ENGRACIO M.

BAGAPORO
In this Module, challenge yourself to
attain the following learning outcomes:
1. Explain the 14 principles.
2. Advocate the use of the 14 principles
in the teaching-learning process.
You, the learner, are the center of
instruction. The world of instruction
revolves around you. This module is
focused on the fourteen (14) principles that
run through the twenty-five (25) modules
of this book.
Cognitive and
Motivational and
Metacognitive
Affective Factors
Factor (6
(3 principles)
principles)

14 LEARNER-
CENTERED
PRINCIPLES

Developmental Individual
and Social Differences
Factors (2 Factors (3
principles) principles)
The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles
were put together by the American Psychological
Association. The following 14 psychological
principles pertain to the learner and the learning
process. The 14 principles have the following
aspects:
• They focus on psychological factors that are primarily
internal to and under the control of the learner rather
than conditioned habits or physiological factors.
However, the principles also attempt to acknowledge
external environment or contextual factors that
interact with these internal factors.
• The principles are intended to deal holistically with
learners in the context of real-world learning situations.
Thus, they are best understood as an organized set of
principles; no principle should be viewed in isolation.
• The 14 principles are divided into those referring
to (1) cognitive and metacognitive, (2)
motivational and affective, (3)
developmental and social, and (4)
individual differences factors influencing
learners and learning.
• Finally, the principles are intended to apply to all
learners - from children, to teachers, to
administrators, to parents, and to community
members involved in our educational system.
The learning of a complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional
process of constructing meaning from information and experience.
• There are different types of learning processes: for example, habit formation in motor learning
and learning that involves the generation of knowledge or cognitive skills and learning
strategies.
• Learning in schools emphasizes the use of intentional processes that students can use to
construct meaning from information, experiences and their own thoughts and beliefs.
• Successful learners are active, goal-directed, self-regulating and assume personal
responsibility for contributing to their own learning.
The successful learner, over time and with support and instructional guidance, can create
meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge.
• The strategic nature of learning requires students to be goal-directed.
• To construct useful representations of knowledge and to acquire the thinking and learning strategies
necessary for continued learning success across the life span, students must generate and pursue
personally-relevant goals. Initially, students' short-term goals and learning may be sketchy in an
area, but over time their understanding can be refined by filling gaps, resolving inconsistencies and
deepening their understanding of the subject matter so that they can reach longer-term goals.
• Educators can assist learners in creating meaningful learning goals that are consistent with both
personal and educational aspirations and interests.
The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful ways.
• Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between new information and
experiences and their existing knowledge base. The nature of these links can take a variety of forms,
such as adding to, modifying, or reorganizing existing knowledge or skills. How these links are made or
developed may vary in different subject areas, and among students with varying talents, interests and
abilities. However, unless new knowledge becomes integrated with the learner's prior knowledge and
understanding, this new knowledge remains isolated, cannot be used most effectively in new tasks, and
does not transfer readily to new situations.
• Educators can assist learners in acquiring and integrating knowledge by a number of strategies that have
been shown to be effective with learners of varying abilities, such as concept mapping and thematic
organization or categorizing.
The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to
achieve complex learning goals.
• Successful learners use strategic thinking in their approach to learning reasoning, problem solving and
concept learning.
• They understand and can use a variety of strategies to help them reach learning and performance goals,
and to apply their knowledge in novel situations.
• They also continue to expand their repertoire of strategies reflecting on the methods they use to see
which work well for the by receiving guided instruction and feedback, and by observing interacting with
appropriate models.
• Learning outcomes can be enhanced if educators assist learners developing, applying and assessing their
strategic learning skills
Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mema operations facilitate creative
and critical thinking.
• Successful learners can reflect on how they think and learn, se reasonable learning or performance
goals, select potentially appropriate learning strategies or methods, and monitor their progress
toward the goals.
• In addition, successful learners know what to do if a problem occur or if they are not making
sufficient or timely progress toward goal. They can generate alternative methods to reach their
goal (or reassess the appropriateness and utility of the goal).
• Instructional methods that focus on helping learners develop these higher order (metacognitive)
strategies can enhance student learning and personal responsibility for learning.
Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology and
instructional practices.
• Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers play a major interactive role with both the
learner and the learning environment.
• Cultural or group influences on students can impact many educationally relevant variables, such
as motivation, orientation toward learning and ways of thinking.
• Technologies and instructional practices must be appropriate for learners' level of prior
knowledge, cognitive abilities and their learning and thinking strategies.
• The classroom environment, particularly the degree to which it is nurturing or not, can also
have significant impacts on student learning.
What and how much is learned is influenced by the learner's motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn, is
influenced by the individual's emotional states, beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of thinking.
• The rich internal world of thoughts, beliefs, goals and expectations for success or failure can enhance or interfere
with the learner's quality of thinking and information processing.
• Students' beliefs about themselves as learners and the nature of learning have a marked influence on motivation.
Motivational and emotional factors also influence both the quality of thinking and information processing as well
as an individual's motivation to learn.
• Positive emotions, such as curiosity, generally enhance motivation and facilitate learning and performance. Mild
anxiety can also enhance learning and performance by focusing the learner's attention on a particular task.
However, intense negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, panic, rage, insecurity) and related thoughts (e.g., worrying
about competence, ruminating about failure, fearing punishment, ridicule, or stigmatizing labels) generally detract
from motivation, interfere with learning, and contribute to low performance.
The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to motivation to
learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of optimal novelty and difficulty, relevant to personal
interests, and providing for personal choice and control.
• Curiosity, flexible and insightful thinking, and creativity are major indicators of the learners' intrinsic motivation to
learn, which is in large part a function of meeting basic needs to be competent and to exercise personal control.
• Intrinsic motivation is facilitated on tasks that learners perceive as interesting and personally relevant and
meaningful,, appropriate in complexity and difficulty to the learners' abilities, and on which they believe they can
succeed.
• Intrinsic motivation is also facilitated on tasks that are comparable to real-world situations and meet needs for
choice and control.
• Educators can encourage and support learners' natural curiosity and motivation to learn by attending to individual
differences in learners' perceptions of optimal novelty and difficulty, relevance, and personal choice and control.
Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and guided
practice. Without learners' motivation to learn, the willingness to exert this effort is unlikely
without coercion.
• Effort is another major indicator of motivation to learn. The acquisition of complex knowledge and skills
demands the investment of considerable learner energy and strategic effort, along with persistence over
time.
• Educators need to be concerned with facilitating motivation by strategies that enhance learner effort and
commitment to learning and to achieving high standards of comprehension and understanding.
• Effective strategies include purposeful learning activities, guided by practices that enhance positive
emotions and intrinsic motivation to learn, and methods that increase learners' perceptions that a task is
interesting and personally relevant.
As individuals develop, there are different opportunities and constraints for learning.
Learning is most effective when differential development within and across physical,
intellectual, emotional and social domain is taken into account.
• Individuals learn best when material is appropriate to their developmental level and is
presented in an enjoyable and interesting way.
• Because individual development varies across intellectual, social, emotional and physical
domains, achievement in different instructional domains may also vary.
• Overemphasis on one type of developmental readiness-such as reading readiness-may
preclude learners from demonstrating that they are more capable in other areas of
performance.
• The cognitive, emotional and social development of individual learners and how they
interpret life experiences are affected by prior schooling, home, culture and community
factors.
• Early and continuing parental involvement in schooling, and the quality of language
interactions and two-way communications between adults and children can influence
these developmental areas.
• Awareness and understanding of developmental differences among children with and
without emotional, physical or intellectual disabilities, can facilitate the creation of
optimal learning contexts.
Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations and
communication with others.
• Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and to
collaborate with others on instructional tasks.
• Learning settings that allow for social interactions and that respect diversity
encourage flexible thinking and social competence.
• In interactive and collaborative instructional contexts, individuals have an
opportunity for perspective taking and reflective thinking that may lead to higher
levels of cognitive, social and moral development, as well as self-esteem.
• Quality personal relationships that provide stability, trust and caring can increase learners' sense
of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive climate for learning.
• Family influences, positive interpersonal support and instruction in self-motivation strategies can
offset factors that interfere with optimal learning such as negative beliefs about competence in a
particular subject, high levels of test anxiety, negative sex role expectations, and undue pressure
to perform well.
• Positive learning climates can also help to establish the context for healthier levels of thinking,
feeling and behaving. Such contexts help learners feel safe to share ideas, actively participate in
the learning process, and create a learning community.
Learners have different strategies, approaches and capabilities for
learning that are a function of prior experience and heredity.

• Individuals are born with and develop their own capabilities and talents.
• In addition, through learning and social acculturation, they have acquired
their own preferences for how they like to learn and the pace at which they
learn. However, these preferences are not always useful in helping learners
reach their learning goals.
• Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and
expand or modify them, if necessary.
• The interaction between learner differences and curricular and environmental
conditions is another key factor affecting learning outcomes.
• Educators need to be sensitive to individual differences, in general. They also
need to attend to learner perceptions of the degree to which these differences
are accepted and adapted to by varying instructional methods and materials.
Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and - including are
integral parts of the assessing the learner as well as learning progress
diagnostic process and outcome assessment learning process.
• Assessment provides important information to both the learner and teacher at all
stages of the learning process.
• Effective learning takes place when learners feel challenged to work towards
appropriately high goals; therefore, appraisal of the learner's cognitive strengths and
weaknesses, as well as current knowledge and skills, is important for the selection of
instructional materials of an optimal degree of difficulty.
• Ongoing assessment of the learner's understanding of the curricular material can provide
valuable feedback to both learners and teachers about progress toward the learning goals.
• Standardized assessment of learner progress and outcomes assessment provides one type of
information about achievement levels both within and across individuals that can inform various
types of programmatic decisions.
• Performance assessments can provide other sources of information about the attainment of
learning outcomes.
• Self-assessments of learning progress can also improve students' self appraisal skills and
enhance motivation and self-directed learning.
1. The knowledge base. One's existing knowledge serves as the foundation of all future learning. The learner's previous knowledge

will influence new learning specifically on how he represents new information, makes associations and filters new experiences.

2. Strategic processing and control. Learners can develop skills to reflect and regulate their thoughts and behaviors in order to

learn more effectively (metacognition).

3. Motivation and affect. Factors such as intrinsic motivation (from within), reasons for wanting to learn, personal goals and

enjoyment of learning tasks all have a crucial role in the learning process.

4. Development and Individual Differences. Learning is a unique journey for each person because each learner has his own

unique combination of genetic and environmental factors that influence him.

5. Situation or context. Learning happens in the context of a society as well as within an individual.