Learning: The Cognitive Perspective

This is Unit Five, part one, on learning from the cognitive perspective: social cognitive theory, beliefs about ability and control, and how attention and memory work. Unit Four closed on fading to natural reinforcers. Unit Five adds what behaviorism left out: what learners notice, remember and believe. Carry one idea through this part: learning runs through steps inside the learner, so when learning fails, find the step that failed. At the entry on memory strategies, the part shows three failures that look alike and need different remedies. By the end you will be able to diagnose a modeling failure by Bandura's four steps. To tell self-efficacy from locus of control. To name the three memory processes and the three memory stores. To distinguish recall, recognition and relearning. And to diagnose a child's memory-strategy deficiency.

Six entries on social cognitive theory: learning from models, the four steps of modeling, and the Bobo doll studies.

Thinking joins behavior.

EDP 0401 Social Cognitive Theory

Bandura's social cognitive theory holds that thinking and reasoning shape learning, departing from Skinner's strict behaviorism, which looked only at behavior and its consequences. A student decides whether copying a classmate's strategy is worth trying. The theory keeps reinforcement but adds what learners notice, expect and believe.

Influence in every direction.

EDP 0402 Reciprocal Determinism

Reciprocal determinism holds that personal factors such as thoughts, behavior and the environment each influence the other two, rather than the environment acting alone, as a confident student speaks up, earns praise and grows more confident still. Influence runs in all directions, so no single factor is the whole cause of what a learner does.

Learning by watching.

EDP 0403 Observational Learning

Observational, or vicarious, learning is learning from watching a model's behavior and its consequences, and it is more than copying: it yields new responses and general rules, as chimpanzees switched to a better way of using a straw after watching others. Learners choose whether to imitate, partly by what happened to the model.

Three kinds of models.

EDP 0404 Three Kinds of Models

Models come in three kinds: live models who perform a behavior in person, like a coach demonstrating; verbal instructional models who describe it, like a recipe read aloud; and symbolic models in books, film, games and online, like a character solving a problem in a video. A model need not be present to influence.

Four steps every model must pass.

EDP 0405 The Four Steps of Modeling

Bandura described four steps observational learning requires. Attention: the learner must notice the model and the relevant behavior. Retention: the learner must remember it. Reproduction: the learner must be physically and mentally able to perform it. Motivation: the learner needs a reason, often from seeing the model rewarded, vicarious reinforcement, or not punished. If any step fails, the behavior is not reproduced. A student who watches a teacher solve an equation, remembers every step and wants to succeed, but cannot yet do the arithmetic, failed at reproduction. Check the steps in order rather than assuming low motivation.

The Bobo doll studies.

EDP 0406 The Bobo Doll Studies

In Bandura's Bobo doll research, children who watched an adult model act aggressively toward a doll imitated that aggression, and a later study found children imitated less when the model was punished than when rewarded. That rewarded-and-punished comparison comes from Bandura's nineteen sixty-five study, not the first.

Five entries on beliefs about ability and control, and on self-regulation, including a contested classic.

Confidence at a particular task.

EDP 0407 Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is confidence in one's ability to succeed at a particular task; high self-efficacy treats challenges as tasks to master and recovers quickly from setbacks, while low self-efficacy leads to avoiding hard tasks. A student confident in English but not in math shows it is domain-specific. Unit seven develops the idea fully.

Where control lies.

EDP 0408 Locus of Control

Locus of control is where people believe control over their outcomes lies: internal, in their own effort, or external, in luck, chance or other people. I passed because I studied is internal; the test was easy is external. People with an internal locus tend to do better academically and cope better with stress.

Two beliefs often confused.

EDP 0409 Self-Efficacy vs Locus of Control

Self-efficacy is belief in one's ability to do a task; locus of control is belief about whether one's actions control outcomes at all. A student may believe effort determines grades yet doubt she can manage chemistry. The two can come apart, and locus of control leads toward the attribution theories of unit seven.

Self-regulation, and waiting for more.

EDP 0410 Self-Regulation and Delay of Gratification

Self-regulation is setting goals and using feedback to reach them, and willpower is often studied as delay of gratification, waiting for a larger reward later, as in the marshmallow test's one treat now or two later. A larger replication found weaker links to later success, tied to family background, so the classic claim is contested.

Self-regulation, step by step.

EDP 0411 Steps of Self-Regulation

Miller and Brown's model breaks self-regulation into steps: take in information, compare it with a standard, trigger the wish to change, search options, plan, act and assess the result, as a student notices falling grades, weighs study options, makes a plan and checks the next test. Self-regulation is linked with school success.

Eight entries on attention and memory: how information is taken in, stored and brought back out.

Development without stages.

EDP 0412 Information-Processing Development

Information-processing theories see cognitive development as gradual rather than staged, tracking attention, memory, processing speed, the organization of thinking and metacognition; processing speed rises sharply from about five into mid-adolescence, then levels off. The mind is treated as a system handling information, so change is continuous, not a series of stages.

Focusing, and splitting focus.

EDP 0413 Selective and Divided Attention

Selective attention focuses on one stimulus while ignoring distractions, and it improves from childhood into adolescence; young children struggle to filter out classroom noise while listening. Divided attention splits focus across tasks with limited capacity, so multitasking brings more errors and slower work, as driving while using a phone shows.

Three processes of memory.

EDP 0414 Encoding, Storage and Retrieval

Memory works in three processes: encoding puts information in, storage keeps it, and retrieval brings it back out when needed. Taking your own notes in class strengthens encoding, the first of the three. Encoding can be automatic or effortful, and effortful encoding of new material takes attention and work.

Encoding for meaning.

EDP 0415 Deeper Encoding

Information encoded for its meaning is remembered better than information encoded by its sound or look, and linking it to oneself helps most, the self-reference effect: asking does this describe me beats counting the letters in a word. Visual imagery and acoustic devices such as songs and rhymes also aid encoding.

Three stores.

EDP 0416 The Three Stores

The Atkinson-Shiffrin model moves information from sensory memory, lasting seconds at most, to short-term or working memory, then to long-term memory, with no practical limit, as a phone number is seen, held briefly while dialing, and later known by heart. Working memory holds a few items for twenty to thirty seconds without rehearsal.

Inside working memory.

EDP 0417 Working Memory

Baddeley and Hitch described working memory as a central executive directing a phonological loop and a visuospatial sketchpad, and Baddeley added an episodic buffer in two thousand. Rehearsing a word list uses the loop; picturing a route uses the sketchpad. Capacity is often put at about seven items, and later estimates nearer four chunks.

Memories we know, and memories we show.

EDP 0418 Explicit and Implicit Memory

Long-term memory is explicit, or declarative, covering semantic facts and episodic events, or implicit, covering procedural skills and conditioned responses: knowing a capital is semantic, remembering a field trip episodic, riding a bike procedural. Implicit memories shape behavior without conscious recall, which is why practiced skills feel automatic.

Three ways to retrieve.

EDP 0419 Recall, Recognition and Relearning

Retrieval takes three forms: recall, producing information without cues, as an essay test demands; recognition, identifying it among options, as a multiple-choice test asks; and relearning, mastering it faster the second time. Relearning shows that information can be stored even when it cannot be recalled or recognized.

Two entries on children's memory strategies, ending with the payoff: diagnosing why a strategy fails.

When children start rehearsing.

EDP 0420 Rehearsal and Memory Strategies

Young children rarely rehearse without prompting, and most kindergarteners use no memory strategy; strategy use grows markedly between about six and ten, as older children group items into categories and rehearse them together. Rehearsal keeps information active in working memory; consolidation, the lasting storage of memories, is a separate process.

The payoff: diagnosing a strategy deficiency.

EDP 0421 Diagnosing a Strategy Deficiency

Here the part's idea does its work. Children's difficulties with memory strategies fall into three kinds. A mediation deficiency means the child cannot use the strategy even when shown it. A production deficiency means the child can use it but does not do so spontaneously. A utilization deficiency means the child uses it but gains little at first. A child who groups picture cards by category when reminded, but never alone, has a production deficiency. Prompting cures a production deficiency but not a mediation one, so the prompt test comes first, and a utilization deficiency is a normal early phase, not a failed strategy.

Look at what you can now do. You can diagnose a modeling failure by checking attention, retention, reproduction and motivation in order. You can tell self-efficacy, belief in one's ability at a task, from locus of control, belief about whether actions control outcomes. You can name memory's three processes, encoding, storage and retrieval, and its three stores, sensory, working and long-term. You can distinguish recall, recognition and relearning. And you can diagnose a strategy deficiency with the prompt test: mediation, production or utilization. Part two turns to metacognition, constructivism and complex learning.