The objectivist view maintains that knowledge exists independently of instruction. By presenting instruction consistent with the principles and by probing learner's understandings of the "knowledge base," judgments can be made about the extent and accuracy of content acquisition. The objectivist recognizes that people have different understandings but the goal is to achieve correct understandings, in other words, the same understanding as the instructor. In fact, the Dick and Carey approach in IT is specifically such a model, beginning with written performance objectives, following with specific activities to achieve the objectives, and ending with evaluation to see if the objectives were met. Of course, this model is well known in special education, a field based on task analyses, and to a lesser extent it is familiar to any classroom teacher in the development of the lesson plan.
Constructivism is based on the belief that knowledge does not have a separate existence from the physical nervous system, nor can it exist in a complete form outside the learner, to be internalized, stored, and reproduced on demand. It is assumed that learning occurs in whole experiences and that part experiences must be learned only within the context of whole experiences. Learning is best in real-world problems that are relevant to the tasks and to the learner (Duffy & Jonassen, 1991). According to Duffy and Jonassen, "authentic" situations improve comprehension, which is why they refer to hypertext, databases, and so forth as mindtools or extensions of the mind.
We have covered constructivism in another unit, but a review can be helpful. Constructivism has roots in the writings of Rousseau and Dewey, theories of cognitive development (Piaget, 1970), information processing theory of knowledge (Neisser, 1967), cognitive functioning in real-world contexts (Bartlett, 1932), and elaboration of these concepts (Weinberg, 1989; Resnick, 1987; Sternberg, 1982). Constructivism is greatly influenced by Piagetian epistemology (Duckworth, 1987; Confrey, 1990; von Glaserfeld, 1984; Kamii, 1985), although some also attribute influence to Vygotsky (1962). Constructivists advocate instruction based on authentic learning, critical thinking, and knowledge creation by the pupil (Elmore, 1991; Lipman, 1991; Murphy, 1991; Baumann, 1991; Newmann, 1991: and Pechman 1992).
Objectivism is the foundation of science and Western philosophy. The cosmology of objectivism is concerned about a unitary reality. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being. The premise, common to the scientific method, is that we can investigate reality and the interrelationships of things that constitute reality. As such, in the objectivist view there is one truth or one reality, of which we are all a part. This reality, however, exists whether or not we are in it. What is different, however, is that we all represent reality differently, something that objectivists view as errors and constructivists regard as differences.
The division between constructivism and objectivism today is the continuation of a dichotomy in education recently traceable to the behaviorists E.L Thorndike (1874-1949) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), and the progressives, namely John Dewey (1859-1952). Dewey advocated replacement of 19th century formalism in education with a pragmatic learning methodology having these principles: (a) a closer connection between schools and life, (b) teach students--not subjects, and (c) education is not preparation for life, it is life. For a concise discussion of constructivism and objectivism in instructional design, see the article by Brent Wilson.
Thorndike, who is regarded as the progenitor of educational psychology, defined the "law" of effect in learning. Beginning with Thorndike and continuing with more contemporary work by B.F. Skinner, "effective" teaching methods have been isolated and recommended as generalizable. The lesson plan, use of behavioral objectives, reinforcement, and simplification of content are based on this tradition. The basic approach is to isolate what is to be taught, present it in a linear way, give feedback, and not introduce a new piece of information until each step is mastered.
The influence of constructivism in contemporary education can be seen in the efforts of many professional groups to reform classroom instruction. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have advocated a shift away from direct instruction toward "active, inventive instruction" (Pechman 1992, p. 34). The National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools---a collaboration of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the National Council for the Social Studies--- has endorsed similar curricular and instructional change in social studies. The Commission's Curriculum Task Force recommends "exciting ways" to promote the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. On almost every college campus there is now some kind of "center for teaching excellence" to assist college professors to use improved methods of teaching based on constructivist principles and the uses of technology.
In all fields and at all levels teachers have been urged to seek alternatives to passive transmission of facts. This is difficult for at least two reasons, the traditions and hierarchy of education and the practical problems encountered in changing instruction. Ordinarily, knowledge in a complex domain is introduced a little at a time, in piecemeal fashion, as a form of task simplification.Gagne' (1987), regarded by many as the "father" of instructional technology, proposed three principles for instruction and designing software: (a) provide instruction on a set of component tasks that build toward a final task, (b) ensure that each component task is mastered, and (c) sequence component tasks to ensure optimal transfer to the final task. The principles of Gagne' are recognizable in the work of Dick and Carey. Gagne' compares the human mind to a computer, stating that people receive sensory input, process such information in short or long term memory, interact, transfer and store information using code, and finally use such information to solve new problems and produce an end product. His influence in the uses of computer technology contain behavioral and information processing principles. While research and debate about memory processes by psychologists may seem remote to most educators, the storage metaphor has been powerful in educational research and classroom instructional methods, and especially in instructional technology design.
Memory was first studied by Ebbinghaus, but the basic memory model was first proposed by William James and retains its original components in contemporary theories and those that employ the computer metaphor, such as parallel distributed processing (Rumelhart, Smolensky, McClelland, & Hinton, 1986). Memory is considered to have an input modality (attention) and memory stores (primary, secondary, and tertiary or long-term). Many writers have attacked the storage metaphor (Bartlett, 1932; Edleman, 1987). Long-term memory has been explained as association within a given context rather than traces at a structural level (Iran-Nejad, Marsh, & Clements (1992). Memory development may actually be knowledge development (Chi & Ceci, 1987). Saying a "storage container" view of memory has been useful, Confrey (1990) points out that it has not explained why certain conceptions are so persistent and how reconstruction, rather than retrieval, occurs.
It is well to remember that most people who have ever lived before the last century did not study. Memorization of factual information is a relatively recent problem for the masses, and was only important in the past to clerks, scholars, and priests in various cultures. Mass education is relatively new in the history of humanity. Memory research in animals has shown a hierarchy approaching human abilities along the phylogenetic scale. The most remarkable aspect of animal intelligence is related to situations of extreme danger, often associated with smell and sight. Memory in animals is related naturally to survival--avoiding danger, mainly being eaten by another animal, and finding food sources. If human intelligence did not evolve as the nervous system's solution to memory requirements but as responses to problems in a natural environment (Marsh & Iran-Nejad, 1992), what are the implications for instruction? If the brain generates or reconstructs rather than simply recalls information, how can this process be explained? If memory is not laid down like bits on a hard disk or folders in a file cabinet, what is the alternative to the information-processing model? How can mental constructions be explained, using constructivism as the theory of neural organization? If behaviorism, information processing, and the storage metaphor are abandoned, what are the implications for long held principles of instructional technology? How can computer-assisted instruction or hypermedia design be conceptualized using constructivist principles instead?
Bartlett regarded memory as a device employed to construct meaning. He demonstrated that memory was not stored like a tape recorder or floppy disk, but represented a unique, idiosyncratic collection of facts guided by intentional strategies to understand or interpret, resulting in something regarded by the individual as a factual record but not commonly a true record of the events and circumstances. Bartlett's unique study, conducted in England, required English subjects to listen to mythological stories from Native American oral history and to later recall the stories. He did this over a period of years to determine changes in recollection. Finding the content to be so unfamiliar, the English subjects were required to actively engage in construction rather than relying on related knowledge that might be intrusive if derived from more familiar stories. Bartlett was able to demonstrate that the recollections or retelling were inaccurate, that strange and very unfamiliar parts were simply excluded, and that some parts were greatly embellished by his subjects. Bartlett tried to explain these results in terms of schemas or themes in information storage and recall.
Memory, as defined in Bartlett's terms, may involve a reorganization or re-combination of parts into a new combination--not recall. The information is constantly resident or live, rather than stored, but not always conscious. Each time a "memory" or recollection is constructed the combinations that emerge (memory) are actually new combinations of parts; the memory process reconstructs the past but does not provide a copy of it. In most cases, each instance is a little different than the last reorganization. In traditional classroom instruction the words of the teacher, words in print, and other activities, including required memorization, are the major vehicles for "carrying information" to pupils. But memorizing the knowledge others have created is deficient because knowledge is not a ready-made, transferable data set or programmed instructions that can be downloaded. List-like memorization is easily forgotten and not meaningfully related to internal themes or schemas.
In authentic learning, when a process is replicated it does so more effectively than before through organic, flexible learning, similar to equilibration states that support the assimilation and accommodation described by Piaget. The system works by integration and self-regulation of parts, changing with each reconstruction as new environmental challenges are encountered. Knowledge is the product of the learner's thinking created in a context unique to each individual. People remember if they create the content and construct the memories for themselves (Bobrow & Bower, 1969; Slamecka & Graf, 1972). This does not mean that people do not remember things they see and hear or things told to them by others, but the processes of internal reorganization are created differently by each individual. Eye witness accounts of accidents and crimes clearly show the variation among people. So knowledge is greatly influenced by how memory is reorganized (Schank & Abelson, 1977; Bower, Black, & Turner, 1979). If memory were a precise duplicate, as on a computer disk, there would be no variation in each instance or among different individuals. Schwartz and Reisberg (1991) note:
There is no question
that facts are important. The use of "advance organizers" has been
shown to be important in later recall of specific facts. However,
they are learned because they are emphasized but not necessarily interesting
or important or useful. Memorization puts significant demand on the
executive control and puts the information in a category that cannot be
useful later, except as recall, usually with the aid of some device such
as a mnemonic. To be retained for a long time and to be useful, factual
information is best learned in context and associated with a theme, to
use Bartlett's term a schema, which the mind creates to organize and reorganize
in the learning process. Viewed this way, memory or knowledge is
thematic live awareness--an evolving and indivisible product of ongoing
brain functioning (Iran-Nejad, 1990), which functions dynamically (or spontaneously).
While constructivism theorists often mention the importance of learning in context, the theoretical justification is that learning in context is more natural, and importance is attached to social context, something considered crucial in situated cognition and to those inspired by Vygotsky. Context is a customary problem in ordinary classroom instruction and relates to the issue of a hierarchy of skills, as in Bloom's Taxonomy. Students able to define, identify, describe and list factual information are often unable to make applications or draw inferences. The more a learning environment is similar to a real-world situation, the more likely the learner will be able to perform in the real world. This is not surprising because, along with the concepts that may be necessary, there are also the situational variables or cues that are critical in performance, especially sequences or temporal elements. Part of the context may also involve psychomotor skills that cannot be learned from presentations or textbooks. Flying a plane on an inexpensive flight simulator is certainly not the same as flying a real plane, but simulators used by airplane manufacturers and the military are very realistic--movement, sound, visual information--giving the sensation of flight. When I was in one of these simulators I actually had the sensation of flight.
Context is important for performance. Divers trained on land have trouble making the same moves underwater, although they can do some tasks accurately (Godden & Baddeley, 1975). In some cases it may not be possible to create a context close enough to the one in which the skills will be used, without being in the actual context. Astronauts cannot really train in zero gravity, although it can be approximated underwater. Apprenticeships and field-based learning experiences provide students with contextualized learning experiences, including medicine, law, and teaching. This begs the question: When should technology be used to imitate reality?
There are many approaches to the design of instructional technology. Two of the most popular are have been mentioned, Gagne' and Dick and Carey, and they are related to systems theory that emerged during World War II in the development of manufacturing systems.. Any method that relies on sequential steps shows the influence of behaviorism. One thing that most design principles have in common is the influence of systems theory, which has corollaries with behaviorism. Gagne' revised his original model to include cognitive development, but the underlying behavioral elements remain influential. Systems theory emerged as a science of production during World War II when manufacturers of war materiel were interested in finding the most efficient and rapid methods of output. A system is investigated by analyzing each subordinate component, reducing systems to components, sometimes without regard for interactions within the larger system. A component is a part of a larger system that can be identified as a relatively independent part. Thus, the heart or a kidney can be regarded as sub-systems in the body, and each college and department on a college campus can be thought of analogously as a sub-system. A component can be identified as a unit in which most of the activity occurs within the unit but the inputs and outputs are related to other units or the entire system. This approach has been used in biology, chemistry, physics, ecosystems, manufacturing, and many other applications.
General systems theory looks
for similarities in all systems, biological or organizational, to determine
their similarities and rules of organization. Systems have four major characteristics
that act together to maintain the system.
Simplification of Knowledge
Classroom instruction is based on the authority of the teacher; computer-delivered instruction is based on the authority of the designer. Curriculum design on the computer is similar to that of a lesson plan, where the teacher or designer breaks "knowledge" into small pieces, and classifies it according to levels of learning based on hierarchies of Gagne' or Bloom. Clear objectives are stated, typically with the expected behavioral outcome anticipated (i.e., terminal objective, mastery level, criterion). The typical school curriculum exists as such a structure, with the important knowledge identified for the student to acquire, often in the form of behavioral objectives derived from curriculum frameworks imposed by a state agency. Simplification is implicit in the hierarchical structure of taxonomies of educational objectives, where tasks at lower (or simpler) levels are introduced before those at higher (or more complex) levels.
Simplification is approached in a hierarchy of basic, intermediate, and advanced stages (Shuell, 1990). The teacher or instructional designer presents definitions, examples, and explanations until the concepts identified by the teacher/designer or listed in the curriculum are covered (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986; Gagne', 1987). The difficulty with simplification is that information is so piecemeal that the learner is prevented from developing a mental representation. The challenge for teachers or instructional designers is how to attack an unfamiliar domain without relying extensively on simplification or expository learning.
Some do not believe that media in any form can have an impact on learning. Clark (1994) said, " media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition" (p. 22). Transferring print into computer text is not likely to change learning (Morrison, Ross, & O'Dell, 1988). Ryan (1998) reported that students in a traditional class compared to students using audiographics (where they could only hear the teacher) performed at the same level of achievement. Due to the fact that teacher "talk" dominates classroom instruction, the learner's mental representations are limited to oral information, whether or not they can see the teacher. However, rich visual information can improve achievement, contrary to Clark's view, and some studies show that simply introducing visual information to instructional content can significantly increase achievement (Steele, 1989; Johnson, 1994), perhaps because of connections that are made due to analogies or refinement. For many learners, especially children or persons dealing with arcane terminology, the use of visual information can be critical in providing the content for a more complete mental representation.
Alternatives to Simplification
Contextualists (Bartlett, 1932; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Jenkins, 1974; Neisser, 1976) have long argued that learning occurs best in authentic real-world contexts without simplification, and constructivists adhere to the same position. Classroom environments, divorced from the real world, promote expository teaching. Simplification relies heavily on a long period during which numerous elements or parts are introduced and usually conveyed by text and the teacher's expository lessons. Piecemeal information in an expository format requires constant attention (executive control) for temporal information. An individual may lose attention, tire, or stumble on some concept. A nonexpository format would rely on dynamic mental models stimulated by wholes, such as animated graphics, still graphics, and even complete stories or vignettes. In an unfamiliar domain they may help the learner construct a mental model more readily than reliance on text and temporal auditory information provided by the instructor. In fact, people typically use analogous transfer to interpret unfamiliar territory, as in explaining the circulatory system like a water works or the heart like a pump. Metaphors are powerful tools, although they can be abused. The mental model and the nonexpository information can induce thematic knowledge and create a context for relating past knowledge and experiences to the unfamiliar domain. There are many instructional problems that cannot be duplicated and others that are difficult to illustrate, so simplification of content is often unavoidable. It may be possible, however, to reduce simplification in some cases and eliminate it in others through greater use of visual information to provide a Gestalt or whole learning experience.
In active learning there is direct and live awareness of ongoing construction through executive self-regulation, which occurs actively when the system consciously and intentionally regulates the activity of its own components, as in problem-solving, and through nonexecutive self-regulation, which occurs dynamically when components of the system regulate their activity spontaneously according to biological principles of organization (Marsh & Iran-Nejad, 1992). Dynamic activity is much more extensive than conscious, intentional activity, as shown in Piagetian research that reveals that learners are often unaware of underlying reasoning and have great difficulty describing their thoughts when asked to explain their decisions.
Reconsidering Instructional Technology
Instructional technology has been based on behavioral and information processing principles and there have been problems reconceptualizing it as constructivism. A mental model may play an important role in reconceptualizing instructional technology design. Presenting displays on common metaphors and analogies may assist learning. Of course, the most important property of hypermedia is the ability to use graphics more than text to convey meaning and to provide links. Carefully selected text, audio, graphics, and animation may be used for many presentations that engage active participation of the learner. The instructional approach should be as uncomplicated as possible. This does not mean simplification, in the traditional sense, because simplification of complex subject matter actually interferes with grasping initial concepts and can interfere with subsequent attainment of more complex understandings (Feltovich, Spiro, & Coulson, 1989). Attempts to model complex systems leads to oversimplification. Perhaps we need models that are less complex but functionally whole.
Some have suggested that
learning complex knowledge is analogous to crisscrossing a conceptual landscape
(Feltovich, Spiro, Coulson, 1989; Jacobson & Spiro, 1995). This
approach is based on the uses of multiple representations of the knowledge
domain, putting heavy demands on the designer to develop numerous representations.
If constructivist theory has any merit, it is impossible to expect that
any complex system can be modeled, for this is similar to the notion that
content can be explained and unloaded for the learner to ingest. Hypermedia
can provide successive presentations of content rather than trying to present
a final conceptualization in one presentation. Jonassen (1991) recommends
the following design principles for IT based on constructivism:
In order to accomplish
the tasks set out by Jonassen, the flexibility of the software becomes
a crucial issue. While a teacher in a tutorial situation---not in
a large class---can be highly "interactive" with a student, computers with
programmed learning, limited software, or other constraints on interactivity
are not much more helpful than a standard lecture. Learners construct
knowledge by modifying existing knowledge. Mental models evolve naturally
as the learner interacts with subject matter in a particular context.
For technology the best method to do this is probably simulation.
But any model presented to the learner, whether an analogy, metaphor, or
graphic, can only relate to the mental constructs held by the learner.
The mind incorporates information through experiences. The very relationship
an organism holds on an ongoing basis with its environment is the context
for knowledge creation. If the brain can model the external
world, then writing paragraphs from dictation is deficient compared to
really trying to communicate with another (through the mail or through
electronic mail). Writing a research paper is not the same as writing
to persuade someone about your point of view. Doing math worksheets
is not the same as solving real problems in the environment where mathematics
is a logical tool for the solution. In each of these examples, the
former instance is fragmentation and the latter is more like human functioning---socially
important, related to a real-world context, integrated with a larger task,
as in active learning described by Bruner and suggested by Dewey or implied
by Vygotsky.
An expert may sift through content on the Internet, separate unimportant information, aggregate important information, and add new constructs to a body of knowledge. A neophyte will encounter a sea of meaningless data. In designing hypermedia, the designer can provide anchors as models to provide examples and provide guidance along the way, but the learner will have to construct knowledge. Piaget (1969) explained, "according to this view, the organizing activity of the subject must be considered just as important as the connections inherent in the external stimuli, for the subject becomes aware of these connections only to the degree that he can assimilate them by means of his existing structures" (p. 5). So concentration on the "zone of proximal distance" described by Vygotsky may be a useful tool for IT professionals who struggle to achieve a balance between behaviorism and constructivism (dictates and negotiation).
Constructivism is dynamic intelligence, the parts organize in a coordinated system which work together to solve a problem. Because knowledge is created dynamically, any change in one part has spontaneous (context-determined, as opposed to connection-determined) implications for the functioning of other parts, a central feature of Piagetian theory considered as part-to-whole interactions. Every combination of the parts is a new combination and not just an algorithm, switched-on program, or information retrieval. All information is constantly live, although not always conscious, and even combinations that repeat the past exactly (memory) are really new combinations; the process reconstructs the past but does not copy it (Iran-Nejad, Marsh & Clements, 1992).
For learning to follow an authentic course, thematic knowledge must prevail, not merely categorical knowledge creation. In authentic learning, when a process is replicated, it does so more effectively than before through organic, flexible learning, similar to equilibration states that support the assimilation and accommodation described by Piaget. The system works by integration and self-regulation of parts, changing with each reconstruction as new environmental challenges are encountered. The information incorporated and reshaped (reorganized) by the learner should be thematic in structure, not sequential and mnemonic, so instruction must attempt to present themes and not fragments.
To illustrate this point,Vimla, Patel, Kaufman, and Arocha report that medical students who generated more hypotheses at the initial presentation of a medical diagnostic problem also generated the more accurate diagnoses. This result was consistent with previous studies suggesting that a powerful strategy used by successful problem solvers in science domains is a form of breadth-first search. The strategy consist(s) of generating a series of hypotheses and evaluating all hypotheses concurrently against the data. As each hypothesis is contrasted with the evidence, the less likely are dropped out of consideration while the more likely ones are retained for subsequent testing. What is clear is that stereotypical thinking or prejudice is limiting to constructive thought.
Trouble with Text
Much of our problems in education, in general, can be traced to the use of text. In Phaedrus, Socrates condemns the use of books. It took many years before medieval universities accepted texts after invention of the Gutenburg press. Today reading is considered the first and most important skill to be learned by children, and millions of dollars are invested each year in developing instructional materials and testing programs for reading. Aside from the many virtues of reading that might be listed, there is no doubt that reading has been used in K-12 and college classrooms to the exclusion of other forms of learning. Conveying content exclusively through textual materials has been a problem for many learners who, although they can read, have extreme difficulty getting meaning from stilted texts, arcane words, and concepts that have no relationship to their daily lives. As teachers have come to rely almost exclusively on textbooks and lecture, students are forced to learn content in ways narrow and unnatural. Furthermore, there has been a specialization of subjects and content that makes it difficult for someone in another field, however literate, to comprehend the texts of others. For example, many persons reading this article will have difficulty with it for this reason. Ong (1982) clarifies this point:
Human beings in primary oral cultures, those untouched by writing in any form, learn a great deal and possess and practice great wisdom, but they do not 'study.' . . . They learn by apprenticeship - hunting with experienced hunters, for example - by discipleship, which is a kind of apprenticeship, by listening, by repeating what they hear, by mastering proverbs and ways of combining and recombining them, by assimilating other formulary material, by participation in a kind of corporate retrospection - not by study in the strict sense (p. 9).It is not suggested that people should not study, rather in the initial phase of learning more efficient instruction can be used by means of analogy, metaphor, and simile, supported by visual models where possible. Perhaps this is the bridge that can be used by the instructional designer in switching from the behaviorist design to the constructivist. Designs that employ situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeship, simulations, or problem solving models are more natural and in rhythm with human capacities to learn in context. Simplification of content, strict reliance on textual information, and other methods associated with the written text are limiting and lose the social contact that exists with a human model in a natural context. In fact, what Socrates complained about was that writing would destroy the relationship of the individual with society. Similar concerns are heard today about computers. However, due to its ability to present virtually any kind of information in any format, even contact with a mentor, the computer has the ability to provide greater opportunity for instructional design transcending the text and current multimedia and, perhaps, create a sense of social contact lacking in textbooks and an expansion of learning experiences beyond memorization.
As Per Linell points out, citing Osgood, it is common to view communication as a simple transfer mechanism of fixed messages, which is also a depiction of teaching, such as the bucket theory:
Words, like little buckets, are assumed to pick up their loads of meaning in one person's mind, carry them across the intervening space, and dump them into the mind of another (Osgood, 1979, p. 213).As anyone knows who has ever had a letter, memorandum or paper misinterpreted, or especially e-mail, there is much that is lost in written communication. If teaching were as simple as transferring knowledge in little buckets, literacy and achievement would be of little or no concern. But in traditional classroom instruction, the lectures of the teacher and words in print are the major vehicles for "carrying information" to pupils, and they are poor buckets.
A number of questions should
be addressed in research. In general, analogy and similarity are
used in mental models and function in conceptual change. Even if
a teacher does not supply an analogy, a student may do so voluntarily.
Similarity is used to refine a current understanding or to compare overlapping
concepts. Both of these areas are good areas for research in multimedia
or hypermedia. Other areas of interest are generalization, differentiation,
accretion, and compilation, which relate to strengthening or refining a
mental model. Some more specific research topics might be as follows:
Conclusions
It has been argued that the behavioral model guided the typical software program. Such presentation is geared to low-ability students and does not challenge higher order thinking skills of other students. It was suggested that a moratorium should be called on conducting another decade of research comparing computers to teachers. It is now impossible for the designer to conceive of individual programs of learning that can be considered discrete and monolithic. Rather, computers, computer devices, many kinds of software, and hypermedia make instructional design more complex and renders research pitting computers against teachers impossible and unnecessary. The most important view is that learning in complex domains is improved and enhanced with random access instruction, including hypermedia instruction (Feltovich, Spiro, & Coulson, 1989).
Mention was made about Johnson-Laird's conceptualization of the mental model as a mechanistic or algorithmic process but that Jonassen has reinterpreted it to be applicable as a Piagetian construct. In conducting reviews of literature about the mental model, it is important to note which view is held by the author. In this article we have tried to emphasize use of the mental model in constructivism, however few writers employ it in this way. A great deal of research about mental models and multimedia has been conducted by the military, some of which is available to the general public. Both Naval and Army research regard the mental model, at least implicitly, to be nothing more than an elaboration of information processing and the memory storage metaphor.
It should also be noted that Senge (1990) published a very popular book based on the mental model. While it is interesting and useful, it was not covered in this context because of its emphasis on the organization rather than the individual. The book is an excellent source for considering group behavior and organizational health. Senge uses an interesting description of the mental model--Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. He says that the "discipline" of working with mental models begins with turning the mirror inward; exposing our internal pictures of the world, and bringing them to the forefront to hold up to scrutiny. The importance of this admonition is that our beliefs are, to each of us, truth. Although we may be wrong, we act on the basis of our beliefs with certainty.
The medical community is not blamed for deaths caused by diseases it does not know how to treat, although a recent Harvard study reports that more than 95,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries nationwide are due in part to negligent medical care. Physicians with financial interests in labs order up to 96 percent more tests than those without such interests. Costs at these labs are up to 38 percent higher that at independent labs. Politicians do not pretend to intrude in medical education, nor is it ever advocated that licensing standards and methods classes in medicine should be altered or abolished, or that competent intelligent people from other fields who hold degrees should be permitted to enter the profession by waiving licensure requirements, or that practicing physicians should be given tests to prove their competence.
The schools with the greatest problems are those with poor and minority children. According to the The Seventh Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education, students in predominantly minority schools are much more likely to be taught by teachers who did not major in the field they teach (42% who did major in their fields, versus 69% in predominately white schools) or to be taught by teachers who have no certification in their field (54% certified, as opposed to 86% in mostly white schools). Teachers with not even a minor in the field in which they teach are much more likely to be found in schools with 50% or more free-lunch recipients than in schools with fewer than 20% free-lunch recipients. Recent reports of teacher shortages show that problems will worsen, because the demand for teachers will lower admission requirements to the profession, as has been done in California, and new uncertified teachers last about 3 years.
American education has actually been quite successful overall, despite public perceptions that have been shaped by negative publicity since the 1983 Nation at Risk report, but the apparent failure of science to discover the best instructional practices leaves schools vulnerable to prescriptions by bureaucrats, classroom habits, and intuition as their primary tools. It also leaves the profession vulnerable to the vicissitudes of educational fads and the pronouncements of non-experts, such as politicians, who feel competent to judge the effectiveness of educational programs and to suggest that the primary focus of pre-school education in Head Start is to teach reading and that school choice will solve educational problems. To the extent that is impossible to distinguish relevant expert practice from irrelevant, non-expert practice in education, (instructivism versus constructivism), we are faced with a serious problem of understanding the nature of educational relevance (Iran-Nejad & Marsh, 1994). We are judged by the criteria of others who believe instructional problems are caused by incompetence or indolence rather than a lack of relevant information.
Advances in the ability to influence cognitive development can be made through research in the learning processes and their sources of control (external, deliberate, and dynamic). While considerable attention in psychology and education has been devoted to the learning processes, comparatively little research has concentrated on the interaction of processes and regulatory sources. Future research will be helpful if it examines how natural brains engage in authentic learning. Instructional technology will benefit too, as it learns how to imitate authentic contexts with increasingly powerful tools. However, we will all have to learn that technology cannot be treated as a single independent variable, but rather as one variable in a complex system. And perhaps someday we will all agree that education is more complex than currently believed by most politicians, critics, and the general public; and just like medicine, the field needs funding and research.
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