Learning Theories

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Affect theory

“a branch of psychoanalysis that attempts to organize affects into discrete categories and connect each one with its typical response”¹⁾

Cognition

in psychology, the process by which one recognizes and understands things

Cognitive load

Load imposed on one's cognitive capacities due to performance of cognitive operations

Comprehension

an ability to understand the meaning or importance of something²⁾

Declarative knowledge

knowledge is often by instructional designers and philosophers divided into two categories: declarative (knowledge about things, knowledge that, for example knowledge about computers) and procedural (skills, knowledge how, for example knowledge how to use a computer)

Discrimination learning theory

a theory of the process by which animals or people learn to respond differently to different stimuli

Distributed representation

connectionist principle in which meaning is not contained within a single symbolic unit, but is formed by an interaction of a set of units³⁾

Doctrine of formal discipline

the belief that subjects like Latin language and mathematics improve learner's mind in general

Epistemology

“is concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. Epistemology has been primarily concerned with propositional knowledge, that is, knowledge that such-and-such is true, rather than other forms of knowledge, for example, knowledge how to such-and-such.”⁴⁾

Gestalt

a configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that it cannot be described just as a sum of its parts

Human cognitive architecture

“the manner in which structures and functions required for human cognitive processing are organized”⁵⁾

Insightful learning

learning that results in perceiving the solution to a problem after a period of cognitive trial and error
learner is required to have all elements of the problem available in order to be able to learn by insight

Journal

a scholarly periodical containing original research articles aimed at researchers or specialists

Magazine

a periodical aimed at the general public, which contains news, opinion and personal narratives

Paradigm

a set of ideas that are used for understanding or explaining something, especially in a particular subject
a typical example or model of something

Procedural knowledge

knowledge on how to do something (see also: declarative knowledge)

Schema

a mental framework humans use to represent and organize remembered information
they enable us to recall, modify our behavior, or try to predict most likely outcomes of events

Script

“a coherent sequence of events expected by an individual in a particular context, involving him either as participant or as an observer”⁶⁾

Structuralism

a theory founded by Edward Titchener in the end of 19th/beginning of 20th century focused on breaking down mental processes into simple elements

Theory

one or more ideas that explain how or why something happens
the set of general principles that a particular subject is based on

Transfer of practice

(or transfer of learning) a term coined by Thorndike and Woodworth⁷⁾, referring to the generalization of knowledge and transfer of it from one context to another

¹⁾

Wikipedia: Affect theory. Retrieved 15. March 2011.

²⁾

Source: http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=comprehension

³⁾

Eliasmith C. Distributed representation. Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind. Last updated May 11, 2004.

⁴⁾

Klein, Peter D. Epistemology. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Updated March 31, 2005.

⁵⁾

Sweller, J. Human Cognitive Architecture. In Handbook of research on educational communications and technology, 369-381. Taylor & Francis, 2008.

⁶⁾

Puto, C. P. Memory for scripts in advertisements. Advances in Consumer Research XII:404-409. Fifteenth Annual Conference. Association for Consumer Research. 1985.

⁷⁾

Thorndike, E. L. and Woodworth, R. S. The influence of improvement in one mental function upon the efficiency of other functions. Psychological Review, 8, 247-261. 1901.