Introduction to Human Learning and Cognition

This chapter provides an overview of what learning is and how

it fits in cognitive psychology. Major figures in the
development of this branch of psychology are introduced as
well as their contributions.
Objectives:
1. Define learning and describe five approaches to studying it.
2. Identify the main areas cognitive psychology deals with.
3. Understand the historical beginnings of learning and
cognitive psychology.
4. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the cognitive
approach in psychology.

Defining Learning
Learning is the means through which we acquire not only skills
and knowledge but values, attitudes and emotional reactions
as well.

Learning – long term change in mental representations or

associations as a result of experience
Regardless of how we define learning, we know that it has
occurred only when we actually see it reflected in a person’s
behavior such as:
• Performing a completely new behavior
• Changing the frequency of an existing behavior
• Changing the speed of an existing behavior
• Changing the intensity of an existing behavior
• Changing the complexity of an existing behavior
Psychologists understand the nature of learning by studying it
objectively and systematically through research.

Principles are consistent patterns of research findings have

led psychologists to make generalizations. For example, a
behavior that is followed by a satisfying state of affairs (a
reward) is more likely to increase in frequency than a behavior
not followed by such a reward. Basically, principles tell us
what factors are important for learning.
When a principle stands the test of time it is called a LAW.
 Theories tell us why these factors (principles) are important.
It is what psychologists use to explain data.
Ex. Behaviorism – focus on learning of tangible, observable
behaviors
Cognitivism – focus on thought processes involved in human
learning

Advantages of Theories
1. They allow us to summarize the results of many research
studies and integrate numerous principles of learning
2. They provide starting point for conducting new research;
they suggest research questions worthy of study
3. Theories help us make sense of and explain research
findings
4. By giving us ideas about mechanisms that underlie human
learning and performance, they can ultimately help us
design learning environments and instructional strategies
that facilitate human learning to the greatest possible
degree Disadvantages
1. No single theory explains everything that researchers
have discovered about learning
2. Theories affect what new information is published.
Thereby biasing the knowledge we have about learning

Behavioral and Cognitive Approaches to Learning

Here’s another definition of learning. Learning is a relatively
permanent influence on behavior, knowledge, and thinking
skills, which comes about through experience.
There are five Behavioral and Cognitive approaches to learning
1. Behavioral – the emphasis is on experiences, especially
reinforcement and punishment, as determinants of learning
and behavior. Behavioral approach focuses on the
conditioning, specifically classical and operant
conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of learning in
which an organism learns to connect or associate stimuli.
BF Skinner coined the term Operant Conditioning
(sometimes called Instrumental Conditioning) wherein the
consequences that follow some behavior increase or
 decrease the likelihood of that behavior’s occurrence in the
future.

2. Social Cognitive – the emphasis is on the reciprocal

determinism model wherein there is an interaction of
behavior, environment, and person (cognitive) factors as
determinants of learning. Albert Bandura is the main
proponent of social cognitive theory. He also posited the
observational learning that involves learning the skills,
strategies, and beliefs by simply observing others.

3. Information Processing – the emphasis is on how

individuals process information through attention,
memory, thinking, and other cognitive processes. It
involves the three components of cognition, namely, input
processing, storage, and output.

4. Cognitive Constructivist – the emphasis is on the

individual’s cognitive construction of knowledge and
understanding

5. Social Constructivist – the emphasis is on collaboration

with others to produce knowledge and understanding

Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology is the study of knowledge and how
people use it. For this reason cognitive psychology is also
called information processing psychology. It is the part of
psychology that concerns itself with the structure and
functions of the mind. Cognitive psychology seeks to answer
that broad question and is the study of how humans obtain
information, store information in memory, recover
information, and use information to reach one’s goals.

The word cognitive comes from the Latin word cognoscere,

meaning to know. It tries to explain how the human mind
comes to know things about the world around it, people, and
about itself, and how it uses this knowledge to perform an
impressive range of tasks such as remembering, speaking,
performing skilled actions, solving problems and reasoning.
 Cognitive psychologists adopt a scientific perspective toward
the working of the mind. They also defined cognitive
psychology as that branch of experimental psychology
concerned with explaining mental processes.

Historical perspective
Below are some of the important contributors to the
development of cognitive psychology.

Plato is an ancient Greek philosopher who likened memory to

a wax tablet on which information can be written.

Descartes argued that it was conscious mental activity that

separated humans from animals and endowed people with the
gift of voluntary action and thinking.
Charles Darwin – Theory of Evolution implies that people and
animals were closely related.
Importance:
1. It demonstrated how quite complex physiological and
biological systems could emerge through the interaction of a
changing environment with small variations in an organism.
2. It dethroned people from the summit of the ladder of
life, and placed them as one admittedly very clever species
amongst all the others.

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt was the first psychologist who

opened a psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, in
Germany.
In nineteenth century the dominant method used within
psychology at the time is introspection that was proved
unsuitable for exploring mental processes. Introspection is
the process whereby one looks into one's own mind and
reports the contents.
Psychologists tried hard to use introspection to study mental
activity when the discipline first emerged. By carefully
examining themselves carrying out a range of tasks, they hoped
to build up a list of the major mental states, ideas or building
blocks of mental life.
Difficulty in using introspection:
1. Mental activity is private.
2. When we introspect we may alter or perturb what we are
introspecting.
3. It assumes all-important mental activities to be conscious, or
open to introspection in the first place.

J.B. Watson insisted that psychology should examine only

what was observable and external, such as behavior.
3 things were observable in principle
1. What had happened to a person in the past.
2. What the present environmental conditions were
3. How the person reacted as a result
Behaviorism enabled psychologists to perform objective
experiments which could be checked and, if necessary,
repeated by other psychologists.

After WWII, the behaviorist influence began to wane.

Tolman and Hull began to refer increasingly to the role of
internal factors in controlling behavior.
The type of problems considered by psychologists began to
change. From behavior to human perception and performance
in more complex environments.

Chomsky is a linguist who pointed out how a purely

behavioral account of language based on a simple application
of reinforcement theory could not succeed, by pointing out that
people are capable of understanding and producing novel,
well-structured utterances for which they have never been
rewarded in the past.

Eventually the cognitive revolution emerged and cognitive

psychologists assumes that all human cognition involves
information processing approach. Information processing
approach is a metaphor used for understanding mental
activity and comparing it on computing. The digital computer
 came, which showed how a suitably programmed mechanical
device could perform tasks that previously it was thought,
could only be done by people. Gradually the suspicion
emerged that this might be a good way of thinking about mind.
If the brain was a little bit like a computer then the mind could
be likened to its programs. Terms like mental operations
(inner actions manipulating mental representations), working
memory (short-term limited memory store for holding and
manipulating information), and long-term memory (virtually
unlimited store of information) were conceptualized.

The cognitive psychologists claimed that it was possible to

collect behavioral data from well-designed experiments in
which people were presented with carefully controlled stimuli
and their responses recorded. Specific theoretical issue can be
addressed by running an experiment.

Finally, artificial intelligence emerged as a branch cognitive

science developed as it became more interested in developing
computer programs or robots that behave intelligently, even if
this entails mechanisms that are unlike those characterizing
animal and human cognition.

Activities
Activity No. 1: Essay
Explain the main areas that cognitive psychology deals with.

Glossary
• Learning – long term change in mental representations
or associations as a result of experience
• mental operations - inner actions manipulating mental
representations working memory - short-term limited
memory store for holding and manipulating
information
• long-term memory - virtually unlimited storage of
information
 • operant conditioning – Also called instrumental
conditioning this is a form of learning in which the
consequences of behavior produce changes in the
probability that the behavior will occur.
• Reinforcement (reward) - A consequence that increases
the probability that a behavior will occur.
• punishment - A consequence that decreases the
probability that a behavior will occur.
• positive reinforcement - Reinforcement based on the
principle that the frequency of a response increases
because it is followed by a rewarding stimulus.
• negative reinforcement - Reinforcement based on the
principle that the frequency of a response increases
because an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus is removed.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Learning and the Human Brain

In the previous module, history has established that the

brain is the main source of all mental activities. Ancient
philosopher Hippocrates stated, “Men ought to know that
from the brain, and from the brain alone, arises our
pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows,
pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we think,
see, hear, and distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the
bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant”. The
emphasis placed on our brain requires us to have at least a
broad picture of the brain.
Objectives:
1. Identify the different parts of the brain and its role in
cognition.
2. Explain how messages are passed through the neurons.

Basics of the Brain

The brain is the central part of the body’s nervous system.

Nervous system is composed of many nerves, which are
bundles of axons of neurons. It compose of two main
components, the central nervous system and the
peripheral nervous system. 2 main components
1. Central nervous system – the coordination center.
It connects what we sense with what we do.
a. Brain
b. Spinal Cord
2. Peripheral nervous system – the messenger system.
It carries information to and from the spinal cord
and the brain through the spinal nerves attached to
the spinal cord that carry signals directly to and from
the brain. PNS connects the central nervous system
to the other parts or areas of the body through
nerves.
The brain is divided into two hemispheres (left and right).
Brain hemispheres are thick fiber bundle divided into left
and right hemispheres that is connected by the corpus
callosum.
 Corpus Callosum – conveys information between the two
hemispheres and damage into it results to essentially two
separate brains. A collection of neurons that enables
constant communication back and forth, and so the
hemispheres typically collaborate in day-to-day task

Left hemisphere generally controls language and verbal

abilities, writing, science and math work, and logical
thinking. It is said that left-brain dominant people are
intellectual and logical

Right hemisphere generally controls spatial, and holistic

abilities like musical and artistic ability, imagination and
fantasizing, perception of space and body control and
awareness. It is said that people that are right brain are
intuitive, creative and emotional (Holt, 2012).

Diagram below is from Holt, N. et al. (2012). Psychology:

The science of mind and behavior. McGraw-Hill Education.

These brain structures are composed the same building

blocks called neurons. These are cells that exchange
information by transmitting electrical impulses.
Neurons (nerve cells) – provides the means through
which the nervous system transmits and coordinates
information. It is the basic unit of the nervous system
responsible for our emotions and behaviours.
Types of Neurons
1. Sensory neurons (afferent neuron) – carry
incoming information from receptor cells and
transmit to the central nervous system. Receptor
cells are specialized cells in the sense organs,
muscles, skin, and joints that functions as detectors
of physical or chemical changes and translate these
events into neural impulses that later on travel along
the sensory neurons

2. Interneurons (association neuron) – integrate and

interpret input from multiple locations. They are
involved in receiving signals from
the sensory neurons, and send neural impulses to
other interneurons or to motor neurons

3. Motor neurons (efferent neuron) – sends messages

about how to behave and respond to appropriate
parts of the body.

NEURONS - parts
a. Soma (cell body) – contains the cell’s nucleus and is
responsible for the cell’s health and well-being.
b. Dendrites – branchlike structures that receive
messages from other neurons
c. Axon – a long, armlike structure that transmits
information on the additional neurons
d. Myelin sheath – a white fatty substance that covers
the axon. It enables the impulse (electrical message)
to travel quite rapidly
e. Terminal buttons – found at the end of the axon
which contain certain chemical substances

Diagram below is the outline of a neuron. From Holt, N. et

al. (2012).
Psychology: The science of mind and behavior. McGraw-Hill
Education.
SYNAPSE – the space between two neurons or space
between the cell body or the dendrite of one neuron and
synaptic terminal of another neuron Neurotransmitters -
a chemical substance that is released at the end of a nerve
fiber by the arrival of a nerve impulse and, by diffusing
across the synapse or junction, causes the transfer of the
impulse to another nerve fiber, a muscle fiber, or some
other structure.
a. Excitatory neurotransmitters – they make a neuron
fire or put a resting neuron to a state of action
potential
b. Inhibitory neurotransmitters – influence the
receiving neurons in the direction of not firing or
sustaining the inactive state of a resting neuron

Common Neurotransmitters
1. Acetylcholine (Ach) – is excitatory at synapse
between nerves and muscles that involve voluntary
movement.

2. Norephinephrine (NE) – produced by neurons in the

brain stem. It speeds up heart beat and other bodily
processes, and involved in general arousal, learning
 and memory, and eating. If there is less production
of norephinephrine it results to depression

3. Serotonins – an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It plays

an important role in regulation of mood. When there
is low level of serotonins, it results to the experience
of depression, insomnia, and anxiety.

4. Endorphines – act like inhibitory neurotransmitter.

It locks into the receptor sites for chemicals that
transmit pain messages to the brain. Once
endorphine is locked, pain causing chemicals cannot
transmit their messages. It is also related to the
regulation of our body’s respiration, hunger,
memory, sexual behavior, blood pressure, mood and
body temperature

5. Dopamine – an inhibitory neurotransmitter. When

dopamine is released in certain areas in the brain, it
results to the experience of pleasure. Also involved
in voluntary movements, learning and memory, and
emotional arousal.
If there is scarce production of dopamine by
neurons, it will result to a disease called Parkinson’s.
Parkinson’s disease is characterized by progressive
lose of muscle control resulting to uncoordinated
movement.
If there is great production of dopamine by
neurons it results to Schizophrenia. Schizophrenic
individuals may have more receptor sites for
dopamine in an area in the brain that is involved in
emotional responding. For this reason, they may
overuse the dopamine that is available in the brain,
leading to hallucinations and disturbances of
thoughts and emotion.

GLIAL CELLS (neuroglia) – they serve in several supportive

roles that enable neurons to do their work. They provide a
stable structure that helps to keep neurons in place and
insulated from one another. They provide the chemicals
that neurons need to function properly. They form the
myelin sheaths that surround the axons of many neurons.
 They serve as the cleanup crew, removing dead neurons
and excess neurotransmitter substances

In the human brain, these basic building blocks –neurons, synapse, glial cells
– make it possible for us to
• To survive (by breathing and sleeping)
• To identify the stimuli we encounter (recognizing a
friend or a family pet)
• To feel emotion (becoming afraid when we
encounter danger)
• And to engage in the many conscious thought
processes (planning, reading, solving mathematical
problems)

2 Areas in the brain involve in speech

1. Broca’s Area – located in the frontal lobe, near the
section of the motor cortex that controls the muscles of the
tongue and throat, and other areas of the face that are used
when speaking. When damaged, it affects speech.
• Broca’s aphasia – people speak slowly and
laboriously in simple sentences. In severe cases of
damage of Broca’s area, comprehension and proper
syntax may be seriously impaired
2. Wernicke’s area – lies in the temporal lobe near the
auditory cortex and appears to be involved in the
integration of auditory and visual information.
• Wernicke’s Aphasia - there is difficulty in hearing
other people’s verbalized messages and the
individual could not use proper words to express
own thoughts though has the ability to speak freely
(without stammering for instance) and with proper
syntax.

Behavioral Problems that have their history from a damage

brain or any parts of the nervous system
Physical disabilities – are motor impairments caused by
damage to the brain affecting the individual’s ability to
move parts of his/her body. (e.g. cerebral palsy and spina
bifida)
Personality of people with physical disabilities is affected
by their physical or physiological state. These people
exhibit behaviors of dependency to others, wishful thining
that the disability will disappear, fear, and anxiety.
Furthermore, people in their community react to their
disability in positive and negative ways.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – is

caused by less brain activity. It makes the individual less
able to focus on what they are doing or are less able to
control their thoughts efficiently.

Learning disability could be manifested by children who

have disorders in development, in language, speech,
reading, and associated communication skills needed for
social interaction. Children with learning disability
manifest imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read,
write, spell or do mathematical calculations.
• Dyslexia – reading disorder
• Dysgraphia – writing disorder
• Discalcula – problem in arithmetic
• Motor dyspraxia – difficulty with motor planning
activities
Activities and Exercises

Identification:

Below is a diagram of the brain. Write down the name of each region and its
role in cognition.

Glossary
• Central nervous system is the coordination center. It
connects what we sense with what we do.
• Peripheral nervous system is the messenger system.
It connects the central nervous system to the other
parts or areas of the body through nerves.
• Brain hemispheres are thick fiber bundle divided
into left and right hemispheres that is connected by
the corpus callosum.
• Corpus Callosum is a collection of neurons that
enables constant communication back and forth, and
so the hemispheres typically collaborate in day-to-
day task
• Neurons (nerve cells) – provides the means through
which the nervous system transmits and coordinates
information.
 • Synapse is the space between two neurons or space
between the cell body or the dendrite of one neuron
and synaptic terminal of another neuron
• Neurotransmitters is a chemical substance that is
released at the end of a nerve fiber by the arrival of a
nerve impulse and, by diffusing across the synapse
or junction, causes the transfer of the impulse to
another nerve fiber, a muscle fiber, or some other
structure.
• Glial cells serves in several supportive roles that
enable neurons to do their work.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning

As discussed in Module 1, one of the earliest researches on

learning uses introspection, the method wherein people look
inside their heads and describe their thoughts. However,
behaviorism emerged that allows psychologists to objectively
describe and measure observable behavior. This module
provides the basic concepts of behaviorism through the rise of
classical conditioning.
Objectives should be enumerated (if necessary and if
available):
1. Identify the basic assumptions of behaviorism.
2. Familiarize oneself to the concept of classical conditioning.
3. Apply behavior analysis to education.

Behaviorism and its Assumptions

1. Principles of learning should apply equally to different
behaviors and to different species of animals
Equipotentiality – the assumption that human beings
and other animals learn in similar ways. They use the
term organism to refer generically to any member of
species

2. Learning processes can be studied most objectively

when the focus of study is on stimuli and responses. To
maintain objectivity, they focus on things they can
observe and measure specifically, by focusing on stimuli
in the environment and responses that organisms make
to those stimuli. Behaviorism is sometimes called the S-
R Psychology.

3. Internal processes (thoughts, motives, emotions) are

largely excluded from scientific study. This is because
we can’t observe these internal mental processes.
However, there are two factions who disagree with this
assumption. The radical behaviorists had the idea that
the study of human behavior and learning should focus
exclusively on stimuli and responses. While, the neo
behaviorist asserts that to effectively understand both
human and animal behavior they need to consider
cognitive processes as well as the environment events.
 4. Learning involves a behavior change. This assumption
posits that learning has occurred only when we see it
reflected in one’s actions

5. Organisms are born as blank slates.

Tabula Rasa – organisms enter the world as blank slates
on which environmental experiences gradually “write”.

6. Learning is largely the result of environmental events.

Rather than use the term learning, behaviorist speak of
conditioning, thus an organism is conditioned by
environmental events

7. The most useful theories tend to be parsimonious ones

Parsimony – we should explain the learning of all
behaviors, from the most simple to the most complex by
as few learning principles as possible.

Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who first observed

whether the dog salivated to a particular stimulus, the bell. As
you might imagine the dog did not find ringing of bell
especially appetizing and so did not salivate. In his experiment,
he noticed that when a dog is presented with a food
(Unconditioned Stimulus) the dog salivates (Unconditioned
Response). He also noticed that when the bell (Neutral
Stimulus) was rang, the dog did not salivate. Pavlov then
presented the bell (NS) and the food (US) at same time and the
dog salivates (UR). He made this pairing for several trials and
in all occasion, the dog salivated. Pavlov then just rang the bell
(Conditioned Stimulus) without the food and he observed that
the dog salivated upon hearing the bell.
Initially, the dog did not salivate at the mere sound of a bell.
But through continuous pairing with the food, the dog learned
to associate food with the bell and by simply hearing the sound
of the bell, it salivated. The bell to which the dog previously
been unresponsive (step 1) now led to a salivation response.

Variables in Classical Conditioning

Neutral stimulus is some stimulus that causes a sensory
response, such as being seen, heard, or smelled, but does not
produce the reflex being tested.
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is an event that consistently,
automatically elicits an unconditioned response. Ex. Food
Unconditioned response (UCR) is an action that the
unconditioned stimulus automatically elicits. Ex. Salivation
Conditioned stimulus (CS) is a formerly neutral stimulus that
has acquired the ability to elicit a response that was previously
elicited by the unconditioned stimulus
Conditioned response (CR) whatever response the conditioned
stimulus begins to elicit as a result of the conditioning
procedure

Diagram taken from Santrock 2011. Educational Psychology.

McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Application in Human Learning
Olson & Fazio 2001 conducted a research by having the college
students sat at a computer while various cartoon characters
(Pokemon) were presented on the screen. The students must
rate the characters with a scale of -4 unpleasant to +4 pleasant.
The characters with pleasant adjectives scored more favorably
than characters with unpleasant adjectives

John Watson and Rosalie Rayner 1920 – Little Albert – infant

who learned to fear white rats
Albert was an even-tempered, 11-month-old child who rarely
cried or displayed fearful reactions. One day, Albert was
shown a whit rat. As he reached out and touched the rat, a
large steel bar behind him was struck, producing a loud
unpleasant noise. Albert jumped, obviously very upset by the
startling noise. Nevertheless, he reached forward to touch the
rat with his other hand, and the steel bar was struck once
again. After five more pairing of the rat (CS) and the loud noise
(UCS), Albert was truly rat-phobic. Whenever he saw the rat
he cried hysterically and crawled away as quickly as his hands
and knees could move him

Watson and Rayner reported that Albert responded in a

similarly fearful manner to a rabbit, a dog, a sealskin coat,
cotton wool, and a Santa Claus mask with a fuzzy beard,
although none of these had ever been paired with the startling
noise.

Common Phenomena in Classical Conditioning

a. Associative Learning - associations between certain
stimuli are more likely to be made because predisposed
to make associations that reflected true cause–and–
effect relationships.

b. Contingency – classical conditioning is most likely to

occur when the conditioned stimulus is presented just
before the unconditioned stimulus. It is less likely to
occur when the CS and UCS are presented at exactly the
same time, and it rarely occurs when the CS is
presented after the UCS.
 c. Extinction – Pavlov discovered that repeated
presentations of the conditioned stimulus without the
unconditioned stimulus led to successively weaker
conditioned responses, Eventually, the dog no longer
salivated at the sound of the bell, in other words, the
conditioned response disappeared.

d. Spontaneous Recovery – a recurrence of a conditioned

response when a period of extinction is followed by a
rest period. For example, if I am near lots of bees for a
period of time, I eventually settle down and regain my
composure. Upon encountering a bee on some later
occasion, however, my first response is to fly off the
handle once again.

e. Generalization – when learners respond to other

stimuli in the same way that they respond to
conditioned stimuli. The more similar a stimulus is to
the conditioned stimulus, the greater the probability of
generalization.

f. Stimulus Discrimination – occurs when an organism

learns to make a particular response to some stimuli
but not to others.

Changing Undesirable Conditioned Response

Conditioned response are often difficult to eliminate because
they are voluntary, wherein people have little or no control
over them. However, this can still change thru extinction and
counter conditioning.
a. Extinction – when the conditioned stimulus is
presented in the sbsence of the unconditioned stimulus
frequently enough, the conditioned response should
disappear
b. Counter Conditioning – one conditioned response is
replaced with a new, more productive one

Mary Cover Jones 1924 – Little Peter

Little peter is a 2 years old who acquired fear of rabbits. To rid
peter of his fear, Jones placed him in a high chair and gave him
 some candy. As he ate, she brought a rabbit into the far side of
the same room. Under different circumstances the rabbit might
have elicited anxiety; however, the pleasure Peter felt as he ate
the candy was a stronger response and essentially
overpowered any anxiety he might have felt about the rabbit’s
presence. Jones repeated the same procedure everyday over a
2-month period each time putting Peter in a high chair with
candy and bringing the rabbit slightly closer than she had the
time before and Peter’s anxiety about the rabbit eventually
disappeared

Joseph Wolpe – South African psychiatrist developed

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION - Used to reduce or eliminate
phobias.
To begin the process of systematic desensitization, one must
first be taught relaxation skills in order to control fear and
anxiety responses to specific phobias. Once the individual has
been taught these skills, he or she must use them to react
towards and overcome situations in an established hierarchy
of fears. The goal of this process is that an individual will learn
to cope and overcome the fear in each step of the hierarchy,
which will lead to overcoming the last step of the fear in the
hierarchy.

Implications of Behaviorist Assumption and Classical Conditioning

• Practice is important – students learn addition and
subtraction through repeated repetition. Reading teachers
believe that the best way for students to improve their
reading level is simply to read, read, read.

• Students should encounter academic subject matter in a

positive climate and associate it with positive emotions.
When students associate academic subject matter with
good feelings, they’re more likely to pursue it of their own
accord. For instance, when children’s early experiences
with books are enjoyable ones, they’re more likely to read
frequently and widely in later years. In contrast, when
schoolwork or a teacher is associated with punishment,
humiliation, failure, or frustration, school and its
curriculum can become sources of excessive
anxiety(Cassady, 2010).
 • Assessing learning involves looking for behavior
changes.
Teachers should never assume that students are learning anything
unless they actually observe students’ behaviors
changing as a result of instruction.

Activities and Exercises

Essay
1. In classical conditioning, what is extinction? Give one
example in a classroom setting.
2. Discuss how one can explain the emotional responses that
students have to classroom events using Pavlov’s classical
conditioning.

Glossary
• associative learning - Learning that two events are
connected (associated).
• behaviorism - The view that behavior should be
explained by observable experiences, not by mental
processes.
• classical conditioning - A form of associative learning in
which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a
meaningful stimulus and acquires the capacity to elicit a
similar response.
• learning - A relatively permanent influence on behavior,
knowledge, and thinking skills that comes about
through experience.
• mental processes - Thoughts, feelings, and motives that
cannot be observed by others.
• systematic desensitization - A method based on classical
conditioning that reduces anxiety by getting the
individual to associate deep relaxation with successive
visualizations of increasingly anxiety- provoking
situations.
References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Instrumental Conditioning

In this module, we’ll study the works of American behaviorists

Edward L. Thorndike and Burrus F. Skinner. They emphasized
the importance of consequences, either positive or negative, in
learning. The idea of consequences affecting one’s behavior
brought about the concept of instrumental conditioning. It is
the way organisms (both humans and animals) tend to behave
in ways that either bring them desirable consequences or
allow them to avoid unpleasant ones.
Objectives:
1. Understand how consequences are used for learning.
2. Use concepts of instrumental conditioning to derive
strategies for classroom practice.

Overview of Instrumental Conditioning

INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING or also called Operant
Conditioning posits that humans and nonhuman animals alike
tend to behave in ways that bring them desirable
consequences or enable them to avoid unpleasant ones.

Edward Thorndike 1898

Connectionism – a theory in learning that emphasized the role
of experience in the strengthening and weakening of stimulus-
response connections
In his classic first experiment, Thorndike placed a cat in a
“puzzle box” with a door that opened when a certain device
(e.g., a wire loop) was appropriately manipulated. Thorndike
observed the cat initiating numerous, apparently random
movements in its attempts to get out of the box; eventually, by
chance, the cat triggered the mechanism that opened the door
and allowed escape. When returned to the box a second time,
the cat again engaged in trial-and-error movements but
managed to escape in less time than it had previously. With
successive trials in the box, the cat, although continuing to
demonstrate trial-and-error behavior, managed to escape
within shorter and shorter time periods
 Thorndike’s law of effect – responses to a situation that are
followed by satisfaction are strengthened; responses that are
followed by discomfort are weakened.

Burrus F. Skinner 1938

To study the effects of consequences using precise measurement
of responses in a carefully controlled environment, Skinner
developed a piece of equipment known as the Skinner Box. The
Skinner box used in studying rat behavior includes a metal bar
that, when pushed down, causes a food tray to swing into reach
long enough for the rat to grab a food pellet. In the pigeon
version of the box, a lighted plastic disk is located on one wall;
when the pigeon pecks the key, the food tray swings into reach for a short time

Operant Conditioning – a response that is followed by a

reinforce is strengthened and is therefore more likely to occur
again

Reinforcer – a stimulus or event that increases the frequency of

a response it follows
REINFORCEMENT – the act of following a response with a
reinforce, it increases the response that would follow

Important Conditions for Operant Conditioning

• The reinforcer must follow the
response
• The reinforcer must follow
immediately
• The reinforcer must be
contingent on the response – the
reinforcer should be presented
only when the desired response
has occurred

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CLASSICAL AND OPERANT

CONDITIONING
 Classical Conditioning Operant
Conditioning

Occurs Two stimuli (UCS and CS) are A response (R) is followed by a
when paired reinforcing stimulus (SRf)

Association
CS CR R SRf
acquired

Nature of Involuntary: elicited by a Voluntary: emitted by the

response stimulus organism

2 General Categories of Reinforcers

1. Primary reinforcer – one that satisfies a built-in,
perhaps biologybased, need or desire. (e.g. food, water,
oxygen, and warmth)
2. Secondary reinforcer – a previously neutral stimulus
that has become reinforcing to an organism through
repeated association with another reinforcer.
Reinforcers which does not satistfy any built-in
biological or social needs

2 Forms of Reinforcement
1. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT – involves the
presentation of a stimulus after the response
a. Extrinsic reinforcers – they are provided by the
outside
environment
• Material reinforcers – or tangible reinforcer, is
an actual object; food and toys are examples.
• Social reinforcers – is a gesture or sign (e.g. a
smile, attention, praise, or “thank you”) that one
person gives another, usually to communicate
positive regard
• Activity reinforcers – is an opportunity to
engage in a favorite activity. David Premack
discovered that people will often perform one
activity if doing so enables them to perform
another. “Premack Principle” states that
organisms will perform less-preferred tasks so
 that they can subsequently engage in more-
preferred tasks
b. Intrinsic reinforcers – internal good feelings (e.g.
feelings of
success, competence, mastery, and pride

2. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT – increases a response

through the removal of a stimulus, usually an aversive or
unpleasant one.
Examples:
• A child may confess to a crime because she feels guilty
about the transgression and wants to get it off her chest
• Anxiety may drive one student to complete a term paper
early, thereby removing an item from his things-do-do
list
• A student confronted with the same term paper might
procrastinate until the last minute, thereby removing
anxiety – if only temporarily- about the more difficult
aspects of researching for and writing the paper
Negative reinforcement explains many of the escape behaviors
that organisms learn. Children and adolescents acquire
various ways of escaping unpleasant tasks and situations in the
classroom and elsewhere. Making excuses and engaging in
inappropriate classroom behaviors provide means of escaping
tedious or frustrating academic assignments. Lying about
one’s own behaviors is potentially a way of escaping the
parent’s anger.
Complaints of stomachaches, chronic truancy, and dropping
out of school are ways of escaping the school environment

PUNISHMENT – it decreases the frequency of the response it

follows
Punishment I – involves the presentation of a stimulus,
typically an aversive one (e.g. scolding, failing grade)
Punishment II – involves the removal of a stimulus, usually a
pleasant one (e.g. loss of privileges, less allowance)
 CONTRASTING POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, NEGATIVE
REINFORCEMENT, AND PUNISHMENT
Nature of Stimulus

Stimulus is Pleasant Aversive

Presented after the

Positive Reinforcement Punishment I
response
(response increases) (response decreases)

Punishment II Negative Reinforcement

Removed after the
response (response decreases) (response increases)

Application of Punishment
EFFECTIVE FORMS OF PUNISHMENT
1. Verbal reprimands – a scolding or admonishment.
Reprimands are often more effective when they are
immediate, brief, and
accompanied by eye contact or a firm grip. They may
also be effective when spoken quietly and in close
proximity to the child being punished

2. Restitution and overcorrection – involves requiring

people to take actions that correct the results of their
misdeeds.
In restitution, a misbehaving individual must return
the environment to the same state of affairs that it was in
before the misbehavior. Restitution is a good example of
logical consequence, whereby the punishment fits the crime
Restitutional overcorrection, the punished
individual must make things better than they were before
the inappropriate behavior.
Positive-practice overcorrection involves having an
individual repeat an action, but this time doing it correctly,
perhaps in an exaggerated fashion

3. Time out - involves placing a misbehaving individual in

an environment with no reinforcers – in other words, in
a dull, boring situation. The time-out environment
should neither be reinforcing, as
 the school corridor or a principal’s office is likely to be,
nor frightening, as a dark closet might be

4. In-house suspension is similar to time-out in that

punished students are placed in a quiet, boring room
with the school building. However, it typically lasts one
or more days rather than only a few minutes, with
students continually monitored by a member of the
school staff.

5. Response cost - involves the withdrawal of a

previously earned reinforcer (e.g. ticket for speeding
and loss of previously earned privileges.

INEFFECTIVE FORMS OF PUNISHMENT

1. Physical punishment in some instances mild physical
punishment, such as gentle spanking or slap on the
wrist, is the only means of keeping young children from
engaging in potentially harmful behaviors.

2. Psychological punishment any consequence that

seriously threatens a student’s self-esteem or emotional
well-being. (e.g. Embarrassing remarks and public
humiliation). By deflating student’s selfperceptions,
psychological punishment can also lower their
expectations for future performance and their
motivation to learn and achieve

3. Extra classwork – assigning an extra classwork or

homework beyond that required for other students is
inappropriate if it is assigned simply to punish a
student’s wrongdoing

4. Out-of-school suspension – in its most severe form

this becomes permanent expulsion from school. Many
chronically misbehaving students are those who have
difficulty with their academic work. Suspending these
students from school puts these students at an even
greater disadvantage and decreases still further their
chances for academic success
 5. Missing recess may be a logical consequence for
students who failed to complete their school activities.
However, research indicates that students benefit more
when they are given occasional breaks from academic
work.

Phenomenas in Instrumental Conditioning

Superstitious behavior states that randomly administered
reinforcement tends to reinforce whatever response has
occurred immediately beforehand, and an organism will
increase that response
Shaping is a process of reinforcing successively closer and
closer approximations to the desired behavior until that
behavior is exhibited
Chaining is a process of teaching a chain of responses by
reinforcing just one response, then reinforcing two responses
in a row, then reinforcing a sequence of three, and so on
Extinction occurs when a response decreases in frequency
because it no longer leads to reinforcement
Extinction burst – a phenomenon wherein during the initial
stages of the extinction process, we may sometimes see a brief
increase in the behavior being extinguished

REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES
1. Ratio schedules is one in which reinforcement occurs
after a certain number of responses have been emitted.
a. Fixed ratio (FR) – a reinforcer is presented after a
certain constant number of responses have occurred.
b. Variable ratio (VR) – is one in which reinforcement is
presented after a particular, yet changing, number of
responses have been emitted.
2. Interval schedule is one in which reinforcement is
contingent on the first response emitted after a certain time
interval has elapsed
 a. Fixed interval (FI) reinforcement is contingent on the
first response emitted after a particular, constant
amount of time has gone by
b. Variable interval (VI) reinforcement is contingent on the
first response emitted after a certain time interval has
elapsed, but the length of the interval changes from one
occasion to the next

Using Reinforcement to Increase Desirable Behavior

1. Specify desired behaviors up front
2. Use extrinsic reinforcers only when desired behavior
are not already occurring on their own
3. Identify consequences that are truly reinforcing for
each learner
4. Make sure that learners will gain more than they lose
by changing their behavior
5. Make response-consequence contingencies explicit
Contingency contract – an agreement that specifies
certain expectations for the student and the
consequences of students meeting those expectations
6. Administer reinforcement instantly
7. Gradually shape complex behavior
8. When giving reinforcement publicly make sure that
all students have an opportunity to earn it
9. Use objective criteria to monitor progress
Baseline level of behavior – the frequency of a behavior
before reinforcement begins
10. Foster the ability to delay gratification
Delay gratification – when the waiting period is
increased gradually and when they learn strategies for
coping with the wait
11. Once the terminal behaviors has been acquired and is
occurring regularly, gradually wean learners off of
extrinsic reinforcers

Guidelines in using punishment

1. Choose a punishment that is truly punishing without
being overly severe
2. Inform learners ahead of time about what behaviors will
be punished
 3. Describe unacceptable behaviors in clear, concrete
terms
4. Whenever possible, administer punishment
immediately after the inappropriate behavior
5. Administer punishment within the context of a
generally warm, supportive environment
6. Explain why the behavior is unacceptable
7. Be consistent in imposing punishment for inappropriate
behavior
8. Modify the environment so that misbehavior is less
likely to occur
9. Teach and reinforce more appropriate behavior

Activities and Exercises

Essay:
1. Describe four schedules of partial reinforcement and
identify how these schedules influence behavior.
2. Examine one strategy, other than punishment, for
decreasing undesirable behaviors.

Glossary
operant conditioning - Also called instrumental conditioning, this is a
form of learning in which the consequences of behavior produce
changes in the probability that the behavior will occur.
reinforcement - A consequence that increases the probability that a
behavior will occur.
punishment - A consequence that decreases the probability that a
behavior will occur.
• positive reinforcement - Reinforcement based on the
principle that the frequency of a response increases
because it is followed by a rewarding stimulus.
• negative reinforcement - Reinforcement based on the
principle that the frequency of a response increases
because an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus is removed.
• schedules of reinforcement - Partial reinforcement
timetables that determine when a response will be
reinforced.
 • contracting - Putting reinforcement contingencies into
writing.
• prompt - An added stimulus or cue that is given just
before a response, thus increasing the likelihood the
response will recur.
• shaping - Teaching new behaviors by reinforcing
successive approximations to a specified target
behavior.
• time-out - Removing an individual from positive
reinforcement.
• response cost - Taking a positive reinforcer away from
an individual.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Social Cognitive Theory

This module will examine the views of social cognitive

theorists on how environment and cognitive factors influence
human behavior and learning. Social cognitive theory focuses
on learning through observation and modeling. It reflects on
the fact that much of human learning involves watching and
interacting with other people. Phenomenon of modeling,
selfefficacy, and self-regulation will be discussed.
Objectives should be enumerated (if necessary and if
available):
1. Evaluate the characteristics of modeling and its effects on
human learning.
2. Compare and contrast self-efficacy and self-regulation as a
factor in completion of tasks successfully.
3. Identify implications of social cognitive theory for
educational practice.

Principles of Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory is learning by observation and it
focuses on what and how people learn from one another,
encompassing such concepts as observational learning,
imitation, and modeling.

General principles of social cognitive theory

1. People can learn by observing the behaviors of others, as well
as by observing the outcomes of those behaviors.
2. Learning can occur without a change in behavior. Social
cognitive theorists argue that because people can learn
through observation alone, their learning will not
necessarily be reflected in their actions.
3. The consequences of behavior play a role in learning.
4. Cognition also plays a role in learning. It incorporates such
cognitive processes as attention and retention (memory)
into their explanations of how learning occurs.
5. People can have considerable control over their actions and
environments. People can take active steps to create or
modify their environments – perhaps by making changes
themselves, or perhaps by convincing others to offer
 assistance and support - and they often do so consciously
and intentionally.

How the environment reinforces and punishes modeling

• The model reinforces the observer – People often
reinforce others who copy what they do. Example, a
group of girls is more willing to welcome a new girl if
they perceive her to dress the way they do.
• The observer is reinforced by a third person – In some
instances a learner is reinforced by a third person.
Example, a mother who exclaims, “Well done for tying
your shoes like your big brother”.
• The imitated behavior itself leads to reinforcing
consequences.
Behaviors learned by observing others produces
satisfying results. For example, closely following the
steps seen in cooking will more likely result to the same
taste.
• Consequences of the model’s behavior affect the
observer’s behavior vicariously. By observing the
model make a particular response, observers may also
see the consequence of the response.
Vicarious reinforcement – when people
observe a model making a particular response, they
may also observe the
consequences of the response. If a model is reinforced
for a response, then the observer may show an increase
in that response

BANDURA’S BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT

Children watched a film of a model hitting and kicking an
inflated punching doll. One group of children saw the model
reinforced for such aggressive behavior, a second group saw
the model punished, and a third group saw the model receive
no consequences for the aggression. When the children were
then placed in a room with the doll, those who had seen the
model being reinforced for aggression displayed the most
aggressive behavior toward the doll: They’d been vicariously
 reinforced for aggression. Conversely, those children who had
seen the model punished for aggression were the least
aggressive of the three groups: They’d been vicariously
punished for such behavior (Bandura, 1965).

Cognitive Factors in Social Learning

Central ideas of cognitive factors
• Learning is, first and foremost, a mental (rather than
behavioral) acquisition.
• Reciprocal causation is the interplay of environment,
person, and behavior (Bandura, 1989).
• Environment (E): General conditions and immediate
stimuli
(including reinforcement and punishment) in the
outside world
• Person (P): An individual’s particular physical
characteristics (e.g., age, gender, physical
attractiveness), cognitive processes (e.g., attention,
expectations), and socially and culturally conferred
roles and reputations (e.g., king, student, “popular
kid,” “geek”)
• Behavior (B): An individual’s observable actions and
reactions

• Insight learning is a form of problem solving in which

the organism develops sudden insight into or
understanding of a problem's solution. Insight learning
appears to entail both gradual and sudden processes,
and understanding how these lead to problem solving
continues to fascinate psychologists. Insight learning
requires thinking "outside the box," setting aside
previous expectations and assumptions. One way that
insight learning can be enhanced in human beings is
through multicultural experiences.

Modeling
MODELING – term used to describe what a model does (i.e.
demonstrate a behavior) and at other times to describe what
the observer does (i.e. mimic that behavior). According to
Bandura (1977, 1986), many of the behaviors people exhibit
have been acquired through observing and modeling what
others do.

Effects of Modeling
• Modeling teaches new behaviors.
• Modeling influences the frequency of previously learned
behaviors Facilitation effect – people are more likely to
exhibit behaviors they have previously learned when they
see others being reinforced for such behaviors
Inhibition effect – people are less likely to perform behaviors
for which they have seen others being punished.
• Modeling may encourage previously forbidden behaviors
In studies by Walters and his colleagues (Walters&Thomas,
1963), adults viewed either a film depicting aggression
and violence
(Rebel without a Cause) or a neutral film (Picture Making
by Teenagers) and then were asked to administer
“shocks” to other individuals. (These other individuals
were confederates of the experimenter who did not really
receive any shocks but behaved as if they did). People
who had watched the violent, aggressive film
administered more frequent and more intense “shocks” to
the confederates. The film had apparently disinhibited
previously learned aggressive behavior
• Modeling increases the frequency of similar behaviors

Characteristics of Effective Models

The model is competent – people demonstrating a particular
behavior are more likely to be imitated by others if they are
viewed as being competent, capable individuals
The model has prestige and power – individuals who have high
status, respect, and power, either within a small group or
within society as a whole, are more likely to serve as models
for others
The model behaves in stereotypical “gender-appropriate” ways. –
males are more likely to model behavior that is consistent with
 male stereotypes; similarly, females are more likely to model
behaviors that follow traditional female patterns
The model’s behavior is relevant to the observer’s situation -
individuals are more likely to model the behaviors of people
they view as similar to themselves in some important way.

Bandura’s 3 general type of models

1. Live model- an actual person demonstrating a particular
behavior
2. Symbolic model- a person or character portrayed in a
book, film, television, show, videogame, or other
medium
3. Verbal instructions – descriptions of how to behave –
without another human being, either live or symbolic,
being present at all

Cognitive modeling – students learn academic skills more

effectively when models demonstrate not only how to do
something but also how to think about something

AGGRESSION – numerous research studies indicate that

children become more aggressive when they observe
aggressive or violent models
Children can also learn aggression from observing it in films,
television shows, or video games. In another study by Bandura
and his colleagues, preschool children who had seen a film of
either an adult or a cartoon character being aggressive
exhibited just as much aggression toward an inflatable doll as
did children who had seen a live adult model; all of these
children were significantly more aggressive than children who
had not observed a model at all.

MORALITY
Models in the media can have an impact as well.
 Pro-social behaviors – those aimed at helping others rather
than at enhancing one’s own well-being
In a study by Friedrich and Stein (1973), a group of preschool
children watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – a television
show that stresses such prosocial behaviors as cooperation,
sympathy, and sharing – for 30 minutes each day over a 4-week
period. These children displayed more socially appropriate
behavior and less aggression than children who instead watched
shows with aggressive content (e.g. Batman and Superman)
during the same period.
According to Bandura, when children hear a model say one thing
and do something else, they are more likely to imitate what the
model does than what the model says. In other words, to be
effective, models must practice what they preach

Conditions necessary for effective modeling

1. Attention – to imitate a behavior accurately, a person
must first pay attention to the model and especially to
the significant aspects of the modeled behavior
2. Retention – after paying attention, the learner must also
remember the behavior that has been observed. One
simple way to remember what one has seen, at least for
the short run, is rehearsal – repeating whatever needs
to be remembered over and over again
3. Motor reproduction – actual replication of the behavior
that a model has demonstrated. Not only must learners
have the ability to perform an observed behavior, but
ideally they should have an opportunity to perform it at
the same time to observe it
4. Motivation – learners must want to demonstrate what
they have learned. Although parents and teachers are
often models for children, children do not model all of
the behaviors they observe their parents and teachers
performing. Children model behaviors only when they
are motivated to do so.

Self-Efficacy
SELF-EFFICACY – people are more likely to engage in certain
behaviors when they believe they are capable of executing the
behaviors successfully. It refers to the learner’s beliefs about
their competence in a specific activity or domain
 How self-efficacy affects behavior
Choice of activities. People tend to choose tasks and activities at
which they believe they can succeed; they tend to avoid those
at which they think they will fail
Goals. People set higher goals for themselves when they have
high selfefficacy in a particular domain.
Effort and persistence. People with a high sense of self-efficacy
are more likely to exert effort when they work at a task, and
they are more likely to persist when they encounter obstacles.
Learning and achievement. People with high self-efficacy tend
to learn and achieve more than those with low self-efficacy,
even when actual ability levels are the same. In other words,
when several individuals have equal ability, those who believe
they can do a task are more likely to accomplish it than those
who do not believe they are capable of success

Learners are at a disadvantage when they underestimate their

abilities. In such circumstances, they set unnecessarily low
goals for themselves and give up easily in the face of small
obstacles. But it’s also possible to have too much of a good
thing. When learners are too overconfident, they may set
themselves up for failure by forming unrealistically high
expectations or exerting insufficient effort to succeed. And they
will hardly be inclined to address weaknesses that they don’t
realize they have.

Self-Regulated Behavior
Self regulation of behavior – developing own ideas about
appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and they choose their
actions accordingly

Techniques for promoting self-regulated behavior

1. Self-instructions – repeating instructions to themselves
2. Self-monitoring – another method that can help people
control their own behavior is simply to have them
observe and assess their own responses
 3. Self-reinforcement – people are often able to change
their behavior by giving themselves a treat or special
privilege when they behave in a desired fashion and
withholding reinforcement when they do not

Educational implications of social cognitive theory

• Students often learn a great deal simply by observing
others
• Describing the consequences of behaviors can
effectively increase appropriate behaviors and decrease
inappropriate ones
• Teachers, parents, and other adults must model
appropriate behaviors and take care that they don’t
model inappropriate ones
• Exposure to a variety of other models further enhances
students’ learning
• Students must believe they are capable of
accomplishing school tasks
• Teachers should help students set realistic expectations
for their accomplishments
• Self-regulation techniques provide effective methods
for improving student behavior

Activities and Exercises

Essay:
1. Discuss the general principles of Social Cognitive Theory.
2. Analyze how teachers can effectively use modeling to
cultivate students’ learning.

Glossary
• social cognitive theory - Bandura’s theory that social
and cognitive factors, as well as behavior, play
important roles in learning.
• self-efficacy - The belief that one can master a situation
and produce positive outcomes.
 • observational learning - Learning that involves
acquiring skills, strategies, and beliefs by observing
others.
• self-regulatory learning - The self-generation and self-
monitoring of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order
to reach a goal.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Cognition and Memory

In this chapter, we’ll consider the contributions of Tolman,

Gestalt psychology, and early verbal learning research and
then get a brief overview of contemporary cognitivism.

Objectives:
1. Discuss Atkinson and Shifrin’s Stages of Memory
2. Evaluate various verbal learning research.
3. Explain Edward Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism.

PURPOSIVE BEHAVIORISM by Edward Tolman

1. Learning is an internal rather than external change.
Tolman proposed that learning is an internal process
that isn’t necessarily reflected in an organism’s behavior
a. Latent learning – unobservable learning
b. Reinforcement influences performance
rather than learning, in that it increases the
likelihood that a learned behavior will be
exhibited
2. Behavior is purposive. Once an organism has learned
that a behavior leads to a certain end result, the
organism behaves in order to achieve that end. In other
words, behavior has a purpose
3. Expectations affect behavior. Once an organism learns
that certain behaviors produce certain kinds of results,
it begins to form expectations about the outcomes of its
behaviors
4. Learning results in an organized body of information.
Tolman proposed that organisms develop cognitive
maps of their environments. They learn where different
parts of the environment are situated in relation to one
another.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and

Kurt Koffka
1. Perception is different from reality. Wertheimer’s
description and analysis of an optical illusion known as
the phi phenomenon – when two lights blink on and off
 sequentially at a particular rate, they often appear to be
only one light moving quickly back and forth. Thus the
perception of an experience is sometimes different from
the experience itself
2. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Gestaltists
believed that human experience cannot be successfully
understood when various aspects of experience are
studied in isolation from one another
3. An organism structures and organizes experience
4. The organism is predisposed to organize experience in
certain ways
a. Law of proximity – people tend to perceive as a
unit those things that are close together in space
b. Law of similarity – people tend to perceive as a
unit those things that are similar to one another
c. Law of closure – people tend to fill in missing
pieces to form a complete picture
d. Law of Pragnanz – individuals always organize
their experience as simply, concisely,
symmetrically, and completely as possible
i. KISS – keep it simple, stupid!
5. Learning follows the law of Pragnanz – it involves the
formation of memory traces – overtime, they tend to
become simpler, more concise, and more complete than
the actual input.

VERBAL LEARNING RESEARCH

1. Serial learning is characterized by a particular pattern.
a. Serial learning – involves learning a sequence of items
in a particular order.
b. The 1st item in the list is a stimulus to which the 2nd
item is learned as a response, the 2nd item series as a
stimulus to which the 3rd item is the learned response
and so on.
c. Paired associate learning – learning pairs of items
d. Serial learning curve – people learn the 1st few items
and last few items more quickly and easily than they
learn the middle items
i. Primacy effect – tendency for the first
items to be learned quickly
ii. Recency effect – tendency for the last
items to be learned quickly
2. Overlearned material is more easily recalled at a later
time
a. Overlearning – you learn material to mastery and then
practice it for additional study trials, enables you to
remember the information much more accurately at a
later time

3. Distributed practice is usually more effective than massed

practive
a. Distributed practice – spreading study time over several
occasion
i. The further apart the study session are,
the better one’s recall for the learned
information
b. Massed practice – study time occurs all at once
i. Leads to fatigue and cause learner to
practice inappropriate response

4. Learning in one situation often affects learning and recall

in another situation
a. Retroactive inhibition – when people learn two
sets of paired associates in succession, their
learning of the 2nd set diminishes their ability to
recall the first set
b. Proactive inhibition – difficulty remembering the
2nd set as well

5. Characteristics of the material affect the speed with

which people can learn it.
a. Items are more quickly learned when they are
meaningful – that is, when they can be easily
associated with other ideas
b. Items are easier to learn and remember when
they are pronounceable
c. Concrete items are easier to learn and remember
than abstract items
d. One probable reason that the concreteness of
items makes them easier to learn and remember
is that concrete items can be mentally visualized.
 6. People often impose meaning on new information

7. People organize what they learn. When people are

allowed to recall items of a serial learning task in any
order (free recall), they typically do not recall the items
in the original presentation order. Instead, their recall
order often reflects an organizational scheme of some
kind

8. People often use encoding strategies to help them learn.

9. People are more likely to learn general ideas than to

learn words verbatim

AN INFORMATION PROCESSING VIEW OF HUMAN MEMORY

Learning a piece of information at one time does not guarantee
that you will remember it later on.
Memory – is the capacity to record, retain and retrieve
information.
Without memory, learning is impossible. People could
not build on past experiences or adapt their knowledge
to new situations.

3 R's
• Record / Encoding – the process by which information
is recorded in a form usable by memory
• Retain / Storage – the location in the memory system in
which material is saved.
o If material is not stored adequately, it cannot be recalled.
• Retrieval – material in memory storage is located,
brought into awareness and used.

Atkinson and Shifrin's 3 Stages of Memory

The 3 r's are necessary for memory to operate successfully but
they do not describe the specific manner in which material is
entered into our storehouse.
1. Sensory memory or Sensory Register – refers to the
initial momentary storage of information, lasting only
an instant.
• After 1 second, you can no longer recall
information

2. Short term memory or Working Memory – holds

information for 15 – 25 seconds
• Temporary storage of the information that
someone has just experienced
• Has small capacity
• Magical number 7 +/- 2
• STM disappear unless people continually
rehearse them or unless they are sufficiently and
meaningfully stored in LTM.
• Chunking – the process of combining pieces of
information in some way
• Maintenance Rehearsal – repeating information
to keep it alive in working memory
• Word Length Effect – being able to remember a
greater number of short items than longer items

3. Long term memory – information is relatively

permanent, although it may be difficult to retrieve. 2
kinds of memory in LTM
a. declarative memory – ability to state a fact,
“how things are or were”
• episodic memories – relate to our
individual lives, recalling what we have
done and the kinds of experiences we
have had. Information is connected with
specific times and places
• semantic memories – organized
knowledge and facts about the world
ex. 2x2= 4, tallest mountain –
Mt. Everest b. procedural memory – skill,
or memory of how to do something, “how
to do things”
The Role of Attention
If we want to move information from the sensory register into
working memory, it appears that, at least in most cases, we
must pay attention to it
• One reason people don’t remember something they’ve
seen or heard, is that they never really paid attention to
it
• Even when people pay attention to a particular
stimulus, they don’t necessarily attend to important
aspects of the stimulus

Factors influencing attention

1. Motion – moving objects are more likely to capture
attention than the stationery ones
2. Size – attention tends to be drawn to large objects
3. Intensity – bright colors and loud noises attract
attention
4. Novelty – stimuli that are novel or unusual in some way
tend to draw people’s attention
5. Incongruity – objects that don’t make sense within their
context tend to capture people’s attention
6. Emotion – stimuli with strong emotional associations
attract attention
7. Personal significance – the meaning and relevance
people find in an object or event can both capture and
maintain attention
8. Social cues – people are more likely to pay attention to
things they see others looking at and reacting to

Cocktail Party Phenomenon – the ability to attend to one

spoken message while ignoring others
 Attention as a Limited Capacity
The Peter-Paul goblet illustrates a phenomenon called Figure-Ground – an
individual can attend to one object (i.e. the figure) and notice the details of the
object. Whatever the individual is not paying attention to (i.e.
the background, or ground) is not carefully inspected

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF COGNITIVE

THEORIES
• People control their own learning
• Memory is selective
• Attention is essential for learning

Effective strategies for capturing and holding students’

attention
1. Include variety in topics and presentation styles
2. Provide frequent breaks, especially when working with
young children
3. Ask Questions
4. Minimize distractions when independent work is
assigned.
5. Seat students near the teacher if they have difficulty
staying on the task
6. Monitor student’s behaviors
7. People can process only a limited amount of
information at a time
8. The limited capacity of working memory is not
necessarily a bad thing

Activities and Exercises

Essay:
1. Discuss Atkinson and Shifrin’s Stages of Memory
2. Evaluate various verbal learning research.
Glossary
• Law of proximity – people tend to perceive as a unit those
things that are close together in space
• Law of similarity – people tend to perceive as a unit those
things that are similar to one another
• Law of closure – people tend to fill in missing pieces to
form a complete picture
• Law of Pragnanz – individuals always organize their
experience as simply, concisely, symmetrically, and
completely as possible
• Primacy effect – tendency for the first items to be learned
quickly
• Recency effect – tendency for the last items to be learned
quickly
• Overlearning – you learn material to mastery and then
practice it for additional study trials, enables you to
remember the information much more accurately at a later
time
• Memory – is the capacity to record, retain and retrieve
information
• Sensory memory or Sensory Register – refers to the
initial momentary storage of information, lasting only an
instant.
• Short term memory or Working Memory – holds
information for 15 – 25 seconds
• Chunking – the process of combining pieces of information
in some way
• Maintenance Rehearsal – repeating information to keep it
alive in working memory
• Word Length Effect – being able to remember a greater
number of short items than longer items

• Long term memory – information is relatively permanent,

although it may be difficult to retrieve.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Long Term Memory: Nature of Knowledge,
Storage, Retrieval and Forgetting

This module looks into the multifaceted nature of long-term memory

storage. We’ll examine cognitive processes and other factors that
influence the effectiveness of long-term memory storage. Aside from
these, the nature of the knowledge that accumulates in long-term
memory and at the processes involved in retrieving it at a future time
is also discussed.
Objectives:
1. Identify factors that affect long-term memory storage.
2. Enumerate retrieval cues that helps retrieval of information.
3. identify strategies for promoting effective long-term memory
storage in instructional settings

Nature of Knowledge
Long-term memory provides a mechanism for saving information
over a relatively long period of time. It also provides a knowledge base
from which to interpret new information

At any given point in time, our interpretation of the environment is

usually both less and more than the information we actually receive
from the environment
• Perception is less than sensation because people cannot
possibly interpret all of the information that bombards their
sensory receptors at any given moment.
• Perception is also much more than sensation, because
sensation alone provides insufficient information for an
adequate interpretation of ongoing events.

Explicit knowledge – information that people know that they know

and can easily explain
Ambiguous stimulus – something that readily lends itself to more
than one possible construction
Storage
LONG – TERM MEMORY STORAGE PROCESSES
1. Rehearsal – repeating something over and over in a short time period
 • Elaborative rehearsal – helping learners make
associations between the new information and things
they already know
• Rote learning – there is little or no attempt to make the
information meaningful or to understand it in terms of
things one already knows.
• Teachers must help students understand that mere
repetition is an inefficient means of storing information
for the long run, if it even works at all.
2. Selection – learners must be extremely selective about the information
they choose to process and so must have a means of determining what is
important and what is not
• SIMON 1974 - each piece of information takes about 10
seconds to encode
• GAGNE 1985 – students can only process 6 pieces of
information per minute

Effective methods of Long-term memory storage

1. Meaningful Learning – relating new information to
knowledge already stored in their long-term memories,
people find meaning in the information. We also refer to this
as understanding or comprehension
2. Internal Organization – various pieces are interconnected in
some way. Many good students spontaneously organize
information as they learn it, and such learner generated
organization can be quite effective.
3. Elaboration – a process of learning more than the material
presented, or learning between the lines
4. Visual Imagery – mental pictures that captured how the
figures actually looked.

Factors affecting Long-term memory storage

1. Working Memory – for learners to make a connection
between a new piece of information and a piece of
information that they already have, they must be aware of the
relationship between the two. In other words, both pieces
must be in working memory at the same time.
2. Prior Knowledge – learners who have a large body of
information already stored in long-term memory have more
ideas to which they can relate their new experiences and so
can more easily engage in such processes as meaningful
learning and elaboration.
 3. Prior Misconceptions – if people think that new information
is clearly “wrong” within the context of what they currently
believe about the world, they may ignore the information
altogether.
4. Expectations – we perceive and learn something more
quickly when we have a good idea ahead of time about the
information we are going to receive. Perhaps because
relevant portions of long-term memory have already been
activated.
a. Halo effect – we expect desirable behaviors from a
person we like or admire and so are likely to perceive
that person’s behaviors in a positive light
b. Horns effect – we expect inappropriate behaviors from
a person we dislike, and their perceptions of that
person’s behaviors are biased
5. Verbalization – talking or writing about an experience that
either has happened or is happening
a. Self-explanation – learners talk to themselves in an
attempt to understand difficult subject matter
6. Enactment – engaging in an overt psychomotor behavior –
actually doing something – that in some way reflects what is
being learned
7. Repetition and Review – by reviewing and practicing what
we have learned over a period of time, we probably
accomplish several things
a. We engage in additional processing – processing that
may allow us to elaborate on learned information in
new ways and so understand it more thoroughly
b. By reviewing the same information repeatedly,
especially in different contexts, we form more and
stronger associations with other things in memory; as
a result, we can readily recall the information when
needed at a future time
c. Continued practice promotes automaticity

2 types of information processing – Schneider and Shiffrin

1. controlled processing – requires much of a learner’s
attention and is likely to use most or all of the learner’s
working memory capacity. In other words, it requires
conscious thought and effort
 2. automatic processing – occurs with little or no conscious
attention or effort and requires little working memory
capacity. It is, in a sense, “thoughtless”

Kinds of Knowledge
1. Declarative knowledge – concerns the nature “how things
are or were”
a. Episodic memory – one’s memory of personal life
experiences
b. Semantic memory – one’s general knowledge of the
world independent of those experiences
2. Procedural knowledge – involves knowing “how to do
things”
3. Explicit knowledge – knowledge that we can easily recall and
explain
4. Implicit knowledge – knowledge that we cannot consciously
recall or explain but that nevertheless affects our behavior

4 ways of encoding information

1. Symbols – something that represents an object or event,
often without bearing much resemblance to that object of
event. Ex. Words, numbers
2. Appearance – storing images in several modalities, including
visual, auditory and olfactory. Includes gestures – the ways
they move their hands as they speak to reflect their attempts
to communicate their visual images or knowledge of spatial
relationships.
3. Meanings – meanings are stored as propositions – that is, as
small units of knowledge concerning relationships among
objects or events
4. Actions – productions – provide a means through which
individuals can be responsive to different environmental
conditions. A set of IFTHEN rules

Retrieval and Forgetting

How Retrieval works
How we easily retrieve something from long term memory
depends in large part on how well we stored it in the first place.
Unlike working memory, which is functionally quite small, long-term
memory is so large that an exhaustive inspection of it all is probably
impossible.
Encoding specificity – the phenomenon where the retrieval of
information is also easier when learners engage in thought
processes similar to those they previously used when storing
information.

The 4 Retrieval Cues

Retrieval cues are likely to activate the part of long-term memory
where a desired piece of information can be found. They are most
effective when we have associated them frequently with the specific
information.
1. Identity cues - Giving identical information you were trying to
retrieve.
2. Associate cues – Directs your search towards relevant parts
of you long-term.
3. Frame - A systematic guide into searching long-term memory.
4. Contextual cues – Cues that are present in the environment
the senses are easier to remember.

Construction retrieval – People often retrieve only a portion of the

information that has previously been presented to them, and they
may fill in the “holes” based on what is logical or consistent with
their existing knowledge and beliefs about themselves or about the
more generally.
The power of suggestion – Sometimes people’s recollections
are influenced not only by their prior knowledge, but also by
information presented to them after they learned whatever
they are retrieving. People should continually update their
knowledge as new information comes in.
Self-monitoring – When one retrieves a memory, people may often
reflect on their recollections in an effort to determine whether they
are remembering something accurately or inaccurately. Usually
when it appears to be vivid or easily retrieved, the confidence in the
accuracy is higher.
Source monitoring – Remembering when or where a memory
actually came into being.
Forgetting – People recall less and less about the events they have
experience and the information they have acquired.
 o Decay – Information can gradually fade away, or
decay, and eventually disappear from memory
altogether. o Interference – When an individual learns
numerous responses and gets them mixed up. o
Failure to retrieve – The information was still in your
longterm memory; you just couldn’t retrieve it the
first time around. o Repression – People may have
experiences that are so painful or emotionally
distressing that we tend either not to remember it at
all or to remember only isolated fragments of it.
o Construction error – Tendency to fabricate a memory
or parts of it to fill in the “holes” in the information.
o Failure to Store or Consolidate – Some information
may never have been completely stored in the first
place. Perhaps we didn’t pay attention to the
information, so it never entered our working memory.

Infantile Amnesia - Infantile, or childhood amnesia is characterized

by the relative absence of memory before 4 years of age. It is not the
complete absence of memories, but the relative scarcity of memories
from infancy.

Principles for retrieval for instructional settings:

• The internal organization of a body of information facilitates
its retrieval.
• How something is retrieved at one time affects how it will be
retrieved later on.
• Information that must be retrieved within a particular
context should be stored within that context.
• External retrieval cues minimize failure to retrieve.
• Questions about previously learned material can promote
both review and further elaboration.
• Retrieval can take time
• Long-term memory can probably never be a totally reliable
record of information
• Classroom assessment promote retrieval and review; they
also influence storage processes. Classroom assessments,
when designed appropriately, can enhance students’ learning
and memory in at least four ways:
1. By promoting effective storage processes
2. By encouraging review before the assessment.
 3. By requiring review during the assessment itself.
4. By providing feedback.
• Taxonomies of objectives can be a useful reminder of the
various ways in which students might be asked to think about
and apply what they have learned. The revised taxonomy
includes six cognitive processes, each of which is potentially
relevant to four different types of knowledge

Cognitive processes
1. Remember: recognizing or recalling information learned at an
earlier time and stored in long-term memory
2. Understand: constructing meaning from instructional
messages and materials.
3. Apply: using knowledge in a familiar or new situation.
4. Analyze: breaking information into its constituent parts, and
perhaps identifying interrelationships among those parts
5. Evaluate: making judgments about information using certain
criteria or standards
6. Create: putting knowledge and/or procedures together to
form a coherent, structured, and possible original whole.

Types of Knowledge
1. Factual knowledge: knowing specific pieces of information
2. Conceptual knowledge: knowing more general structures
and interrelationships among pieces of information
3. Procedural knowledge: knowing how to do something.
4. Metacognitive knowledge: knowing about the nature of
thinking and about effective learning strategies, and being
aware of one’s own cognitive processes.

Glossary
• Factual knowledge - knowing specific pieces of information
• Conceptual knowledge - knowing more general structures
and interrelationships among pieces of information
• Procedural knowledge - knowing how to do something.
• Metacognitive knowledge: knowing about the nature of
thinking and about effective learning strategies, and being
aware of one’s own cognitive processes.
• Source monitoring – Remembering when or where a
memory actually came into being
 • Symbols – something that represents an object or event,
often without bearing much resemblance to that object of
event. Ex. Words, numbers
• Appearance – storing images in several modalities, including
visual, auditory and olfactory. Includes gestures – the ways
they move their hands as they speak to reflect their attempts
to communicate their visual images or knowledge of spatial
relationships.
• Meanings – meanings are stored as propositions – that is, as
small units of knowledge concerning relationships among
objects or events
• Actions – productions – provide a means through which
individuals can be responsive to different environmental
conditions. A set of IFTHEN rules
• controlled processing – requires much of a learner’s
attention and is likely to use most or all of the learner’s
working memory capacity. In other words, it requires
conscious thought and effort
• automatic processing – occurs with little or no conscious
attention or effort and requires little working memory
capacity. It is, in a sense, “thoughtless”

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.). McGraw
Hill Higher Education.
 Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning

Students who are able to succeed academically often rely on

their ability to think effectively and independently for them to
take charge of their learning. This module will focuses on how
students could master the fundamental but crucial skills that
includes keeping their workspace organized, completing tasks
on schedule, making a plan for learning, monitoring their
learning path, and recognizing when it might be useful to
change course.
Objective:
1. Explain the reasons why students don’t use effective
learning strategies.
2. Identify different effective learning and study strategies.

Metacognitive Knowledge and Skills

Metacognition
• It is an awareness and understanding of one’s thoughts
and learning process, as well as how they regulate those
processes in order to enhance their learning and
memory. This implies that if the students are exercising
their metacognition, they are more likely to have a
better school learning and achievement.
• It is thinking about thinking.
• It involves fairly complex, abstract ideas and processes.

Metacognition includes Knowledge and Skills

• Ability to know one’s own learning and memory
capabilities
• Knowing what learning strategies are effective or not
• Thinking of a feasible approach to a new learning task
• Adapting learning strategies to different circumstances
• Monitoring present state of one’s knowledge
• Knowing effective techniques of remembering previous
stored information
Self-Regulated Learning
Self-regulation is a process setting up a standards and
goals for their performance upon growing, and choosing their
behavior they think will help them meet their standards and
goals. Afterwards, they evaluate the effects of their actions.

Self-regulated learning. Theorists believe that

effective learning doesn’t only include setting up goals,
choosing learning strategies to help achieve one’s goals, and
then evaluate the outcomes of one’s efforts. They also believe
that effective learning also includes control of one’s motivation
and emotions

Self-regulated learning includes:

• Goal Setting. Self-regulating learners are aware of what
they want to accomplish when they do a particular task
– specifically learning specific facts, acquire general
understanding of the materials, or acquire sufficient
knowledge for the task. They also set deadlines for them
not to leave important learnings in a certain period of
time.
• Planning. Self-regulating learners always plan on how
they are going to approach a learning task and how they
would use their time effectively to accomplish their
goals. Usually, they provide more time to a difficult task
or materials, but they also tend to ignore difficult tasks
if these tasks are seemed to be impossible to master or
do for the time they have.
• Self-motivation. Self-regulating learners are more likely
to have highefficacy in accomplishing a learning task.
They also have selfdiscipline wherein they put first their
responsibilities in task before their pleasure.
• Attention control. Self-regulating learners focus their
attention especially on the subject matter only and clear
their minds in potentially distracting thoughts and
emotions.
• Use of effective, goal-relevant learning strategies.
Self-regulating learners always have various goal-
relevant learning strategies on how to do a particular
task.
 • Self-monitoring. Self-regulating learners are more
likely to monitor oneself their progress during learning
activities, and modify their strategies or their goals if
necessary.
• Appropriate help seeking. Self-regulated learners are
not always working alone, but they also seek help to the
experts to master a certain tasks or skills.
• Self-evaluation. Self-regulated learners always evaluate
themselves and determine what they have learned and
if it is sufficient for their goals they’ve set for
themselves.
• Self-reflection. Self-regulated learners also evaluate
their strategies if it is successful and efficient. They also
identify alternatives that might be more effective in the
future.

The Roots of Self-Regulated Learning

Self-regulated learning usually develops depends on the
age-group that is appropriate for an independent, self-
directed learning activities. This means that regular exposure
to self-regulating models (adults and peer) help them to keep
themselves on task effectively.
Social-regulated learning also develops from socially
regulated learning. This means that other people (e.g.,
parents or teachers) can help others to learn through goal
setting for learning activities, keeping other’s attention to
focused on the learning task, suggesting effective strategies,
monitor learning progress etc.
Another root of self-regulated learning is from other-
regulated learning. In order to acquire learnings from other-
regulated learning to selfregulated learning, there should be a
bridge between the two in which we called co-regulated
learning. This is when adult and children share responsibility
for regulating learning process. Moreover, it could be an adult
and children would agree on the specific goals on learning
strategies, or it could be the adult may describe what criteria of
a successful learning the children should follow.

Effective Learning and Study Strategies

1. Meaningful Learning and Elaboration
 A meaningful learning is a process of relating new
ideas to already stored ideas in long-term memory while
elaboration is a process of using prior knowledge to explain
and interpret ideas.

2. Organization
One common approach is to develop an outline of
ideas or major topics in order to categorize or organize it
properly and to be easily understood. However, high
achieving students are less likely to develop outlines as
they could organize their ideas in their thoughts and paper-
and-pencil outlines are not necessary.
Another approach that quite effective than
outlining is to develop materials specifically graphic
representations such as map, flowchart or matrix.
Moreover, a concept map is also effective strategy in
enhancing the students’ learning. Using concept map, a
student can focus on how concepts can be related to
prior learning, or to other new ideas. And like other
graphic techniques, concept maps can help people to
encode information in long-term memory visually.

3. Note Taking
There are three functions of note taking method.
The first is one it keeps the attention of the students
focus on the subject matter being presented. Second,
facilitates encoding of the material through writing and
seeing it on paper. This can help students apt to encode
it both verbally and visually. And lastly, it serves as a
form of concrete external storage for the information
presented to them. Thus, it is more likely to store on the
long-term memory of a person if pen and paper often
provide a dependable alternative that allows later
review and study.

4. Identifying Important Information

There is a lot of information that we could encounter
and we surely can’t accommodate all information to be
stored in our long term memory. This is why we have to
identify what is and important information and what is not.
The hard part is, in class, teachers can identify relative
importance of different ideas, which may have different
perspective that the students have.
 To discriminate what is important and unimportant,
there should be various signals presented in lectures or in
textbooks (specific objectives, different font of important
concepts etc.) However, students are sometimes
misinterpreting these signals. If there would be no signals,
students might have trouble in identifying the main points
of the lessons.

5. Summarizing
Students are more likely to learn and remember
new material effectively when they create a summary of
it by condensing and integrating it, deriving abstract
representations, or identifying appropriate headings to
label it.

6. Comprehension Monitoring
To learn more effectively, comprehension
monitoring is an effective technique in order to know if
one really understand and remember what he heard in
the class. However, sometimes, people became ignorant
about what they know and don’t know. They may think
that they understood the lesson but they actually did
not. This is what we called illusion of knowing. This is
usually happened if a person has less prior knowledge
about the subject matter or if it is difficult for them.
One strategy, aside from what we discussed a
while ago, is selfquestioning, in which students
formulate own questions before and during the lesson
and try to answer it as they go along. People should
assess themselves not only immediately but also after
some time has pass (few minutes, hours or days).

7. Mnemonics
Mnemonics is a device used to facilitate learning
and memory of many forms of hard-to-remember
material. This device is very helpful especially if one is
trying to learn troublesome materials consisted of long
lists, spelling or mathematics.
General Types of Mnemonics
• Verbal Mediation. Two words or ideas are
associated by a word or phrase (verbal
mediator) that connects them. For example, a
 German word “der Hund” can think of a ‘dog’
and a ‘hound’
• Visual Imagery. It forms the basis for a
number of effective mnemonic devices such
as the method of loci, the pegword method,
and the keyword method.
1. Method of Loci. Associating things, people
or landmarks to the concepts you have to
remember. For example, in making a
speech, a person would translate each key
point into some sort of concrete,
observable object, and form a visual image
of each successive key point located at a
particular landmark along route.
2. Pegword Method. This method consists
of using a wellknown or easily learned list
of items that then serves as a series of
“pegs” on which another list is “hung”
through visual imagery.
3. Keyword method. This strategy is a
combination of verbal mediation and
visual imagery, wherein one should
identify a word or phrase that sounds
familiar or is related to the concept you
are learning for, and then he should form a
visual image of this keyword with its
meaning.

Development of Metacognitive Knowledge and Skills

Trends in the Development of Metacognition

• Children become increasingly aware of the nature of
thinking. Children could develop personal theories
about various aspects of their world and it is not only
about their physical and social worlds, but also about
their internal psychological world. Children develop
theory of mind that increases complex understandings
of their own and other’s mental states such as thoughts,
beliefs, perspectives, feelings, motives, etc.
• Children become increasingly realistic about their
memory capabilities and limitations. Usually, children
 tend to believe that they could remember effectively. As
they grow older, they come to realize that there are still
a lot of difficult task that have to encounter and learn
than others. They also begin to realize that their
memories aren’t perfect and they couldn’t possibly
remember everything they hear.
• Children become increasingly aware of and use
effective learning and memory strategies. During
younger years, children are only aware of what are the
techniques best to use in effective learning, yet they
tend to use relatively ineffective ones. While in older
years, people are more likely to develop and use a
variety of strategies.
• Children engage in more comprehension monitoring,
as they get older. Younger children are more likely to
believe that everything they do is something they know
or understand and believe that they don’t have to study
things they need to learn as much as they should.
But as they grow older, they tend to become aware of
when they actually know something.
• Some learning processes may be used unconsciously
and automatically at first but become more conscious
and deliberate with development. Usually, young
learners can use different learning strategies in an
unconscious manner and as they grow up, they tend to
adapt these strategies and use it consciously and
effectively.

Epistemic Beliefs
Epistemic beliefs are collective ideas of what
“knowledge” and “learning” is. These beliefs are gathered from
a cohesive, although not necessarily accurate, personal
theories about human learning and cognition such the belief in
the certainty of knowledge, simplicity and structure of
knowledge, the source of knowledge, the criteria for determining
the truth, the speed of learning, and lastly nature of learning
ability.
Developmental and Cultural Differences in Epistemic Beliefs
Epistemic beliefs of the learners often change over time.
It is directly correlated to the domain-specific with age and
with grade level. These changes can occur for example in
young children who usually believe in the certainty of
knowledge wherein they believe that there is an absolute truth
in every topics. And then, when they reach middle school and
high school, they begin to realize that knowledge is a subjective
entity and that various perspectives on a particular topic can
be equally valid. These changes may increase even in their
adulthood.
Moreover, environmental factors also play a role in the
development of epistemic beliefs. For example, two adults
contradicting each other may affect the epistemic beliefs of a
child and begin to think about the credibility of different
authority figures.
Cultural differences are also factors that affect the
epistemic beliefs of learners wherein Asian countries are
different with Western countries in terms of their beliefs that
influence how they study and learn.

Effects of Epistemic Beliefs

• Beliefs regarding the certainty of knowledge. When a
student believes that a topic is fixed and certain, they
tend to jump quickly in potentially inaccurate
conclusions. On the other hand, if they believe that
knowledge is continuous or evolving, they tend to enjoy
cognitively challenging tasks, and engage in meaningful
and elaborative learning as they can discover new
knowledge.
• Beliefs regarding the simplicity and structure of
knowledge. Students who believe that knowledge is a
discrete fact tend to have misconception and use role-
learning processes when they study. They also tend to
“know” what they’re studying. In contrast, if they
believe that knowledge is complex, they are more likely
to engage in meaningful and elaborative learning when
they study.
• Beliefs regarding the source knowledge. Students who
believe that knowledge came from external factors of
the learner and only passed along by authority figures,
they tend to be fairly passive learners. In contrast, if a
student believe that knowledge is only self-constructed,
they are more likely to be engaged in learning activities
cognitively and make interconnections among ideas.
 • Beliefs regarding the criteria for determining truth.
Students who believe that truth came from an expert,
they are more likely to accept information from
authority figures. But when they believe that an idea
should be judge on a logical and scientific merit, they
are more likely to be critical in evaluating new
information.
• Beliefs regarding the speed of learning. Students who
believe that learning happens quickly in all-or-none
fashion, they tend to believe that they learn before they
really have, and in the face of failure, they tend to give
up quickly and to be discourage on what they are
studying. On the other hand, if students believe that
learning is a gradual process and often takes time and
effort, they are more likely to use various learning
strategies.

The Intentional Learner

Intentional learning occurs when a learner is actively
and consciously engaged in cognitive and metacognitive
activities in thinking about and learning something. Intentional
learners have particular goals that they want to accomplish as
they learn and they also use various selfregulatory strategies to
achieve those goals. Intentional learning involves both
automatic and controlled processes. It also may be especially
necessary when learners need to improve their understanding
of a certain topic.

Why Students Don’t Always Use Effective Learning Strategies

• Students are uninformed or misinformed about
effective strategies. Many students seem to be clue less
about what they need to do to learn things and achieve
at high levels. This is because schools rarely teach such
strategies and they let the students to discover
strategies on their own which is quite slow and may
develop counterproductive misconceptions about how
best to learn.
• Students have epistemic beliefs that lead them to
underestimate or misrepresent a learning task.
Students tend not to engage in strategies if they think
that their tasks are easy or not related to the effort they
put forth.
 • Students mistakenly believe that they’re already
using effective strategies. Low-achieving student who
believe that their approach on learning is a good one,
may tend not to monitor their comprehension or they
define learning in an overly simplistic manner.
• Students have little relevant prior knowledge on
which they can draw. It is obvious that students who
use ineffective learning strategies tend to know less
about the subject matter they are studying.
• Assigned learning tasks don’t lend themselves to
sophisticated strategies. Teachers may assign task in
which effective strategies are counterproductive or
impossible. When teachers expect a great deal of
material to be mastered, students may tend to devote
their limited time to get impression of everything rather
than to develop an indepth understanding of the subject
matter.
• Students have goals that are inconsistent with
effective learning. Effective strategies are sometime
irrelevant especially if students only want to just
remember information just to get a passing grade or to
complete a particular task.
• Students think that sophisticated learning strategies
require too much effort to be worthwhile. There are
also time that students don’t use effective strategies
especially when they know that these strategies will
took much time and effort.

Promoting Effective Learning and Study Strategies

• Students are more likely to learn strategies effectively
when the strategies taught within the context of specific
subject domains and ongoing learning tasks
• If the students have a knowledge base to which they can
relate new material, they are more likely to use
sophisticated learning strategies
• Students should learn various strategies, as well as the
situations in which each one is appropriate.
• Students should practice various tasks and on an
ongoing basis in order for the strategies to become
more effective
• Teaching a strategy should be in a covert and an overt
manner.
 • Teachers can model effective strategies by thinking
aloud about new material
• Students should reflect and describe their current study
strategies as this can help them bring implicit
metacognitive strategies.
• Teachers should geared student’s initial attempts in
using new strategies to become more proficient
• Teachers should encourage a collaborative learning as
this serve as an effective strategy in learning.
• Students must understand why new strategies are
helpful to encourage more to use such strategies.
• Epistemic beliefs of the students should be consistent in
using effective strategies.
• In order to effectively learn using strategies, one should
monitor and evaluate their own learning.
• Lastly, students should believe that learning and
understanding challenging materials need sufficient
effort and appropriate strategies.

Glossary
• epistemic beliefs are the things they believe about the
nature of knowledge
• intentional learners. Learners that are actively and
consciously engaged in the learning process, identify
particular goals to accomplish as they study, and bring a
wide variety of learning and self-regulatory strategies to
any study session.
• metacognition People’s knowledge and regulation of
their own thinking and learning processes
• self-regulating learners: They set goals for their
performance, plan how best to use their learning time,
keep their attention on what they need to accomplish as
they study, choose and use effective learning strategies,
seek help when they need it, and continually monitor
their progress.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Cognitive Factors in Motivation and Emotion

This module focuses on how motivation and emotion are

affected by our cognition.
Objectives:
1. Evaluate the general effects of motivation.
2. Identify and rank the five needs in Maslow's hierarchy of
needs.

Motivation and Affect

Motivation
Motivation is an internal state that pushes a person to
act and keep him engaged in a certain activities. It identifies
whether and to what extent a person actually learn a particular
topic, especially if controlling one’s behavior and cognitive
process for learning are necessary. Basically, learners are
almost always motivated in one way or another. It means that
learners have their own motives why they want to learn a
particular subject matter. For example, one would like to be on
the top list, the other would like to outperform his classmates
and so on. Thus, when it comes to learning something, one
should have underlying desire to achieve certain outcomes.
Moreover, even though learners have their own motives in
learning, a learning environment could also affect the
motivation of a person. This is what we called situated
motivation.

General Effects of Motivation

There are also time that people are not aware of the particular
motive that drives their actions. However, there are effects of
motivation on behavior and learning in order to know what
motive drives their action.

• Motivation directs behavior toward particular goals

• Motivation increases effort and energy in order to do
their goals
• Motivation increases initiation of and persistence in
certain activities
 • Motivation affects cognitive process
• Motivation identifies which consequences are and
aren’t reinforcing and punishing.
Therefore, learner’s motivation is rooted from personal
investment and in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral
engagement in certain activities.

Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation occurs when the source of motivation is
from outside of the individual and outside the task being
performed. For example, a student is motivated to study hard
and get the highest grades (behavior) in order to get the
scholarship (motive). The advantage of extrinsic motivation is
it promotes successful learning and productive behavior.
However, the disadvantage is learners may exert only minimal
behavioral and cognitive effort they need to execute a task
successfully and they may stop an activity as soon as
reinforcement ceases.
Intrinsic motivation on the other hand occurs when the
source of motivation is within the individual and the task. For
example, a student is motivated to study hard and get the
highest grades (behavior) in order to be praised by other
people. There are more advantages of intrinsic motivation than
extrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated learners are more
likely to be initiative and cognitively engaged in the task. They
tend to undertake more challenging aspects of the task. They
strive for true understanding of the subject matter and
undergo conceptual change when needed. They usually show
creativity and experience pleasure in what they’re doing. And
lastly, they persist in the face of failure and the tendency to
achieve at high levels.

Basic Human Needs

Drive Reduction
A drive is an internal state of need where in one may feel that
something necessary to them such as food, water etc. is
missing. The drive reduction theory explains that since people
usually try to maintain physiological homeostasis, they try to
behave in ways that reduce need and bring the body back into
balance. For example, one’s drive is attention. This person will
behave in a ways to satisfy his need by doing something funny
to get others attention.
In a behaviorist perspective, reinforcement is effective to
reduce a need state, thus reduces drive. For example, food is
reinforcing only if a person is hungry. However, behaviors that
reduce a need state (behaviors that are reinforced) are likely to
be repeated when the same need emerges at a later time.

Arousal
Arousal is an organism’s current level of internal energy. Some
motivation theory states that people have a need for arousal.
This need for arousal occurs when a person has low level of
internal energy or when a person is relaxed, bored or asleep.
For example, a student in a boring class are more likely to have
need for arousal as he was bored during the class and he want
to do something to be intrinsically energized. Thus, this type of
learner is more likely to create their own excitement (perhaps
passing notes or playing with other student during class) when
their teacher is lecturing a dry topic.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one of the popular theory when
it comes to motivation. Maslow proposed that people have five
distinct kinds of needs
• Physiological needs. Need for food, water, rest, shelter
etc.
• Safety needs. Need for security.
• Love and belongingness. Need for affection from others
and to feel they belong to and are accepted in a social
group.
• Esteem needs. Need to feel good about themselves and
to believe that others also feel positivity
• Need for self-actualization. Need to self-actualize. To
become all they are capable of becoming.

Maslow categorize physiological, safety, love and

belongingness, and esteem needs as deficiency needs or
something that people lacks. And need for SelfActualization as
growth need because it enhances the person’s growth and
development. According to Maslow, in order for a person to
have selfactualization, one must satisfy first the first need,
which is the physiological need in order to satisfy the next
need. A need that is usually satisfied, doesn’t affect too much
one’s behavior because they direct themselves in fulfilling their
other needs. Motivation is primarily the result of humans
focusing on satisfying basic needs before moving to higher needs

Competence and Self-Worth

Robert White proposed that people also have need for
competence. It is a need to believe they can deal effectively
with their environment. For example, a person masters a
certain skill in order to deal other people in the same field
more effectively and easily. According to White, the need for
competence was rooted with our species. It motivates people
to develop ways of dealing with the environment thus
increases their chances of survival.
Moreover, according to Martin Covington, the highest priority
of a person is protecting one’s sense of competence, which we
called self-worth. In order one would have self-worth, he
should achieve success on a regular basis. However, consistent
success also has a drawback since it isn’t always possible,
especially when people face challenging tasks. So an alternative
way to have self-worth is to avoid failures.
But not all the time, we can avoid failures. This is why
people make excuse in order to justify their poor performance
and under go to a phenomenon called self-handicapping. Self-
handicapping occurs when a person set unattainably high
goals that even other people couldn’t achieve it.
Also, when a person assumes many responsibilities to that no
one could possibly accomplish them. Another is if the person
creates impediment and procrastinates. There are a lot of ways
in order to show self-handicapping. As we grow older, sense of
self becomes stable. Generally speaking, this stability is a good
thing, in that it enables learners to take their occasional
failures in stride (Heppner et al., 2008). When learners instead
base their self-worth largely on their immediate successes and
failures—a phenomenon known as contingent self-worth—
they can be on an emotional roller coaster, feeling competent
one day and inadequate the next .

Self-Determination
Self-determination is some sense of autonomy regarding the
things they do and the directions their lives take. Thus,
learners are more likely to be intrinsically motivated when
they have sense of self-determination about their present
circumstance. However, when environment circumstances and
events lead people to conclude that they have little
involvement in determining the course of their lives, they may
do their demands but are less likely to be intrinsically
motivated.
Some variables that influence people’s sense of self-
determination are the following:
• Choices. People with great sense of self-determination
are more likely to be intrinsically motivated when they
are able to make choices. Choices are likely to enhance
one’s sense of self-determination only if they’re real
choices and if culture differences have been observed in
the importance of choices.
• Controlling statements. Some of the things people say
to us—even though they aren’t threatening—
nevertheless convey the message that others control
our fate and so can undermine our sense of
selfdetermination.
• Extrinsic Rewards. Extrinsic reinforcers are most likely
to have this adverse effect when people perceive them
as controlling or manipulating their behavior rather
than as providing information about their progress.5
Thus, they’re unlikely to be beneficial, at least over the
long run, if people interpret them as bribes or limits on
their freedom
The self-determination theory asserts that there are three basic
organismic needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy.
These psychological needs are innate and exist in every person.
The first organismic need described by self-determination
theory, competence, is met when we feel that we are able to
bring about desired outcomes. Competence motivation
involves selfefficacy (the belief that you have the competence
to accomplish a given goal or task) and mastery (the sense that
you can gain skills and overcome obstacles). Competence is
also related to expectancies for success.
 The second
organismic need described by self-determination theory is
relatedness, the need to engage in warm relations with other
people. The need for relatedness is reflected in the importance
of parents' nurturing children's development, the intimate
moments of sharing private thoughts in friendship, the
 uncomfortable feelings we have when we are lonely, and the
powerful attraction we have for someone else when we are in
love.
 The third need proposed by self-determination theory
is autonomy—the sense that we are in control of our own life.
Autonomy means being independent and self-reliant, and it is a
key aspect of feeling that one's behavior is selfmotivated and
emerging from genuine interest.
Relatedness
People have need for relatedness or need to feel socially
connected and to secure love and belongingness. The need for
relatedness also have significance in the evolutionary
standpoint. People who are cohesive, and are in cooperative
social groups are more likely to survive than those who are not.
In school, students have need for relatedness as other people
are necessary in order to achieve you goals in school.

Individual Difference in Motivation

1. Need for Affiliation - People have need for affiliation
wherein they wanted to have friendly relationships with
others. They are the people who want to be with others
always and don’t want to be alone.

2. Need for Approval - However, on the other hand, they also

wanted to be accepted by the society as well as to have
positive judgment for them. LGBT society usually have a
high need for approval in some countries. People with
need for approval are someone who has low self-esteem.

3. Need for Achievement - Need for achievement motivation

is the need for excellence for its own sake regardless of
the rewards that he would gather. People with high need
for achievement are realistic about the tasks they can
accomplish, and they persist at tasks that are challenging
yet achievable.

4. Dispositions - It is a general, relatively stable inclination

to approach learning in a particular way. Such
dispositions are often positively correlated with student’s
learning and achievement. They play a causal role in what
and how much students learn.
Affect
Affect is a feeling, emotion, and general moods that learner
brings to bear on a task. This has often measurable correlation
with physiological aspects of a person such as blood pressure,
heart rate, muscular tension and so on. And it is interrelated
with motivation, learning, and cognition.

Affect and Its Effects How Affect is related to Motivation

From an evolutionary perspective, other than brain’s
immediate emotional response to certain events, affect can also
become helpful for human beings to survive. Actually, people’s
feelings depend on whether their needs are met and their goals
are being accomplished.
There is what we called self-conscious emotions, which are
closely associated to one’s self-assessment and thus are
intertwined with their sense of self-worth. When people
evaluate their behaviors and accomplishments as being
consistent based with their culture standards, they are more
likely to feel pride. On the other hand, if they failed to meet the
standards, they are more likely to feel guilt and shame.
However, during learning, if a person is in good mood, they are
more likely to cognitively engage with new material and work
hard to make sense of what they are studying. But, as they
study, they may encounter some discrepancies that conflict
with their current belief. Such discrepancies are what we called
cognitive dissonance wherein it motivates learners to try to
resolve the discrepancies in some way, perhaps revising
existing beliefs or ignoring new information.

How Affect is related to Learning and Cognition

Affect is also correlated with learning and cognition. For
example, problem become easier if one would enjoy what are
they doing, and successful attempts at learning and problem
solving often bring on feelings of excitement and pride. Same
with failed attempts, we also feel frustrated or anxious if we
failed to solve it, especially if the task is an easy one.
Hot cognition is a phenomenon, which occurs when our very
own thoughts and memories would have emotional overtones.
 The nature of what one is trying to learn induces hot cognition
and affects one’s cognitive processes. For example, if the
information is emotionally charged, a person is more likely to
continue to pay attention and continuously think about it
elaborate it. Yet one’s ability to draw inferences from the
learnings and creating response for it are sometimes hampered
in comparison with one’s ability to think logically.
Moreover, general mood states, can also affect learning and
memory. For example, when we’re in a good mood, we’re more
likely to be interested and pay attention to information. A
person who is in a good can also retrieve information from the
long-term memory easily. In fact, a person can retrieve
information from long-term memory successfully if his mood
at the time of retrieval is the same as his mood when he
initially stored the information. This effect is what we called
mood-dependent memory.

Anxiety
Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness and apprehension about a
situation, typically one with an uncertain outcome. The
difference between fear and anxiety is that fear is based on a
specific threat, while anxiety is vague and relatively unfocused.
Anxiety has two distinct components. First is worry, which is
the cognitive aspect of anxiety such as troubling thoughts and
beliefs about how to deal with a situation. Second is
emotionality, which is the affective aspect of anxiety such as
physiological responses and behavioral responses.
State anxiety is a temporary condition that is elicited by a
particular stimulus.
Trait anxiety is a relatively stable state of affairs such as being
anxious in a certain situation.
 Effects of Anxiety
• Learning and Performance. Anxiety affects one’s
learning and performance, especially when a person
doesn’t have a balance level of arousal. If a person has
high level of arousal it facilitates learning and
performance when the task is easy, but it is more likely
to interfere when the task is more difficult. This
principle is what we called Yerkes-Dodson law where
in a person can accomplished easy tasks if he has a
relatively high level of arousal but more difficult tasks
are better accomplished with a low or moderate level.

• Facilitating anxiety occurs when a high level of anxiety

enhances performance of well-learned, automatic
behaviors. On the other hand, debilitating anxiety
occurs when same high level is apt to interfere with
performance on a challenging new task.

• Cognition. Basically, anxiety interferes with

individual’s attention to task. For example, during exam
a person are thinking about the outcome of the task and
spend less time to think about the test itself. Because of
these worrisome thoughts, it took certain amount of
working memory capacity; anxiety also interferes with
effective cognitive processing. This effect is common
especially when the task is difficult and when it involves
considerable retrieval of information from long-term
memory.

Creating a Motivating Classroom Environment

• Students are more likely to be productive if they are
intrinsically motivated than extrinsically motivated. In
order for a student to become intrinsically motivated is
to talk about intrinsic rather than extrinsic motives for
pursuing classroom activities.
• Students are more likely to be intrinsically motivated if
they feel confident in succeeding at classroom tasks. So
in order for student to be intrinsically motivated, the
instructor must give a challenging tasks that anyone can
do it. So that if the student accomplish these task, he
may feel competent and it is more likely to increase his
intrinsic motivation.
• Student’s intrinsic motivation also increases when they
have some degree of autonomy. Having a degree of
autonomy, it enhances student’s sense of self-
determination and intrinsic motivation. The instructor
can do activities to give students a sense of
selfdetermination. For example giving the students
opportunities to learn independently through group
work.
• Extrinsic motivation can also promote learning.
Extrinsic rewards are helpful in order for a student to
become motivated in achieving his goals. It also helps
him to place priority on activities that bring them good
grades and other outcomes important to their future
well-being.
• Students are more likely to focus on their schoolwork
when their nonacademic needs have been met. In
accordance to the theory of Maslow’s hierarchy and the
needs for arousal and relatedness, a person should
satisfy their needs in order to focus on the other needs.
The instructor must ensure that the students are
meeting their needs such as physiological needs, safety
needs and so on. So that he could focus more on their
academic responsibilities.
• Learning is an affective as well as cognitive enterprise.
There’s no reason that academic subject matter need be
dry and emotionless. Learning should be interesting
and lead the students not into boredom. Instructors
may conduct game show activities to test the students
learning.
• If the students perceive classroom assessments as
means of enhancing future achievement rather than as
judgments of ability and worth, these assessments
become more effective motivators. The instructors
should help the students in keeping student’s anxiety
bout classroom assessments at a facilitative level
through helping them master their materials and giving
them effective strategies; keeping the assessment short
enough for students to study; encouraging them to do
their best without giving them unnecessary anxiety of
the consequence of not doing good; give them
allowance to take risks and make errors without
adverse consequences; and minimize opportunities for
students to compare themselves with others.
Glossary
• Affect is a feeling, emotion, and general moods that
learner brings to bear on a task.
• drive is an internal state of need where in one may feel
that something necessary to them such as food, water
etc. is missing.
• Extrinsic motivation occurs when the source of
motivation is from outside of the individual and outside
the task being performed.
• Intrinsic motivation occurs when the source of
motivation is within the individual and the task.
• Hot cognition is a phenomenon, which occurs when
our very own thoughts and memories would have
emotional overtones.
• Motivation is an internal state that pushes a person to
act and keep him engaged in a certain activities.
• Self-handicapping occurs when a person set
unattainably high goals that even other people couldn’t
achieve it.

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.
 Transfer, Problem Solving and Critical
Thinking

This module delves into the three processes of transfer,

problem solving and critical thinking.

Objectives should be enumerated (if necessary and if

available):
1. Define transfer and explain how to enhance it.
2. Elaborate on the different theories of transfer and problem
solving.
3. Provide ways of facilitating transfer and problem solving in
the classroom

Transfer
Transfer
Transfer of learning occurs when something you’ve learned
affects the way you learn or perform in another situation.
Transfer is a part of everyday life: People engage in new situation
where previously acquired knowledge and skills are used to
deal with it. Transfer is an essential component of human
functioning: Because without transfer, people would have to
learn through trial and error on how to behave in every new
circumstance.

Types of Transfer o
Positive versus
Negative Transfer
Positive Transfer occurs when what you learned previously is
useful on how you will learn in new topic. For example, when
you learn reading it helps you to learn spelling, and vice versa.
Negative Transfer on the other hand, occurs when what you
learned previously would hinder you to learn a new topic or
situation. For example, if you had learned to drive with
automatic transmission, it would be hard for you to learn
manual transmission.
 o Vertical versus Lateral Transfer
Vertical Transfer occurs when a learner acquires new
knowledge or skills by building on more basic information and
procedures. In this transfer of learning, a learner should learn
a specific topic, for example addition, in order to master
multiplication, because multiplication is an extension of
addition.
Lateral Transfer occurs when a person is learning a particular
subject that isn’t necessary in learning another subject but still
helpful. For example, learning Spanish isn’t necessary in
learning French but it is still helpful in learning French if you
have learned Spanish.

o Near versus Far Transfer

Near transfer involves subjects that have same characteristics
and underlying relationships.
Far transfer on the other hand, involves same situations in one
or more underlying relationships but different in features.

o Specific versus General Transfer

Specific transfer occurs when the original learning task
overlaps with the new learning task. For example, learning
animal anatomy can also help you in learning human anatomy
because animals and humans are quite the same with their
anatomy.
General transfer in contrast occurs when the original learning
task and the new learning task are different in content and
structure. For example, study habits acquired in Physics helps
to learn in Sociology.

Theories of Transfer
A historical Perspective: Formal Discipline
Formal discipline emphasizes the idea of general transfer
wherein learning in one situation helps in learning in different
situation. Early research found out that mastering difficult
topics such as Latin or Greek, may not have specific
applicability in everyday tasks, but scholars believed that
mastering them would help us in performing many aspects of
daily life.
Later on, most contemporary theorists believed that general
transfer portrayed by formal discipline doesn’t really occur.
For example, if you memorizing a poem doesn’t help you in
learning a poem. However, there are also theorists explained
general mental exercise may not occur right away, but might
have long-ranging transfer effects. For example, daily practice
with simple computer-based memory tasks, may also help the
individual to enhance their memory skills in other tasks.

An Early Behaviorist Theory: Thorndike’s Identical Elements

Thorndike explained that a transfer only occurs if the original
task and the new learning task have identical elements or with
the same specific stimulusresponse associations. For example,
a person can learn more on Chemistry if he could learn in
Biology. This is because Chemistry and Biology may have
identical elements to learn on. Therefore, learning a specific
topics is not due to mental exercises but it is because of the
similarities of the elements of both topics.

A Later Behaviorist Perspective: Similarity of Stimuli and

Response
There are three central principles for stimulus and response
view of transfer:
• When stimuli and response are similar in two
situations, maximal positive transfer will occur
• When stimuli are different and responses are similar,
some positive transfer will occur.
• When stimuli are similar and responses are different,
negative transfer will occur.
An example in first and second principle is learning the
“cutting” (stimuli) and “pasting” (response) in a word
processing program is also useful in other computer
applications such as spreadsheets.

A Contextual Perspective: Situated Learning

According to this theory, transfer of learning depends on the
situation or the environment in which it takes place. People
usually adapt strategies of learning on what situation they are
 in as of the moment and would be changed or not be useful if
the situation changes. The transfer of learning may be effective
or may not if the situation changes. For example, you are trying
to learn some tasks during sociology class but it may would
become difficult to you during arithmetic class.

A Contemporary View of General Transfer: Learning to

Learn
A general transfer is not common like specific transfer, yet
learning one at a time can facilitate learning at another time if
a person learns how to learn.

Going Beyond Transfer of Knowledge: Emotional Reactions

and Motivation May Transfer as Well
Transfer of learning doesn’t necessarily be in cognitive and
metacognitive only. Transfer of learning can occur also in
emotional reactions and motivations wherein these two can be
transferred.

Understanding is enhanced through an in-depth

presentation infused with realistic examples. An important
teaching goal is to help students master the main concepts
in a subject rather than just memorizing facts

Factors Affecting Transfer

• Meaningful learning is connecting new information with
things one already knows. This strategy is more likely to be
effective long-term memory storage and retrieval than rote
learning does.
 • The more thoroughly something is learned or the more a
person takes time mastering knowledge and skills, the
more likely it is to be transferred to a new situation.

• The more similar two situation are, the more likely it is that
something learned in one situation will be applied to the
other situation

• Principles are more easily transferred than discrete facts. It

aspects unlike specific facts, which can be applied only into a specific
aspect.

Numerous and varied examples and opportunities for practices

increase the extent to which information and skills will be applied in
new situations.

Transfer of learning is less likely to be effective if time interval

between the original task and the transfer task is increasing.

Transfer increases when the cultural environment encourages and

expects transfer.

Problem Solving
Problem Solving is using a transferred learnings or previously
is easier to be understood general facts as this can apply
right away in any
acquired knowledge and skills in order to answer question or a
troubling situation. There are a lot of types of problems such as
straightforward problem (all necessary information is
presented and there are only definite right or wrong answer);
problem that seeks out additional information and there are
two or more right solutions to the problems; and lastly, a
problem that may be so complicated that even after research
and creative thought, there is no easy solution emerging.

Three Components of Problems:

• Goal: Expected problem solution to accomplish
• Givens: Information provided to present the problem
Operations: Actions that can be performed
Another type of problem is well-defined problem where in the
desired end result is clearly stated, all needed information is
readily available, and there is a correct operations. On the other
hand ill-defined problem where in there is an ambiguous goal,
lacking essential information, and no guaranteed means of
achieving the goal.

THEORIES OF PROBLEM SOLVING

• Early Behaviorist Views: Trial and Error Learning and
Response Hierarchies
Humans and nonhumans tend to be alike in learning through
trial-and-error method. Through trial-and-error method, they
would think that they could potentially solve a particular
problem in a various ways. These various stimuli comprising
the problem might be associated with several responses with
some are being stronger than others. This result is what we
called response hierarchy.
• Early Cognitivist Views: Insight and Stages of Problem
Solving
According to Kohler, problem solving is a process of mentally
restructuring a problem situation until insight is achieved.
Moreover, another approach to problem solving is to identify
the mental stages through which problem solving might
proceed. According to Wallas (1926), there are four steps in
problem solving. First is the preparation, where in you have to
define the problem and gather necessary information; second
is incubation wherein you subconsciously thinking about the
problem while engaging in the other activities; third is
inspiration or having a sudden insight into a problem solution;
and lastly, verification, wherein you have to check to be sure
that the solution is correct.

Cognitive Factors in Problem Solving

• Working Memory Capacity
One component of memory is the working memory capacity
where in it is responsible for active, conscious thinking and can
hold and process only a small amount of information at a time.
Thus, problem cannot be solved if the information and
processes that are necessary in solving the problem exceed its
working memory capacity or if irrelevant thoughts consume
some of its capacity.
• Encoding of the Problem
There are two critical factor in encoding a problem, first is to
determine what aspects of the problem are relevant and
irrelevant in finding the solution. Second is how aspects of the
problem are encoded. To encode a problem, people are more
likely to have a variety of problem schemas or knowledge about
certain types of problems that can be solved in certain ways
that they use in problem classification.
A mental set is a phenomenon when people are predisposed
to approach and encode problems in particular ways. And the
tendency to think of objects as having only one function and
overlooking possible uses is a form of mental set known as
functional fixedness. Mental set and functional fixedness are
somehow result of past experiences. If a particular approach to
a problem is effective in the past, then a person is more likely
to continue using this approach it is more probably to learn it
to a level of automaticity. Retrieval from Long-Term
Memory
One should retrieve knowledge from long-term memory in
order to use previously acquired knowledge to solve a problem.
Thus, meaningful learning, organization and integration of new
ideas are some factors that facilitate a successful problem
solving. Retrieving knowledge from long-term memory uses
different method. Some of these are by retrieving familiar ideas
first, then identifying original or unusual problem solutions. It
could also be by associating it with aspects of the problem
situation. Hints that provide important retrieval cues can also
be helpful. These methods can reduce or eliminate effects of
anxiety on problem solving, especially if one knows where to
search in long-term memory. Metacognition
Metacognition plays key roles in problem solving. Successful
problem solvers must:
o Have high self-esteem in solving problem
o Know that problems may take time and effort to
accomplish o Develop a general course of action
o Must consider problem solving strategies and
choose an appropriate ones o Monitor progress
and change if necessary
 Problem Solving Strategies
• Algorithms. A domain specific method that uses step-
by-step procedures for solving problems. It is useful
with particular problems in a particular content area.
• Heuristics. This strategy is used when algorithms are
either nonexistent or impractical. Heuristics is a general
problem-solving strategies that may or may not yield a
correct solution such as talking to oneself about the
problem, brainstorming, means-end analysis, working
backward, using visual imagery, drawing an analogy, and
so on.

Facilitating Transfer and Problem Solving in the Classroom

• Students should learn information meaningfully and
thoroughly. To have a successful transfer and problem
solving, one needs to have a solid understanding of the
topic in question. This needs to have much
understanding in the conceptual knowledge in concepts
and ideas that represents the whole.

• Students should also learn problem-solving strategies.

Rather than learning something in a rote level, one
should learn why he should do things they do in order
to solve a particular problems.

• Discovery activities and expository instruction both

play important roles in learning problem-solving skills.
When a person encounter problems, discovering
problem-solving strategies on their own is helpful. And
these discoveries are more likely to increase the
likelihood that they will use the strategies or objects to
solve problems.

• Students should have a mental set for transfer. A

predisposition to use and apply things learned that is
beneficial is called general mental set for transfer.
Teachers may promote mental set by developing
culture of transfer, which applying school subject
matter to new situations in a learning environment is
both the expectation and the norm.
• Some prerequisite skills should be practiced until
they’re learned to the level of automaticity. If a person
practice and process simple and familiar aspects of a
problem automatically, they can provide more space in
other problems needed to be solve in their working
memory capacity.

• Practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect, but it does

increase the odds of successful transfer and problem
solving. If a person tends to practice and provide
numerous and various examples, it promote association
in long-term memory between new information and a
variety of relevant situations, thus, the information is
more likely to be retrieved when it is needed.

• Students should have experience identifying problems

for themselves.

• To minimize negative transfer, differences between two

ideas should be emphasized because if negative transfer
between two ideas is anticipated, it can be reduce by
teaching each in a different environment.

• Remember that not all concepts should be discovered

by oneself. Instruction in general problem-solving skills
can be helpful in solving a problem. Students should
learn strategies for defining ill-defined problems

• The development of effective problem-solving

strategies can be facilitated through cooperative group
problem solving

• Authentic activities can increase the probability that

students will transfer knowledge, skill, and problem-
solving strategies to realworld contexts.

• Classroom assessment practices should include

measures of transfer and problem solving.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a process of evaluating the accuracy,
credibility, and worth of information and lines of reasoning. It
is said to be reflective, logical, and evidence-based. And
through this, one would be able to achieve a particular goal.

Some forms of Critical Thinking:

• Verbal Reasoning: an oral and written technique to
understand and evaluate problems.
• Argument analysis: a discrimination between reasons that
do and do not support the conclusion.
• Probabilistic reasoning: identification of the likelihood
and uncertainty associated with various situations
• Hypothesis testing: Judgment of the value of the data and
research results depends on the method used to obtain
them.

Developmental, Individual, and Cultural Differences in

Critical Thinking
Critical thinking was developed over the course of childhood
and adolescence. However, a lot of us gathered information we
encounter from textbooks, media, Internet, etc. On the other
hand, some learners’ tendency to think or not depends on their
personality characteristics. Moreover, learners’ epistemic
beliefs and cultural upbringing also play an important role the
development of critical thinking.

Fostering Critical Thinking in the Classroom

In encouraging critical thinking, teachers play and important
role in order to teach students various cognitive skills and
strategies. This encouragement is very necessary as this
benefits the constraints of certain cultural norms and
practices, and adults, and children from instruction in critical
thinking skills. Moreover, it promotes metacognition, transfer,
and problem solving are applicable to teaching critical thinking
as well.
It is important for teachers to recognize that students will
show more creativity in some domains than in others. A
student who shows creative thinking skills in mathematics
may not exhibit these skills in art, for example.
Glossary
• Critical thinking is a process of evaluating the
accuracy, credibility, and worth of information and lines
of reasoning
• functional fixedness is the tendency to think of
objects as having only one function and overlooking
possible uses
• ill-defined problem A type of problem where in there
is an ambiguous goal, lacking essential information, and
no guaranteed means of achieving the goal
• mental set is a phenomenon when people are
predisposed to approach and encode problems in
particular ways
• Problem Solving is using a transferred learnings or
previously acquired knowledge and skills in order to
answer question or a troubling situation.
• straightforward problem A type of problem where in
all necessary information is presented and there are
only definite right or wrong answer
• well-defined problem A type of problem where in the
desired end result is clearly stated, all needed
information is readily available, and there is a correct
operations

References
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human Learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1st ed.).
McGraw Hill Higher Education.