Principles of Learning

From Kelly (1963): "A range of convenience is that expanse of the real world over which a given system or theory provides useful coverage." [p. 17] "There are, of course, various psychological construction systems. These systems differ primarily because the people who developed them were focusing their attention upon somewhat different events ." [p. 18] "Psycological systems have not only ranges of convenience but also characteristic foci of convenience: points at which they are particularly applicable." [p. 18]

From Kelly (1963): "If it were a static world that we lived in, our thinking about it might be static too. But new things keep happening and our predictions keep turning out in expected or unexpected ways. Each day's experience calls for the consolidation of some aspects of our outlook, revision of some, and outright abandonment of others." [p. 14] I'm calling for the abandonment of the pursuit of a generic learning theory. "A scientist formulates a theory --- a body of constructs with a focus and a range of convenience. If he is a good scientist he immediately starts putting it to test. it is almost certain that, as soon as he starts testing, he will also have to start changing it in the light of the outcomes. Any theory, then, tends to be transient. And the more practical it is and the more useful it appears to be, the more vulnerable it is to new evidence. Our own theory, particularly if it proves to be practical, will also have to be considered expendable in ...

- predictive efficacy (support more precise and more accurate predictions about more events) (Kelly, 1963)

From Kelly (1963): "The same events can often be viewed in the light of two or more systems [theories]. Yet the events do not belong to any system." [p. 12] In my case I'm proposing a system that spans both learning and instruction, rather than focusing on one or the other.

In his introduction, Kelly introduces some interesting ideas about the presentation of a new theory: "...it is only fair to warn the reader that he will find missing many of the familiar landmarks of psychology theory." [p. xi] "...this new way of thinking about psychology..." [p. xi] "It is not only these terms that are abandoned; what is more important, the concepts themselves evaporate." [p. xi] "...a different approach calls for a different lexicon." [p. xii] "It may be unreasonable, merely on the basis of a few pages of academic prose, to ask a reader to reconsider his notions of why man does what he does. yet that is the burden of this invitation. To respond, one should prepare himself as best he can to surmount some formidable barriers---bariers raised high by more than two thousand years of constructive thought and held rigidly in place by the only languages we speak aloud." [p. xii] "...this may come as a frightening invit...

I think this blog post by Seth Godin is relevant to theory development: "Just got some work back from a new copyeditor hired by my publisher. She did a flawless job. She also wrecked my work. Totally wrecked it. "By sanding off every edge, removing every idiom, making each and every fact literally correct, she made it boring and dry and mechanical. "If they have licenses for copyeditors, she should have hers revoked. "I need to be really clear. She's not at fault. She did exactly what she was supposed to do. The fault lies in the job description, not the job. If the job description of your lawyer or boss or editor or client is to make sure everything is pure and perfect and proven and beyond reproach, they are making things worse, not better. (Unless you're in the vaccine business). "Almost everything you do has some sort of copyediting filter. It might be the legal eagle or the graphic supervisor or the customer service police. They're excellent at...

" Learning theory is a descriptive theory used in guiding the initial creation of prescriptive principles of instructional design. Learning theory as it has been developed and is now taught is not specific to particular subject-matter domains. Thus there is a need for a 15 domain-specific learning theory. Such a theory could be called a learning theory of progressive attainments in a specific domain of learning. This article uses the term domain theory to refer to a descriptive theory of the contents, substantive processes, and boundaries of a domain of human learning and growth that gives an account of construct-relevant sources of task difficulty; and conjointly, an account of the substantive processes operative at different levels of growth along the scale(s) that span the domain." Bunderson 2003, p. 15-16

" The current dominant philosophy of science apparently favored by most practitioners in educational measurement is logical empiricism. Trout (1998) gives an extensive treatment of logical empiricism and contrasts it to a newer philosophy, Measured Realism. Logical empiricism, a descendent of logical positivism, does not privilege theory equally with data. Data rules, and theory to the logical empiricist brings with it shaky, speculative, and metaphysical content." in Bunderson 2003, p. 14 pdf

" Instruments are developed to assess learning progress and performance in domains of human knowledge, proficiency, and accomplishment. Domains are usually signified by familiar content or topical names, like calculus, American history, accounting, network engineering, and nursing. Topics signify categories of what people may know, but they do not describe what people can do, so other uses of language, such as objectives or work-models are needed." (Bunderson, 2003, p. 5 (pdf)

"A domain theory is a descriptive theory of the contents, substantive processes, and boundaries of a domain of human learning and growth that gives an account of construct-relevant sources of task difficulty; and conjointly, an account of the substantive processes operative at different levels of growth along the scale(s) that span the domain. Based on the constructs that account conjointly for difficulty and level of processing, and using measurement instruments linked to the constructs in the domain theory, testable predictions can be made about the relationships between tasks, processes, and locations along the scale(s)." (Bunderson 2003, p. 5 (PDF))

"...we need a domain theory to explain what is easy, what is somewhere between easy and hard, and what is hard. When we understand these things, we can measure, give meaningful feedback, and can teach people who desire to do so how to rapidly progress from lower to higher levels in either type of domain. These lead to the construction of learning maps that reflect progress up the domain scales, or reveal standing on a map of individual difference variables." (Bunderson, 2003, p. unknown --- pdf available online at http://www.edumetrics.org/papers/How_to_build_a_Domain_Theor.pdf )

Landa (1983) also claims that instructional theories may not be derived from learning theories (p. 65). This is because a given proposition of a descriptive learning theory (such as "if a person better understands a text, then he or she remembers it more easily" may not be true and complete when phrased as a prescriptive instructional rule such as "In order for a learner to better memorize the text, it is necessary (or sufficient) to teach him or her how to understand it (or bring him or her to understanding it)." "Of course, in order to secure that a learner memorizes a text better, it is important to make sure that he or she understands it or to teach him or her how to understand it. But understanding is just one of the conditions leading to better memorizing, and to secure (or teach) the understanding is not sufficient for gaining the best results in memorization. Other factors not mentioned in these propositions of a learning theory (both descriptive and...

Landa (1983) states that "prescriptive instructional theories cannot be automatically derived from descriptive instructional theories." He gives an example to illustrate why this isn't so: "Suppose we have a descriptive proposition: 'If a student repeats a statement many times, he or she memorizes it better." This is a 100 percent true proposition. Let us convert it into a prescriptive proposition: 'In order to memorize a statement better, one has to repeat it many times.' This proposition is not as true as the first one because the state of 'memorized' is determined by many factors, not just repetition. For example, for a particular student to memorize a statement, it may be more important to understand it rather than just mechanically repeat it. Some students, due to the specific characteristics of their memory, the personal significance of the proposition for them, and some other factors, may not need to repeat it at all." [p. 60] He ...

I believe that chaos theory is helpful in understanding the complexity, and apparent but not actual lack of predictability, in learning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

"A frequently cited desideratum for a theory of instruction is its compatibility with a theory of learning. If the proposed metatheory [referring to Gropper's theory presented in this section] is on target in its emphasis on learning requirements and obstacles to their being met , then 'compatibility' is the wrong word. An instructional theory needs to build on a theory of learning." (Gropper, 1983) desideratum - "something needed or wanted" diserata - a want list; a list of wants

"There has been some controversy over the useful breadth of instructional-design theory. Richard Snow is well known for his work on individual differences under the rubric of ATI, or aptitude-treatment interactions...ATI is a metatheory that in effect states that theories of instruction should prescribe methods (called treatments ) on the basis of student characteristics (called aptitudes ), because the effectiveness of those methods varies depending on student characteristics. Snow (1977) has stated that ATI (aptitude-treatment interaction) 'makes general theory impossible [p. 12]'---that instructional-design theories must be narrow and local to be of value. On the other hand, Scandura (1977) represented the view of many when he stated that instructional-design theories must be broad and comprehensive to be useful." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 31-32) Reigeluth sias the different of opinion can be traced to a focus on management vs organizational strategies.

Reigeluth (1938, p. 30-31) includes a section on how to build an instructional design theory that contains four steps which roughly correspond to Snow's different levels of theory (1971). Reigeluth's steps are: "1) Develop formative hypotheses about instructional design on the basis of data, experience, intuition, and/or logic. These hypotheses may be fairly narrow and local (the start of a basically inductive---or bottom up---approach to theory construction) or fairly broad and comprehensive (the start of a basically deductive---or top-down---approach to theory construction). "2) Develop a taxonomy of variables related to instrucitonal design...identifying, describing, and classifying variables that may be of importance to instructional-design theory. "3) Derive principles of instructional design. These principles usually describe cause-and-effect relationships among the variables identified in stage 2, and many of them are derived from the formative hypotheses...

"The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) formed a commissio in 1964 (Snelbecker, 1974) 'to delineated scientifically based theories from the more intuitively based and somewhat speculative 'theorizing' which had been so characteristic of educaiotn previously [p. 141].' This commission did much to focus attention on the need for 'scientifically based' instructional theories, and it provided guidelines as to the characteristics of such theories in the form of its Criteria for Evaluating Theories of Instruction (Gordon, 1968)." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 27-28)

Criteria for evaluating theories of instruction (which mine is not, but the criteria are still relevant): from Gordon (1968, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25) 1) Internal consistency - the theory should not contradict itself 2) Explicit boundaries and limitations 3) Not contradicted by empirical data (caution: apparent contradictions may be overturned with a reanalysis of the data) from Snelbecker (1974, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25) 4) Parsimoney (i.e. simplicity) from Snow (1971, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25) 5) Usefulness "The primary criterion for the evaluation of theory is usefulness, not truthfulness [p. 103]." and Hebb (1969, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25): "A good theory is one that holds together long enough to get you to a better theory [p. 27]." Snow also says that a theroy should be useful for organizing existing data meaningfully and for producing useful hypotheses. (George Kelly also said something to that effect). from ...

"Knowledge of learning processes may be useful in developing an instructional theory, but it does not constitute any part of an instructional theory." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24) I disagree with this statement. Knowledge of learning processes are critical to the development of as successful learning theory. The assumptions about how learning happens maybe be implicit, rather than explicit, but they must be part of the instructional theory.