Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a world view, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process. This support is specifically tailored to each student; this instructional approach allows students to experience student-centered learning, which tends to facilitate more efficient learning than teacher-centered learning. This learning process promotes a deeper level of learning than many other common teaching strategies.
The Atkinson–Shiffrin model is a model of memory proposed in 1968 by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin. The model asserts that human memory has three separate components:
- a sensory register, where sensory information enters memory,
- a short-term store, also called working memory or short-term memory, which receives and holds input from both the sensory register and the long-term store, and
- a long-term store, where information which has been rehearsed in the short-term store is held indefinitely.
In cognitive psychology, chunking is a process by which small individual pieces of a set of information are bound together to create a meaningful whole later on in memory. The chunks, by which the information is grouped, are meant to improve short-term retention of the material, thus bypassing the limited capacity of working memory and allowing the working memory to be more efficient. A chunk is a collection of basic units that are strongly associated with one another, and have been grouped together and stored in a person's memory. These chunks can be retrieved easily due to their coherent grouping. It is believed that individuals create higher-order cognitive representations of the items within the chunk. The items are more easily remembered as a group than as the individual items themselves. These chunks can be highly subjective because they rely on an individual's perceptions and past experiences, which are linked to the information set. The size of the chunks generally ranges from two to six items but often differs based on language and culture.
Learning styles refer to a range of theories that aim to account for differences in individuals' learning. Although there is ample evidence that individuals express personal preferences for how they prefer to receive information, few studies have found any validity in using learning styles in education. Many theories share the proposition that humans can be classified according to their "style" of learning, but differ in how the proposed styles should be defined, categorized and assessed. A common concept is that individuals differ in how they learn.
Baddeley's model of working memory is a model of human memory proposed by Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch in 1974, in an attempt to present a more accurate model of primary memory. Working memory splits primary memory into multiple components, rather than considering it to be a single, unified construct.
Constructivism is a theory in education which posits that individuals or learners do not acquire knowledge and understanding by passively perceiving it within a direct process of knowledge transmission, rather they construct new understandings and knowledge through experience and social discourse, integrating new information with what they already know. For children, this includes knowledge gained prior to entering school. It is associated with various philosophical positions, particularly in epistemology as well as ontology, politics, and ethics. The origin of the theory is also linked to Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
In cognitive psychology, cognitive load refers to the amount of working memory resources used. However, it is essential to distinguish it from the actual construct of Cognitive Load (CL) or Mental Workload (MWL), which is studied widely in many disciplines. According to work conducted in the field of instructional design and pedagogy, broadly, there are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load is the effort associated with a specific topic; extraneous cognitive load refers to the way information or tasks are presented to a learner; and germane cognitive load refers to the work put into creating a permanent store of knowledge. However, over the years, the additivity of these types of cognitive load has been investigated and questioned. Now it is believed that they circularly influence each other.
Visual learning is a learning style in the Fleming VAK/VARK model in which information is presented to a learner in a visual format. Visual learners can utilize graphs, charts, maps, diagrams, and other forms of visual stimulation to effectively interpret information. The Fleming VAK/VARK model also includes kinesthetic learning and auditory learning. There is no evidence that providing visual materials to students identified as having a visual style improves learning.
Information processing theory is the approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the American experimental tradition in psychology. Developmental psychologists who adopt the information processing perspective account for mental development in terms of maturational changes in basic components of a child's mind. The theory is based on the idea that humans process the information they receive, rather than merely responding to stimuli. This perspective uses an analogy to consider how the mind works like a computer. In this way, the mind functions like a biological computer responsible for analyzing information from the environment. According to the standard information-processing model for mental development, the mind's machinery includes attention mechanisms for bringing information in, working memory for actively manipulating information, and long-term memory for passively holding information so that it can be used in the future. This theory addresses how as children grow, their brains likewise mature, leading to advances in their ability to process and respond to the information they received through their senses. The theory emphasizes a continuous pattern of development, in contrast with cognitive-developmental theorists such as Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development that thought development occurs in stages at a time.
Discovery learning is a technique of inquiry-based learning and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. It is also referred to as problem-based learning, experiential learning and 21st century learning. It is supported by the work of learning theorists and psychologists Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert.
John Sweller is an Australian educational psychologist who is best known for formulating an influential theory of cognitive load. He is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales.
E-learning theory describes the cognitive science principles of effective multimedia learning using electronic educational technology.
The worked-example effect is a learning effect predicted by cognitive load theory. Specifically, it refers to improved learning observed when worked examples are used as part of instruction, compared to other instructional techniques such as problem-solving and discovery learning. According to Sweller: "The worked example effect is the best known and most widely studied of the cognitive load effects".
The modality effect is a term used in experimental psychology, most often in the fields dealing with memory and learning, to refer to how learner performance depends on the presentation mode of studied items.
Perceptual learning is learning better perception skills such as differentiating two musical tones from one another or categorizations of spatial and temporal patterns relevant to real-world expertise. Examples of this may include reading, seeing relations among chess pieces, and knowing whether or not an X-ray image shows a tumor.
The expertise reversal effect refers to the reversal of the effectiveness of instructional techniques on learners with differing levels of prior knowledge. The primary recommendation that stems from the expertise reversal effect is that instructional design methods need to be adjusted as learners acquire more knowledge in a specific domain. Expertise is described as "the ability to perform fluently in a specific class of tasks."
A pedagogical agent is a concept borrowed from computer science and artificial intelligence and applied to education, usually as part of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). It is a simulated human-like interface between the learner and the content, in an educational environment. A pedagogical agent is designed to model the type of interactions between a student and another person. Mabanza and de Wet define it as "a character enacted by a computer that interacts with the user in a socially engaging manner". A pedagogical agent can be assigned different roles in the learning environment, such as tutor or co-learner, depending on the desired purpose of the agent. "A tutor agent plays the role of a teacher, while a co-learner agent plays the role of a learning companion".
Seductive details are often used in textbooks, lectures, slideshows, and other forms of educational content to make a course more interesting or interactive. Seductive details can take the form of text, animations, photos, illustrations, sounds or music and are by definition: (1) interesting and (2) not directed toward the learning objectives of a lesson. John Dewey, in 1913, first referred to this as "fictitious inducements to attention." While illustrated text can enhance comprehension, illustrations that are not relevant can lead to poor learning outcomes. Since the late 1980s, many studies in the field of educational psychology have shown that the addition of seductive details results in poorer retention of information and transfer of learning. Thalheimer conducted a meta-analysis that found, overall, a negative impact for the inclusion of seductive details such as text, photos or illustrations, and sounds or music in learning content. More recently, a 2020 paper found a similar effect for decorative animations This reduction to learning is called the seductive details effect. There have been criticisms of this theory. Critics cite unconvincing and contradictory evidence to argue that seductive details do not always impede understanding and that seductive details can sometimes be motivating for learners.
Multisensory learning is the assumption that individuals learn better if they are taught using more than one sense (modality). The senses usually employed in multisensory learning are visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile – VAKT. Other senses might include smell, taste and balance.
