Educational Psychology / Unit 8 EDP 0754 review, 2 to 3 minutes
One Problem, Three Theories
The idea
A single learning problem can be explained through three different theories, and each points to a different remedy. Take a student who adds two-digit numbers without carrying, also called regrouping. A behaviorist sees a wrong strategy kept alive by partial reinforcement: the method sometimes produces a right answer, whenever no carrying is needed, and intermittent success makes a behavior hard to extinguish. The remedy is to reinforce the competing, correct behavior consistently. A metacognitive view sees an impulsive style: the student rushes without checking whether the answer makes sense. The remedy is to teach the student to think aloud and check each step. A constructivist view locates the problem in the student's zone of proximal development: the student can carry with help but not yet alone. The remedy is mentoring that offers enough help and no more, withdrawing it as competence grows.
In practice
Worked example: asked to add 47 and 38, the student adds seven and eight to get fifteen, writes the five, drops the carried one, then adds four and three, and writes 75. The correct answer is 85. On 42 plus 35 the same method gives the right answer, 77, and that occasional success is the partial reinforcement. The behaviorist teacher praises every correctly carried answer and assigns practice where carrying is always needed. The metacognitive teacher has the student estimate first: 47 and 38 is about 90, so 75 cannot be right. The constructivist teacher sits beside the student with base-ten blocks, trading ten ones for a ten, then fades the blocks as the student begins carrying alone.
Where people slip
The theories are not rivals that force a choice. Each captures part of the problem, and a teacher can combine them: consistent reinforcement, self-checking and scaffolded help. What the comparison teaches is that the explanation chosen shapes the remedy, so a teacher who sees only one theory sees only one remedy.
Your place on the trail
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