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A. Compare an information processing view of learning with Vygotsky’s socio cultural
perspective. Consider the following issues in your discussion:
a) What are the major features or constructs for each theory?
b) How is knowledge acquired according to each approach?
c) What is the source of student’s learning motivation according to each approach?
d) How does each approach explain transfer and domain/context specificity of knowledge
and skill?
e) What are the strengths and limitations of each approach for guiding instruction?
INFORMATION PROCESSING:
1. Major Features:
IP focus more on internal mental processes that intervene between stimuli and responses.
Learning is an active process; learners are processors of information, they select and attend to
features of the environment, transform, rehearse information, relate new info to previous
knowledge, and organize knowledge in a meaningful way.
Control executive
processes
Input
Sensory
register
Working
memory
Long term
memory
active
Response
mechanism
The above corresponds to the model of Atkinson and Shiffrin. Information begins with input
(visual, auditory) on one or more senses. The appropriate sensory register receives the input and
holds it for a brief period in sensory form. Perception occurs here, which is giving meaning to
the input. Sensory register then transfers info to working memory. This is limited in capacity.
According to Miller it holds 7± 2 units of information. A unit is a meaningful item such as, a
letter, word, or common expression. WM is also limited in duration. Info has to be rehearsed to
retain it or it is lost. While info is in WM, related knowledge in LTM is activated and placed in
WM to be integrated with new info. Info stays in LTM for a long time. LTM is represented in
associative structures. Control executive processes regulate the flow of info throughout the IP
system. Rehearsal is an important control process that occurs in WM. Other control processes
include coding, organizing information, implementing decision rules, rehearsing, metacognitive
activities-planning, monitoring level of understanding, and imaging.
Hierarchy: Well organized material in a hierarchy is easier to recall.
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2. How is knowledge acquired:
According to IP, an early model was the TOTE unit to acquire knowledge. In this model, the
learner would compare the present situation against a standard, test. If they are the same, no
further action is required and there is exit. If they do not match, then the learner operates by
changing behavior to solve the discrepancy. Again, this new state is compared to the standard
during the second test phase. If they match, there is exit. If they do not match, further behavioral
changes are done and tested until there is a match. Additionally, active learning occurs when
learners engage in appropriate cognitive processing during learning such as, selecting, relevant
information, organizing the material into a coherent representation, and integrating incoming
visual and verbal material with each other and prior knowledge. Learning involves the formation
of propositional networks. Research on skilled actions shows that people typically execute
behaviors according to a sequence of planned segments. People select a performance routine they
expect will produce the desired outcome, periodically monitor their performance, make
corrections as necessary and alter their performances following corrective feedback. Schema is a
structure that arranges information in a meaningful way. Larger networks organize propositions
representing bits of information into a coherent whole. Schema represents the structure of events,
objects, persons e.g., the schema for a restaurant, a birthday party.
3. Source of student’s learning motivation:
Motivation is internal. It is not observed directly, but rather its products - behaviors are observed.
Declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge facilitates the motivation to learn. When
students have knowledge of the task, what is to be learned, how and when to learn and apply it,
they are motivated to perform the task. In the TOTE system, when students compare current
activity against standards, they can take steps to resolve discrepancies.
4. How IP explains transfer and domain/context specificity of knowledge and skill?
Transfer involves activating knowledge in memory networks. It requires that information be
cross-referenced with propositions linked in memory. The more links between bits of
information in memory, the likelier that activating one piece of information will cue other
information in memory. The same process is involved in transfer of procedural and productions.
Transfer occurs when knowledge and productions are linked in LTM with different content.
Transfer is aided by the uses of knowledge being stored with the knowledge itself. For example,
learners may possess a production of skimming text. This may be linked in memory with other
reading procedures (finding main ideas, sequencing) and may have various uses stored with it
(skimming a newspaper to get the gist, skimming memos to determine meeting place and time).
The more links in LTM, the more uses stored with skimming, the better the transfer.
5. Strengths and limitations:
Strengths: IP enabled the birth of cognitive psychology by providing an alternative to
behaviorism. It created a unified framework that stimulated useful research and theory,
highlighted the role of mental representations and cognitive processes, and fostered the transition
toward studying cognition in more authentic contexts. Use of hierarchical structures, strategies,
and flow diagrams facilitate learning.
Limitations: there is no account for the social and cultural context of cognition and no account of
the biological and affective bases of cognition. The focus is on cognitive changes within, but this
view can be expanded by considering how the learner’s cognitive processing is mediated by the
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surrounding social and cultural environment. Moreover, instead of focusing on cognitive
processing in isolation, this view can be expanded by considering the role of the learner’s
emotional and motivational state. There is no assumption that the learner is an active participant.
VYGOTSKY: A CULTURAL HISTORICAL THEORY
1. Major Features: Vygotsky’s socio cultural perspective is a constructivist one that emphasizes
the social environment as a facilitator of learning. According to this theory, the interaction of
interpersonal, cultural/historical, and individual factors are key to learning and human
development. Vygotsky suggests that learning occurs in a context. The way students interact
with their community, with people, objects, and the institutions transform their thinking.
Knowledge becomes internalized. All human activity is mediated by tools, physical (a spade, a
computer) or psychological, (word or symbols) that links to the broader social and cultural
context. Meanings of concepts change as students are linked with the world. School is not simply
a work or a structure, but a place that promotes learning and citizenship. He also believed that
individual or inherited factors affect development. He was interested with children suffering
from disabilities. He believed that their disabilities produced different learning outcomes than
healthier students. ZPD is a term he used suggesting that students would learn if the information
is a bit more than they know, somewhat challenging and it comes from a competent social figure.
2. How is knowledge acquired: According to Vygotsky’s socio cultural perspective, the social
environment is critical for knowledge. The social environment influences cognition through its
tools, cultural objects-cars, computers, and its language and social institutions (schools,
churches). Knowledge is acquired when two or more people interact. His concept of zone of
proximal development suggests that students can acquire knowledge with proper guidance. In
ZPD, the student and teacher work together on a task the student was incapable of doing by
himself due to the difficult level. With proper scaffolding, the teacher guides the student to attain
mastery of the task and slowly removes support. As the learner and teacher share cultural tools
such as language, the culturally mediated activity produces cognitive change when the learner
internalizes it. He coined a term ‘obuchenie’ which means a bi directional flow from teacher to
student and vice versa. Both learn from each other. V said ZPD helps more intellectual
development for successful instruction than actual biological development. V Attacked Piaget’s
theory that children learn best simply by allowing them to play with objects under adult’s
supervision. Interaction is important in the learning process. Vygotsky’s four stage of
development:
1. 0-2 yrs, non verbal language, reflexive patterns – stimulus-response; uses sign
2. 2 yrs- toddlers mediate gestural responses, children can talk but not self direct.
3. 3-4 yrs language is internalized; kids can talk to themselves
4. 5yrs- speech is abbreviated, covert and internalized; self-regulated phase-a cognitive
conscious process.
3. Source of student’s learning motivation: Vygotsky does not mention motivation. However,
the zone of proximal development facilitates motivation. For example, if a coach works with
advanced ice skaters and sees how they perform on ice, they would be able to notice their
strengths and weaknesses. The coach can see where they are doing well and give assistance to
improve on a jump. Thus the coach uses the skater’s prior knowledge and guides her to improve
performance. This in turn would motivate the skater to further practice and improve her skill.
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4. Vygotsky’s social cultural perspective in explaining transfer and domain context of skill?
Vygotsky is a contextual theorist. Knowledge is embedded in activity context. According to
Vygotsky, apprenticeship fits well with ZPD, because they occur in cultural institutions, schools
and various training centers. On the job, apprentices work within a ZPD because they often work
on task beyond their capacity. Working with experts enables apprentices to develop a shared
understanding of important processes and integrate them with current understanding. The
instruction occurs in a particular cultural context. Social and cultural interaction between teacher
and learner facilitates the learner’s cognitive development. Transfer does not occur, because a
plumber does not have to transfer his knowledge of plumbing to electricity. However, within the
field of plumbing, there is transfer when the learner uses his prior knowledge to understand more
advanced ideas.
5. Strengths and limitations:
The strength of Vygotsky theory is that the cultural-historical context is relevant to all forms of
learning. Learning does not occur in isolation. Student-teacher interactions are part of the
context. Effective teaching involves learning from one’s students while learning from the process
of teaching.
The limitations of Vygotsky’s theory are that researchers have focused on ZPD without
considering the larger theoretical context around cultural influence. Secondly, when applications
of his theory are discussed, the concepts are not part of his theory, but they seem to fit with it, for
example, scaffolding was introduced by other researchers for teachers to structure learning
environments. As such, it is not part of ZPD, but it fits with it. Also some of his claims have been
too strong. Young children figure out much knowledge about the world long before they have an
opportunity to learn from the culture they live in.
B. Compare the Piaget’s cognitive developmental perspective of learning with an
information processing perspective.
1. What are the major features or constructs Piaget’s theory?
The major features of Piaget’s cognitive developmental view of learning are four factors:
biological maturation, experience with the physical environment, experience with the social
environment, and equilibration. The effect of the first three factors depends on equilibration.
Equilibration refers to the biological drive to produce and optimal state of equilibrium between
cognitive structures and the environment. It is the main factor and the motivating force behind
cognitive development. It coordinates the actions of the other three factors and makes internal
mental structures consistent with external environmental reality. Equilibration has two processes:
assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is fitting external reality to the existing cognitive
structure; accommodation is changing internal structures to bring about consistency with external
reality. We accommodate when we adjust our ideas to make sense of reality. P is a stage theorist.
Stages are discrete; the development of cognitive structures is dependent on preceding
development.
2. How is knowledge acquired according to Piaget?
P’s theory is naturalistic-natural learning is always best. This is not supported by research
literature. Secondly, it is constructivist-during cognitive development, children acquire
knowledge through a process of creative invention i.e. children would create their own
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knowledge as biological growth interact with their experience. Interaction between heredity and
experience = knowledge. Correcting children would hinder their cognitive development.
According to Piaget, knowledge is acquired when students experience cognitive conflict and
engage in assimilation and accommodation to construct or alter internal structures. This conflict
should not be overwhelming because it will not effect equilibration. Learning will be optimal
when conflict is small and when children are in transition stages. Acquisition of knowledge
depends on developmental constraints. Piaget is a stage theorist and postulates stages of
cognitive development. In sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 yrs) children’s actions are spontaneous
and represent an attempt to understand the world. Understanding is rooted in present actions. In
preoperational stage from 2-7 years, children are able to imagine the future and reflect on the
past, but still remain in the present. They demonstrate irreversibility i.e. once something is done
it cannot be changed. They become less egocentric in this stage because they realize that other
may think and feel differently than them. Concrete operational is from 7-11 years. There is
remarkable cognitive growth because their language and basic skills acquisition accelerate
dramatically. They begin to show abstract thinking. Reversibility in thinking is acquired along
with classification. Lastly formal operational is from 11 to adulthood. It extends concrete
operational thought. Now they are able to think hypothetically. Reasoning capabilities improve
and children can think about multiple dimensions and abstract properties.
3. What is the source of student’s learning motivation according to each approach?
Although, Piaget’s theory does not focus on motivation, nevertheless, the suggestion that
students should only be taught concepts that were representative of the next immediate stage and
not concepts that were more than one stage above the student’s level means that learning would
be fostered when students are working at a task that is somewhat in their range of current
capability. This would motivate the students to learn as it would create disequilibrium/cognitive
conflict and facilitate accommodation and assimilation. Resolution of cognitive conflict would
motivate a child to engage in learning behaviors.
4. How does Piaget explain transfer and domain/context specificity of knowledge and skill?
Transfer according to Piaget would occur as a result of biological maturation. Piaget’s theory is a
stage theory, which postulates that a child in sensorimotor stage cannot do the task of the child in
preoperational stage. Preoperational would task be possible only when the child develops
biologically and passes 2 years. However, later research experiments disproved this notion and
researchers found that children can transfer if they are taught to reason logically and if the
questions are framed explicitly.
5. What are the strengths and limitations of Piaget for guiding instruction?
Strengths:
 Teachers should understand the level at which their students function. All students in a
class may not be at the same level. Students in a transition phase may benefit from
material at the higher level.
 Secondly, students should be actively engaged in the learning process. The environment
should be enriched for active exploration and hands on activities. This facilitates the
construction of knowledge.
 Third, creating incongruity would enable students to assimilate and accommodate.
Incongruity can also be created by allowing students to arrive at wrong answers.
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
Lastly, Piaget contends that development can proceed without social interaction,
nonetheless, the social environment is a key source for cognitive development. Teachers
can design activities that focus on social interactions. Learning that others have different
view points can make children less egocentric.
Limitations:
Research evidence on cognitive conflict is not overwhelmingly supportive of Piaget’s position.
Data from several research studies show that preoperational children can master concrete
operational tasks through teaching involving verbal explanations and modeled demonstrations.
According to Piaget, this should not happen unless the children are in transition stage. However,
the results of the experiments show that level did not limit children’s cognitive ability.
BANDURA’S SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY OF LEARNING:
1. Major Constructs/features: triadic reciprocal interactions among personal, behavioral, and
environmental factors. Learning occurs either enactively-through actual doing or vicariously-by
observing models perform. Enactive learning involves learning the consequences of one’s
actions. Behaviors that result in successful consequences are retained; those that lead to failures
are discarded. Behavioral consequences according to SCT serve as sources of information and
motivation rather than reinforcing behaviors according to Skinner’s operant theory.
Consequences inform people of the appropriateness or accuracy of behavior. People who
succeed at a task or are rewarded understand that they are doing well. When they fail or are
punished, they know they are doing something wrong and strive to correct the problem.
Consequences also motivate people. People strive to learn behaviors they value and believe will
have good outcomes; whereas, they avoid learning behaviors that are not satisfying or are
punished. It is people’s cognitions rather than consequences that affect learning.
Vicarious learning is done by observing or listening to models who are live (appear in person),
symbolic or non human (televised talking animals, cartoon characters) on electronic sources
(television, computer, videotape, DVD) or in printed materials (books, magazines). Vicarious
sources accelerate learning; people do not have to do every behavior for learning to occur. It also
saves people from personally experiencing negative consequences e.g. we learn poisonous
snakes are dangerous by teaching from others, reading books, watching films and so on rather
than experiencing the unpleasant consequences of their bites. Learning complex skills occurs
through action and observations. Students first observe models explain and demonstrate skills,
then practice them. During practice corrective feedback help students perfect their skills. As with
enactive learning, response consequences from vicarious sources inform and motivate observers.
Observers are more apt to learn modeled behaviors leading to successes than those resulting in
failures. When people believe that modeled behaviors are useful, they attend carefully to models
and mentally rehearse the behaviors.
2. How is knowledge acquired?
Bandura’s SCT postulates that learning is acquired by observing models. Observational learning
comprises of 4 subprocesses.
1. Attention: observer attends to relevant events so that they are meaningfully perceived.
Students’ attention is directed by physically relevant task features, subdividing complex
activities into parts, using competent models, and demonstrating usefulness of modeled
behaviors. Learners are apt to believe that their teachers are highly competent. This enhances
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attention. Position and title are indicators of competence.
2. Rehearsal: is the mental review of information-serves as a key role in retention of knowledge.
In a study by Bandura and Jeffery, they found that coding and rehearsal enhanced retention of
modeled events; people who coded and rehearsed showed the best recall.
3. Production: involves translating visual and symbolic conceptions of modeled events into
overt behaviors. Simple actions may be learned by observing them; however, subsequent
production by observers indicates learning occurred. Complex skills are learned through a
combination of modeling, guided practice, and corrective feedback. Problems in producing
modeled behaviors arise due to inadequate coding of information and because learners
experience difficulty translating coded information in memory into overt action. For example, a
child may understand how to tie a shoelace but may not be able to translate that knowledge into
behavior.
4. Motivation: influences observational learning because people are more likely to attend to,
retain and produce those modeled actions that they feel are important. They will avoid acting in
ways they believe will have a negative response. They form expectations about anticipated
outcomes of actions based on consequences they and the models experienced. People also act
based on their values. They do activities they value and avoid actions they see as unsatisfying,
regardless of the consequences to themselves or others.
3. What is the source of students’ motivation to learn?
When self-efficacy perceptions are high, individuals will engage in tasks that foster the
development of their skills and capabilities. However, when SE is low, people will not engage in
new tasks that might help them learn new skills. In general, it is most adaptive to have selfefficacy that slightly exceeds actual skills. Extreme optimistic beliefs can lead people to attempt
tasks that are beyond their skills and ability, which may result in aversive results such as,
students choosing academic tasks that exceed their level, would encounter failure. Vicarious
consequences serve a motivational function. Observers who see models rewarded become
motivated to act likewise. Perceived similarity with models enhances motivational effects.
Observing similar others perform a behavior can lead observers to try it. These motivational
effects depend in part on self-efficacy. Observing similar others succeed raises observers’ selfefficacy and motivate them to try the task. They feel that if others can succeed, they can too.
Seeing others succeed with effort and receiving praise from teachers may motivate observing
peers to work harder. Students become more motivated from watching similar others succeed
than those who they believe are superior in competence. Motivation is boosted when students
observe teachers giving praise and high grades to others for hard work and good performances; it
is sustained over time when students believe their effort are leading to better performances.
4. How does SCT explain transfer and domain specificity of knowledge and skill?
Transfer occurs when learners understand how to apply knowledge in different settings. The
storage of information in memory is important. The uses of knowledge are stored along with the
knowledge itself or can be easily accessed from another memory storage location. Situations
need not share common elements (necessary for transfer in the Skinner’s view).
5. Strengths of Bandura’s social cognitive theory of learning: modeling, self-regulation, selfefficacy enhances and predicts academic achievement, promote intrinsic interest and lessen
academic anxiety. Limitations: does not address developmental issues.
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SKINNER’S BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND MOTIVATION:
1. Major features:
Skinner’s operant conditioning model is Antecedent---Behavior----Consequence or Sd—R--Sr.
In this model, an antecedent stimulus sets the occasion for a behavioral response to be
performed, which is followed by a consequence. The consequence is any stimulus or event that
affects future rate of responding. Reinforcement increases the rate or likelihood of responding.
Positive reinforcement involves presenting a positive reinforcer following a response. For
example, a teacher gives a student work to complete Sd, student studies R and the consequence is
Sr praise from the teacher. Praise becomes a positive reinforcer is it makes students work
productively or sustain their efforts. Negative reinforcement involves removing a negative
reinforcer dependent on a response. A negative reinforcer is a stimulus that when removed
following a response increases the future rate of response. For example, a teacher gives a student
work to complete; student studies, then the teacher says that the student does not have to finish it.
Punishment decreases the rate of responding. It may involve either removing a positive
reinforcer or presenting a negative reinforcer following a response. In the above example, if
student wastes time, the teacher takes away the student’s free time (remove positive reinforcer).
A punishment negative reinforcer is if students waste time, assign homework. Once a response
has been established, it can be extinguished, Extinction. This occurs when there is no
reinforcement of the response e.g. students who raise hands and are never called on would stop
raising their hands.
2. How is knowledge acquired?
Knowledge involves the formation of associations between stimuli and responses. For example, a
response to a stimulus is more likely to occur in the future as a function of the consequences of
prior responding. Reinforcing consequences make the response more likely to occur whereas
punishing consequences make it less likely. Behavioral theorists contend that explanations for
learning need not include internal events such as thoughts, beliefs and feelings. This is not
because these do not exist; they do exist, but because the causes of learning are observable
environmental events. Programmed Instruction reflects the shaping process. PI initially used
teaching machines to present students with material in small steps, frames. Material is carefully
sequenced and presented in small bits to minimize errors. Students have to respond to each frame
and get immediate feedback on accuracy of response. If right, they proceed to next frame; if
wrong, they get supplementary material.
Schedules of Reinforcement: works on the conditioning principle to promote learning.
Continuous Schedule: involves reinforcement for every correct response. This may be desirable
when a child is learning new skills. Students receive feedback for each response regarding the
accuracy of their work. Continuous reinforcement ensures that incorrect responses are not
learned. This would not be possible for long periods.
Intermittent Schedule: involves reinforcement for some but not all correct responses. This is
most common form in classrooms. Intermittent Schedule is defined in terms of time or number of
responses. An interval schedule involves reinforcing the first correct response after a specific
time period. A fixed interval schedule has a fixed time from one reinforcement to the next, e.g.
students get 30 minutes free time every Friday contingent on good behavior. Variable interval
schedule, the time interval varies from occasion to occasion around some average value.
A ratio schedule depends on the number of correct responses or rate of responding. In a fixed
ratio, every nth response is reinforced where n is constant from trial to trial i.e. every 10th correct
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response receives reinforcement. A variable ratio schedule is where ever nth correct response is
reinforced, but the value varies from trial to trial around an average number n. Ration schedules
produce higher rates of responding than interval schedules.
3. What is the source of student’s motivation to learn? According to Skinner, motivation is an
increased rate or probability of occurrence of behavior, which results from repeating behaviors in
response to stimuli or as a consequence of reinforcement. Motivated behavior is increased by
effective reinforcement. Students motivated to learn choose a task, persist at it, and expend effort
to succeed. Students will display motivated behaviors because they were previously reinforced
for it. Behavioral theories do not distinguish motivation from learning but rather use the same
principles to explain all behavior.
Shaping – is the basic operant conditioning method of behavioral change. To shape behavior:
 identify what student can do now
 identify the desired behavior
 identify potential reinforcers in the student’s environment,
 break the terminal behavior in small substeps to be mastered
 Move student from entry behavior to terminal behavior by successively reinforcing each
behavior to the terminal behavior.
4. How is transfer explained and domain/context specificity of knowledge and skill?
Transfer depends on identical elements or similar features (stimuli) between situations.
Behaviors transfer when the old and new situations share common elements. Thus a student who
learns that 7*4=28 should be able to perform this multiplication in different settings (school,
home) and when the same numbers appear in a similar problem format such as 17*47=.
Generalization is a term that Skinner used once a certain response occurs regularly to a given
stimulus, the response may also occur to other stimuli. It is a problem for operant theory, because
a response should not be made in a situation in which it never has been reinforced. He said that
people perform many behaviors that lead to the final reinforced response. The component
behaviors are often part of the chains of behavior of different tasks and therefore are reinforced
in different contexts. In a new situation, people are likely to perform the component behaviors,
which produce an accurate response. Consider students with good study habits, regular to class,
take notes, participate in activities etc. these component behaviors produce high achievement and
grades. When these students begin a new class, the content may not be similar i.e. math class, but
the component behaviors have received repeated reinforcement and are like to transfer or
generalize to the new setting.
5. Strengths and limitations:
Strengths: it describes basic behavioral processes that explained production and maintenance of
behavior. The conditioning principles have practical usefulness and have been applied in many
aspects of teaching and learning. Foremost is their use in behavioral objectives, programmed
instruction, and contingency contracts. Research shows positive effects of these applications on
student achievement.
Limitations: the theory offers an incomplete account of motivation. The theory does not
distinguish motivation from learning and uses the same principles to explain all behavior.
Although, motivation and behavior are related, they are not synonymous. Although,
reinforcement and punishment motivate students, their effects are not automatic; rather, they
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depend upon student’s beliefs. Students engage in activities they believe will be reinforced and
avoid activities that they believe will be punished according to Bandura. Research has identified
many cognitive processes that motivate students such as, goals, social comparisons, attributions,
expectancies for success. By ignoring these processes, operant conditioning cannot fully account
for the complexity of human motivation.