There have been many different perspectives on learning and development so far (i.e.
behaviorism, cognitivism, cognitive constructivism, and social constructivism), each of which emphasizes different aspects of learning. According to Wenger (1998), “to some extent, these differences in emphasis reflect a deliberate focus on a slice of the multidimensional problem of learning, and to some extent they reflect more fundamental difference in assumptions about the nature of knowledge, knowing, and knower, and consequently about what matters in learning” (p.4). It means that no theory seems to be superior or inferior to the others, but the purposes for which it is employed matter. Following is the discussion on the key features of each perspective and the arguments to justify the appropriateness of social constructivism, which focuses on the interdependence of social and individual processes in the construction of knowledge, to the present study.
2.2.1. Behaviorism
Behaviorist tradition stresses that learning is the formation of a desired behavior in response to the given stimulus (e.g. rewards and/ or punishments). In this theoretical perspective, learning occurs when there are changes in “either the form or frequency of observable performance” (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.55) and the learned behaviors are expected to be repeated. However, little attention was given to the acquisition process of those behaviors – that is, how they are stored and recalled in the future.
With stimulus-response relationship model, behaviorism acknowledges the important role of reinforcement or external motivation in learning (Ertmer & Newby, 1993;
Weegar & Pacis, 2012) instead of the active role of an individual learner (Alissa, 2003, as cited in Budiman, 2017). Following this view, teacher professional development activities hold primary attention to teachers’ change in behaviors. They were the focus of process-product research during the period of 1960s and 1970s, in which teaching was viewed as behaviors and classrooms were effective when teachers could apply learned behaviors to “condition their students’ mastery of language forms” (Freeman, 2001, p.74). Nonetheless, it is argued that there may be confusion about the effects of reinforcement on behaviors (Gallistel 1990, as cited in
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Graham, 2019) and that there may be another way to explain the behavioral changes, for example, thought process (Borg, 2003, 2006) or behavioral capacities (Chomsky, 1959, as cited in Graham, 2019). Importantly, Schunk (1991, as cited in Ertmer &
Newby, 1993, p.56) posits “behavioral principles cannot adequately explain the acquisition of higher-level skills or those that require a greater depth of processing”, for example, language development, problem solving, inference generating, and critical thinking. One example in the present study that could illustrate these points was the behavioral changes of teachers-as-course-developers after attending a training on backward design; in this case, the training could be considered to be a reinforcer. When the training was delivered, it was expected that the teachers would follow the principles and steps of this approach to develop their assigned course(s).
In reality, the teachers did not do exactly as informed; put it differently, the form of performance did not change, and according to behaviorism, learning did not occur.
However, without looking into the teachers’ thought process, the reasons for not following the principles and steps of backward design, teacher learning could not be fully understood, not to mention the social factors that may affect their decision. It means that it could not be said for sure whether learning occurred in this case and that behaviorism principles seem to be insufficient to analyze teacher learning in the present study.
2.2.2. Cognitivism
In cognitivism, learning occurs when there is a change in knowledge rather than in behaviors. Researchers following cognitivism perspective focus on addressing the issues of how information was received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind.
Learning is not only associated with what learners do but with what they know and how they know it (Jonassen, 1991, as cited in Ertmer & Newby, 1993). According to Dwivedi (2016), cognitive learning requires the use of memory, thinking, abstraction, metacognition, and motivation. Therefore, in order for learning to take place, educators need to create the conditions that can facilitate the connection between the known information and the new information. Through such a connection, the new
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knowledge is transmitted to and restored in the mind. Noticeably, all of the elements required for cognitive learning are believed to be in the minds of individuals. In other words, cognitivism emphasizes the active role of individuals as learners, but it does not recognize the possible interactions between the individual and her world, which is considered as a natural and dynamic relationship serving as a basis of constructing meaningful knowledge (Marton & Booth, 1997, as cited in Moon, 2004, p.20, 37).
One example in the present study that could illustrate this point was the teachers’ use of the CEFR and identification of course objectives. The teachers did not know about the CEFR before they were asked to use it for objective identification; in other words, the can-do statements presented in the CEFR were new information to them. When they selected the can-do statements in the CEFR as course objectives, they employed their existing knowledge of and experience with the students they had been teaching.
This process could be considered to be a cognitive process in which they connected the old information (i.e. knowledge of their students) and the new information (i.e. a content in the CEFR) so that the new information could be restored in their mind.
Importantly, besides organizing and connecting different types of information in their minds, the teachers interacted with each other to clarify their understanding of the can-do statements or considered the context(s) in which the course was implemented in order to select statements that are more appropriate. In essence, the teachers’
doings were much more than just cognitive thinking, and explaining their learning in this case just by means of cognitive process cannot be sufficient.
2.2.3. Cognitive and social constructivism
Constructivism views learning is equated with creating meaning from experiences (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.62). In this sense, constructivism is similar to cognitivism in that learning is viewed as a mental activity. However, the emphasis of constructivism was that learners do not transfer the knowledge from the external world into their memories but make personal interpretations of the world based on individual experiences and social interactions. According to Kanselaar (2002, as cited in Amineh & Asl, 2015, p.10), there are two major strands of constructivism:
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cognitive constructivism being derived from ideas of the developmental perspective by Jean Piaget (1969) and of the cognitive psychology by Jerome Bruner (1966) and social constructivism being derived from Vygotsky’s (1978) theories of language, thought, and their mediation by society. Piaget presented four stages of children’s cognitive development, including sensory motor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. In the first stage, a child, from birth to about two years old, constructs understanding of the world through environment.
In the second stage, the child, roughly from two to seven years old, can use symbols like language or gestures to convey ideas or represent objects, but he is not able to understand complex concepts. In the third stage, the child can solve problems related to actual objects and events but not abstract concepts. In the final stage, the child can think abstractly to solve problems. Piaget also proposes three interrelated processes of cognitive development: schemata, adaptation (assimilation and accommodation), and equilibration which is the back-and-forth process of assimilation and accommodation (Kouicem & Kelkoula, n.d., pp.66-67). According to Piaget,
“children’s schemas are constructed through the process of assimilation and accommodation, when going through four different stages of development”
(Wadsworth, 2004, as cited in Powell & Kalina, 2009, p.242). The description of the four stages and the three processes reveals that what a child can absorb is constructed through personal process rather than mediated by the society where he is in. This is the core feature of cognitive constructivism. Another contributor to cognitive constructivism is Jerome Bruner who argues that children represent their world through three modes (i.e. physical movements, images, and language) and that the use of these modes is linked to the level of experience the children have. He places great emphasis on discovery learning in which children are provided with purposeful and meaningful opportunities to utilize their resources and learn by exploration. In other words, learning in Bruner’s view is a process of sense-making of experiences.
This view is similar to Dewey’s view on the role of experience in learning. Dewey (1915, as cited in Aedo, 2002) maintains:
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An ounce of experience is better than a ton of theory simply because it is only in experience that any theory has vital and verifiable significance. An experience, a very humble experience, is capable of generating and carrying any amount of theory (or intellectual content), but a theory apart from an experience cannot be definitely grasped even as theory. It tends to become a mere verbal formula, a set of catchwords used to render thinking, or genuine theorizing, unnecessary and impossible. (Dewey, 1915, p.144)
Importantly, according to Dewey, not every experience is educative, and an educative experience has to meet the criteria of continuity and interaction. The principle of continuity means that one experience should be meaningful enough to benefit the later experience, and the principle of interaction refers to individuals’ belonging to a community. The evolution of this notion leads to the development of experiential and reflective learning approaches. Dewey (1938) and Kolb (1984) define experiential learning as “the cyclical process by which learners transform their experiences into meaningful knowledge. Each experience builds on previous experiences and lays the groundwork for future experiences. Learning occurs as students reflect on their experiences and build connections with previous knowledge”. This definition emphasizes the outcomes of experiential learning process (meaningful knowledge and/ or future experiences) and the action leading to the outcomes (reflecting). In other words, experiences cannot make up learning themselves but it is human beings who need to make attempts to figure out the meaning of experiences. Although both Bruner and Dewey emphasize the importance of experiences in human learning, they just present the personal process of internalizing the experiences without mentioning the possible impacts of social factors on that process. This feature is opposed to that of social constructivism, according to which knowledge is individually constructed and socially mediated. Putting differently, social constructivists believe that both the individual factors (e.g. cognitive process) and social factors (e.g. the rules of the activity or the community in which the individual participates) contribute to the construction of knowledge through the participation in a goal-oriented activity. Vygotsky (1978), who postulates historical-cultural theory of development, is considered to be the founding father of this strand (Powell & Kalina, 2009, p.243). He says:
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Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice; first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals. (Vygotsky, 1978, p.57)
Until now, Vygotsky’s theory has been known as one of the popular sociocultural theories in which learning can be defined as an internalization process in which the knowledge and skills are transformed from the external society into internal system through the participation in goal-directed activities within specific social contexts. In this sense, sociocultural theories emphasize the order of the transformative process;
that is, only after people socially interact with the others in a community does their cognition develop within their inner self. The examples presented 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 could illustrate this feature and serve as evidence for the appropriateness of social constructivism, or sociocultural theories, as the theoretical perspective for this study.