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• Behaviorism - The Forerunner

  By Gary DeMar - Behaviorism originated with the work of John B. Watson, an American psychologist. Watson claimed that psychology was not concerned with the mind or with human consciousness. Instead, psychology would be concerned only with behavior. In this way, men could be studied objectively, like rats and apes. (Overview of behaviorism which is probably of more interest for its historical information ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 149 )

• Information Processing Theory (G. Miller)

  By na - George Miller contributed at least two notable concepts to cognitive science. The first concept is "chunking" and the capacity of short term memory. Miller (1956) presented the idea that short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information (seven plus or minus two) where a chunk is any meaningful unit. A chunk could refer to digits, words, chess positions, or people's faces. The concept of chunking and the limited capacity of short term memory became a basic element of all subsequent theories of memory. The second concept is TOTE (Test-Operate-Test-Exit) proposed by Miller, Galanter & Pribram (1960). Miller et al. suggested that TOTE should replace the stimulus-response as the basic unit of behavior. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 143 )

• Cognitive Dissonance and learning

  By JS Atherton - Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. It therefore occurs when there is a need to accommodate new ideas, and it may be necessary for it to develop so that we become "open" to them. Neighbour (1992) makes the generation of appropriate dissonance into a major feature of tutorial (and other) teaching: he shows how to drive this kind of intellectual wedge between learners' current beliefs and "reality". Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning ^new (Added: 27-Jan-2010 Hits: 208 )

• Personal Construct Theory

  By JS Atherton - Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) is known as such, rather than as a “theory”, because it is the only approach in psychology which was developed from the start as a complete psychology, explicit about its asumptions and theoretical base. Although often treated as a cognitive approach alongside others — and seeming a little too rational in some respects — it claims to go beyond the distinction between cognition, emotion and conation (“will”) found in all other psychologies. ^new (Added: 27-Jan-2010 Hits: 161 )

• Conversational learning theory; Pask and Laurillard

  By JS Atherton - ordon Pask's work stands rather outside the mainstream of the psychology of education, but is immediately recognised by many learners and teachers in adult education as being very significant. He was a cyberneticist rather than an educationalist, and developed a systems approach to learning which is highly abstract and difficult, although rewarding: it is reflected in the “conversational” models of learning of Laurillard and Thomas and Harri-Augstein. ^new (Added: 27-Jan-2010 Hits: 167 )

• Constructivism in learning

  By JS Atherton - Constructivism is the label given to a set of theories about learning which fall somewhere between cognitive and humanistic views. If behaviourism treats the organism as a black box, cognitive theory recognises the importance of the mind in making sense of the material with which it is presented. Nevertheless, it still presupposes that the role of the learner is primarily to assimilate whatever the teacher presents. Constructivism — particularly in its "social" forms — suggests that the learner is much more actively involved in a joint enterprise with the teacher of creating ("constructing") new meanings. ^new (Added: 27-Jan-2010 Hits: 235 )

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