Adult Learning Theory 

K. P. Cross

Adult Learners are self directed and problem-centered.

Characteristics of Adult Learners (CAL):

Personal: Aging (deterioration of eyesight, hearing; improvement in reasoning, decision-making), Life Phase, Developmental Stage (marriage, job, retirement. May or may not be directly related to age). 

Situational: part-time/full-time, voluntary/compulsory. Administration (schedules, locations, procedures).

CAL provides guidelines for adult edu models. Programs should:

1. Capitalize on participant experience. 

2. Adapt to aging limitations.

3. Challenge learners to move towards increasingly advanced stages of personal development.

4. Provide as much choice/flexibility in availibility + organization of programs as possible. 

Andragogy

M. Knowles

Andragogy = adult specific learning theory. Adults are self-directed + take responsibility for decisions. Educators should allow learners to discover things themselves. 

1. Adults need to know WHY they need to learn something (subjects should have immediate relevance/value to real life). 

2. Adults need to learn experientially (task oriented rather than memorization). Experience -including mistakes-provides basis for activities

3. Adults approach learning as problem solving. Involve adult students in the planning and evaluation of instruction. focus on process rather than content. 

4. Problem-centered rather than content oriented. 

Strategies: case studies, role play, simulations, self-eval. 

Instructor as facillitator/resource. Take into account the wide range of backgrounds/experience of learners.

Phenomenography

F. Martin & N. Enwistle

1. Researchers should seek an understanding of the phenomenon of learning by examining student experience. 

2. Research needs to be conducted in a naturalistic setting involving the actual content + setting students learn in. 

Focuses on the experience of learning from the student's perspective. Describe more clearly how learning takes place in higher edu, point out how teaching and assessment affect quality of learning. Teachers should use this info to facilitate student learning. 

Most important: data is collected directly from learners through self report, interview. Content + setting must mirror those of an actual learning environment. 

Application: higher learning. reading articles, attending lectures, writing essays, solving problems, studying, cross-cultural aspects of learning. 

Constructivist Theory

J. Bruner

1. Instruction must be concerned with the experiences + contexts that make students willing/able to learn (readiness or predisposition to learning)

2. Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the student (spiral organization/sequence).

3. Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and/or fill in gaps (going beyond info given). cognitive structures (schema) provide meaning, organization. 

Learning is active! Good methods of structuring knowledge should result in simplifying, generating of new propositions/ideas (based on current/past knowledge), and increased manipulation of data. 

Instructors encourage students to discover principles themselves. Active diaglouge (socratic). 

Bruner's more recent work: social + cultural aspects of learning, law. 

Multiple Intelligences

H. Gardner

7 kinds of intelligence: Linguistic, Musical, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Body-Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal (insight, metacognition), + Interpersonal (social skills).

1. Individuals should be encouraged to use their preferred intelligence in learning (content domain + learning modalities)

2. Instructional activities should appeal to different forms of intelligences

3. Assessment should measure multiple forms of intelligence.

Used mostly w/ ch development, but applies to all ages. Explores implications of the framework on creativity. 

Script Theory

R. Schank

Focuses on structure of knowledge, especially in the context of language understanding. Contextual dependency=representation of meaning in sentences.

1. All conceptualizations can be reprsented in terms of a small # of primative acts performed by an actor or on an object.

2. All memory is episodic(organized around personal experiences rather than semantic categories).

3. Generalized episodes = scripts. Scripts allow people to make inferences needed for understanding by filling in missing info. 

4. Higher level expectations are created by goals +plans.

5. Explanatory Processes (XPs) represent stereotyped answers to unusual events - critical for creativity. 

computer programs have been developed to demonstrate script theory. 

Situated Learning

J. Lave

Theory of knowledge acquisition.

1. Knowledge needs to be presented in an authentic context.

2. Learning requires social interaction + collaboration.

Learning = a fx of the activity, context, + culture in which it occurs (in contrast w/ classrooms where knowledge is abstract, out of context). 

Learners are part of a "community of practice". The novice moves from the periphery to the center, becomes active + engaged in the culture, eventually assumes an expert role. Process is unintentional rather than deliberate. "legitimate peripheral participation" or "cognitive apprenticeship"

Learning advances through collaborative social interaction + social construction of knowledge. Active perception over concepts + representation. 

Social Learning

A. Bandura

1. Highest level of observational learning is acheived by 1st organizing + rehearsing the modeled behavior symbolically, then enacting it overtly. Coding behavior w/ words, labels or images = better retention.

2. People more likely to adopt a behavior if it results in a valued outcome,

3. and if the model is similar to the observer, holds an admired status, + the behavior being modeled has functional value.

Emphasizes the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, + emotional reactions of others. 

Explores behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction b/t cognitive, behavioral, + environmental influences. 

Attention: affected by the distinctiveness, affective value, complexity, prevelance, and fx value; as well as observer characteristics: sensory capacity, arousal level, perceptual set, past reinforcement.

Retention: affected by symbolic coding, cognitive organization, symbolic rehearsal, motor rehearsal

Motor reproduction: affected by physical capabilities, self observation of reproduction, accuracy of feedback

Motivation: can be external, vicarious, self-reinforcing.

Applications: study of aggresion, psych d/o's + behavioral modification, study of self efficacy. 

Examples: TV commercials

Attribution Theory

B. Weiner

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

L. Festinger

1. Dissonance results when an individual must choose between attitudes and behaviors that are contradictory.

-People tend to seek consistency among cognitions and attitudes/behavior. If there is dissonance, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accomodate the behavior.

-Greatest dissonance occurs when the two alternatives are equally attractive.  

2. Dissonance can be eliminated by reducing the importance of the conflicting beliefs, acquiring new beliefs (consonant beliefs that outweight the dissonant beliefs), or removing the conflicting attitude/behavior (change dissonant beliefs so they are no longer inconsistent). 

-Cognitive dissonance is contradictory to most behavioral theories, which predict greater attitude change w/ increased incentive (reinforcement). Cognitive dissonance theory predicts that attitude change is more likely in the direction of less incentive, since this results in lower dissonance. 

-Application: all situations involving attitude formtion and change. Esp relevant to decision making & problems solving. 

Experiential Learning Theory

C. Rogers 

-Experiential learning theory = cogntive learning (academic knowledge) is meaningless, experiential learning (addresses needs &wants of learner) is significant. 

-Qualities of experiential learning: personal invovlement, self-initiated, evaluated by the learner, pervasive effects on the learner. Experiential learning results in change & growth. 

-All humans have a natural propensity to learn. Experiential learning emphasizes the importance of learning & openness to change. 

-Teacher is facillitator. Teacher should: clarify the purposes of the learners, organize & make learning resources available, balance intellectual & emotional components of learning, share feelings/thoughts w/o dominating. 

-Learning is facilitated when student participates completely in the learning process, has control over nature/direction of learning, material is based on direct confrontation w/ practicial social, emotional, or research-based problems. Self eval should be method of assessing progress/success. 

-Learning which is threatening to the student (offers new perscpectives, attitudes) is more easily assimilated & learned more quickly when threats are at a minimum. 

-Self initiated learning is most lasting/pervasive.

-Applications: adult learning. influenced by humanistic edu movement. influenced the work of knowles. 

Information Processing Theory

G. A. Miller 

Chunking: short term memory can hold 5-9 chunks of info (7, + or - 2), where a chunk is any meaningful unit. Can refer to digits, faces, etc. 

TOTE: test, operate, test, exit. Should replace stimulus-response as basic unit of behavior. In a TOTE unit, a goal is tested to see if it has been acheived, and if not, an operation is performed to acheive the goal. The cycle is repeated until the goal is acheived or abandoned. 

Application: TOTE has provided the basis of many subsequent theories of problem solving (GPS, production systems). Theory has been verified @ all levels of cognitivee processing. Ex. Binary code. 

1. Short term memory/attention span, limited to 7 chunks of info

2. Planning (in form of TOTE units) is a fundemental cognitive process. 

3. Behavior is hierarchically organized (by Chunks or Totes)