same to learn
for example not to fall from a couch or
understanding how one can solve very
complex mathematical problems. They are
very different types of learning. But it is a
little bit contradictory, because they are
trying to unify the way we understand
learning a little bit. So that’s a slight
contradiction in the way they present
ambitions.
What they also say is that it is at the basis of this model the inborn reflexes, abilities and capacities. They
have a very clear basis of our biological and neurological basis and capabilities in order to learn. They say
that’s where it all starts; we are framed by that. This is actually an interesting criticism by Säljö, one of
the other commentaries, he says the biological basis is not the only basis for learning and we shouldn’t
reduce all our learning processes and the whats of learning to that biological basis. There are many other
possible sources and bases to understand learning, and combinations actually are important. So, the
criticism is that it is too strongly anchored on our biological capacities.
Who of learning
In the who of learning they sort of want to convey the message that there is a person that is at
intersection of many characteristics. So, from different domains of our existence, there are inferences
that would also of course play an important role in the way we
learn, what we learn and when we learn. Some well-known
factors that have a role in learning: IQ, health, stress,
motivation; IQ being considered the most important factor to
explain school-like learning at least. In the picture you see a
few factors that can play a role (not an exhaustive list).
An important point to make is that the person is at
intersection. If we only take IQ and relate that to learning, we
are also sort of thinking that the others are at an average level, while actuaually they aren’t necessarily.
It is the combination of all these elements which makes us learn in certain ways, or at least determines
strongly how we learn, what we learn, when we learn and where we learn it.
