School Didactics And Learning: a school Didactic Model Framing An Analysis of Pedagogical Implication of Learning Theory

Causal Theory of Perception and Epistemological Dualism.
It seems reasonable to conclude on the basis
of the previous analysis that the information processing approach to human cognition shares a
representational position on the epistemological problem.
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According to this view, information would exist in the world independently of a perceiver. This
information systematically affects the individual’s sensory system. This received information forms the
stuff manipulated by the cognitive system.
The mental world is thus constructed on the basis of sensory information, i.e. using perceptual inputs as
the building blocks. In order to be able to assume that a conceptual knowledge structure, a scheme or the
like, is about the real world, a causal relation is accepted between the system receiving information and the
external world.
On the basis of the previous discussion it may be concluded that cognitivism represents a dualist
understanding of the relation between perceptual presentations and cognitive representations. Furthermore,
cognitivism seems to accept some kind of non-dualist or causal relation between the properties of physical
objects and the individual’s sense impressions. 
Learning in the Light of the Ontological Problem
The second set of questions concerning learning was investigated in terms of the ontological mind-brain
problem aiming at an understanding of how human cognitive life should be described. The first question
was how a mental state as such should be described regardless of what the individual is aware of, i.e.
regardless of the answer to epistemological questions.
The analysis showed that the cognitivist approach includes many approaches to learning, but is primarily
a representational and computational approach.
The first question of the two within the ontological mind-brain problem was how the change in a mental
state should be described.
The answer suggested by all cognitivist approaches to learning was that manipulation of information
received was stressed. Learning was conceived of as a cognitive activity whereby the individual treats
information according to some patterns or strategies. Learning is thus equated with processing of
information.
Two different ontological positions on the mind-brain problem were identified among the investigated
approaches. The first was property dualism and the second functionalism.
Property dualism was considered close to such representational models as approached learning in terms
of restructuring schemata or conceptual change models. These theories do not explicate the process of
change in any great detail although they emphasize the usefulness of strategy instruction. They also seem to
feel comfortable with describing cognition in a non-reductionist manner with respect to the physiology of
the brain although they accept an interactive relationship between the brain and the representational level.
The second position identified within cognitivism is functionalism, representing mind-physical instance
dualism on the ontological problem. This means that functionalist cognitivism accepts a dichotomy between
the phenomenological reality and the physiological level of description. This separation refers to the fact
that physical processes other than brain-physiological ones might model or represent mental processes and
states, i.e. that phenomenological states may be represented by any physical system.
This version was more explicit in its effort to specify the mechanisms or the process through which
learning occurs. It appears that most present-day cognitivism applies the fundamental ideas of assimilation,
accommodation and equilibration in approaching learning though applying a slightly different terminology
(restructuring, knowledge representation). Yet there are fundamental differences between the traditional
Piagetian view and the information processing approach. 
Concerning the result of learning in an ontological perspective, all approaches argue that it should be
described on a representational level, i.e. on a level independent of the physiology of the brain. Learning
6. FEATURES OF COGNITIVISM
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was claimed to result mainly in descriptive, prepositional and analogical knowledge structures stored in the
long-term memory. The information could be stored as concepts, propositions or schemata. Therefore the
structure and function of different types of memories were emphasized. 
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7
Pedagogical Implications of Cognitivist Learning Theory
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, results of the analysis of pedagogical implications of the cognitivist approach to learning are
reported. Pedagogical implications refer to questions of instructional method and content of teaching.
The following discussion of pedagogical implications will be based on the analysis presented in
Chapter 6
. Thus, the epistemological mind-world problem and the ontological mind-brain problem are used
as the two main sections of this chapter. The pedagogical implications of the cognitivist approach are then
seen in relation to how the process and result of learning were understood.
One Method—Many Learning Theories
Assumptions about learning are often used as the point of departure in developing instructional methods to
be used by teachers. However, although a specific view of learning may suggest some specific instructional
procedure, this instructional method is seldom unique to that theory of learning only (Silver, 1987, p. 54).
Many instructional methods are common to many learning theories, but the way these methods are argued
for may vary with the assumptions regarding the learning process and the nature of knowledge reached.
Thus, the motive for applying specific pedagogical methods may vary across theories. Because of this I
think it would be fruitful to focus on the relation between how basic assumptions behind cognitivist theory
of learning and pedagogical implications are advocated.
A Comment Concerning the Approach
There is a large amount of literature dealing with pedagogical implications of different cognitivist
approaches to learning. In the 60s many influential books based on a cognitivist view about learning were
published (e.g. Ausubel, 1963; Bruner, 1966; Gagné, 1965; Taba, 1966).
Some of the early ideas have remained, some are refined, others, again, are less emphasized today and
new ideas of teaching have developed as the cognitivist approach has developed. For example, more
recently, the shift from content- or domain-independent strategies to content-related strategies has had
educational consequences. Contextual aspects of the learning process are rapidly affecting the way teaching
is understood as well. In addition, the view of the actors in the pedagogical process has changed in some
respects with the student seen as an active decision-maker to an increasing extent (Gallagher, 1994, p. 171
f.).

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Joyce and Weil (1980) note in their extensive work on models of teaching that the variety of models
based on different views on information-processing is large: “The range of information processing models
is considerable … Grasping the entire family of available models is a formidable task” (p. 23). In this study
I do not intend to present even a structural map of these different approaches. The focus of interest is instead
on frequently occurring pedagogical implications in the light of the previous analysis.
The approach in this study differs in some fundamental ways from that in Joyce and Weil’s (1980) study.
While they discuss existing models of teaching developed on information-processing theories of cognition,
the point of departure of the present study is the two criteria pointed out earlier—the ontological and the
epistemological problems.
The level of analysis chosen thus goes beyond the level on which the information-processing theories are
usually explicated. This means that when pedagogical implications are discussed, these implications
(pedagogical principles) can be considered valid for several models of teaching based on the information-
processing view of learning. Thus, the choice of a more fundamental level of analysis leads to a more
general level of discussing pedagogical implications. The negative result is that differences between
competing models will remain invisible, while the positive result is that attention is turned towards essential
implications of this approach to the TSL process.
A second difference from Joyce and Weil’s (1980) approach is that the present study does not treat
learning as a superordinate category on the basis of which instructional principles are developed. Although
the idea in this chapter is to present pedagogical implications of this school of thought, the overall approach
of this study was to start from a theory of didactics and then ask what role a theory of learning could play
within the descriptive-normative model of didactics that was developed.
A third difference, related to the previous ones, is that although the description of the pedagogical
implications of cognitivism may view the teacher as a rationalist decision-maker (Shavelson, 1987) or as a
regulator of information-processes in the classroom (Joyce & Weil, 1980), this view of the teacher is not
adopted by the present didactic approach to the TSL process. The didactic model developed earlier was not
assumed to reflect an individual teacher’s thinking, rather it was developed as a scientific (research) model
of didactics. In what respects and to what extent a teacher is able to make use of such a model is another
problem. Some aspects of it were discussed in 
Chapter 3
and will be returned to in 
Chapter 8
. However, it
should be more than clear that the school didactic model in Part One conceived of the TSL process as
something more than the application of prescriptive recommendations derived from learning theory.
The Epistemological and Ontological Problems in Relation to the Mediational Approach
to Learning from Teaching
It may be instructive to note how the instruments of analysis, i.e. the epistemological and the ontological
problems, correspond to the cognitivist approach to learning from teaching. Winne (1987, p. 457) has neatly
summarized a model synthesizing “mainstream research from cognitive and instructional psychology with
recent research on learning”. For the sake of clarification his visual figure is reprinted below (
Fig. 7.1
).
The model is divided into two major components, the students’ cognitive processing system and the
classroom environment. The students’ system is in turn described in terms of four sites “through which
information is moved and processed” (ibid, p. 499). Firstly, there is the sensory system which is “the
gateway through which information from the environment enters the cognitive system. Here, energy from
the environment such as light reflected from print on a page, is transformed into a neurally coded
representation of the print” (ibid, p. 499).
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The second system is the memory system including working—and long-term memory. The third site is the
processing system. Finally, the response system “is the gateway for the products of students’ cognitive
processing to be manifested as performances. It consists of a storage area that temporally holds information
before it is transferred into neural messages for motor action” (ibid, p. 499). 
Winne divides the classroom environment into three dimensions: the curriculum, student tasks, and
instruction. These dimensions will be of specific interest in this chapter.
The core idea of this cognitive model of learning from teaching is basically that cognitive processing is
reciprocal with respect to the instructional environment. This means, according to Winne (1987, p. 497) that
(a) “students cannot be passive recipients of teaching. They participate in creating what teaching means to
them” and that (b) it is “improper to declare teacher behaviors as the sole cause of students’ achievement”.
It is argued (see Doyle, 1978) that the mediational model of research on the TSL process is fundamentally
different from the process-product paradigm. In the process-product model much attention was focused
on the idea that specific teaching activities would be connected with specific learning processes, which in turn
would lead to specific learning outcomes. Instructional research on teachers’ questions was based on e.g.
Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives
1
(Winne, 1987, p. 498). The idea was that instruction
demanding more complicated cognitive processing would result in qualitatively better learning. The
FIG. 7.1. A cognitive model of learning from teaching according to Winne (1987, p. 497). A model very similar to this,
though emphasizing the social interaction, is presented by Norman (1987). Reprinted from Winne, P.H. (1987).
Students’ cognitive processing. In M.J. Dunkin (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of teacher education, p. 497.
Copyright (1987), with permission from Elsevier Science Ltd.
7. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
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cognitive mediational model developed partly as a result of growing insights relative to the fact that
students experienced instruction differently, contrary to what was previously assumed. The cognitive
mediational model (Winne, 1987, p. 498) thus emphasizes the interactionist relation between learning and
teaching:
The cognitive mediational model characterizes learning from teaching as a series of interactions
between events in the instructional environment and the students’ cognitive processing system. It is
hypothesized that there are instructional cues or stimuli in the environment that have a potential to
influence each student’s cognitive processing.
A comment to be made with respect to the mediational approach concerns the absence of interest in the
students’ response system. To say that knowledge about “the response system and its role in the cognitive
processing system…is outside the domain of most classroom phenomena” (Winne, 1987, p. 499) casts a
shadow on the interactionist orientation of the teaching-learning process. If the students’ response system is
neglected, as it apparently is, then on what does a teacher react when teaching? Should not the students’
response system be developed in the model in order to reach a truly interactionist approach? The students’
response system clearly plays a crucial role for the teachers’ cognitive processing system. As it is now, the
attention in Winne’s model is turned towards the students’ internal cognitive processing system and the
instructional environment. But the teacher as an intentional subject acting upon students’ studying-learning
processes is not included in Winne’s model. This is, in fact, one major difference between Winne’s model
and the school didactic model presented in 
Chapter 3
of this study.
In fact, research on students’ experience of teaching is also limited within the mediational approach
(Winne, 1987, p. 506):
Classroom research identifying the kinds of instructional cues students attend to and how their plans
are influenced by instructional cues is scant.
[R]esearch has shown that students can be taught to identify and use instructional cues, but the
effects of this training in classrooms are not yet consistently predictable.
However, with these limitations the 
aim
of the mediational approach is to approach the TSL process from an
interactionist perspective.
Norman (1980, 1987) is another representative of the mediational paradigm. The view of the student as
an interpreter of the instructional environment connected with the learner’s way of acting upon perceived
information is supported. Norman (1980, 1987) stresses, however, that learning in classrooms cannot be
fully understood on the basis of mediational models which neglect social interaction. Yet he argues
(Norman, 1987, p. 315) that a cybernetic view of the individual’s activity or information processing works
as the basic unit of social interaction:
[I]f one wishes to understand the particular responses of the teacher or of an individual child to a
particular classroom event, then it is necessary to have an information processing view of the person…
But the model is only going to be useful if it is coupled with an understanding of the several
simultaneous (and possibly conflicting) goals and motivations of the various participants.
The relation between Winne’s (1987) model of learning from teaching presented in the figure above and the
approach of this study is that the epistemological problem actualizes the relation between the individual and
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the instructional environment in terms of the process and the result of learning. The ontological problem
again actualizes how we should describe or characterize the individual’s psychic reality, its changes and
products.
Finally, in order to avoid misunderstandings—there are also other fundamental philosophical aspects
through which learning theory may be investigated. One such aspect is the social and cultural dimension of
learning and its products, a second is the question of ideology in learning theory, a third concerns the ethics
of knowledge acquisition or construction and teaching.