Rueda and Dembo compare and contrast two frameworks for understanding motivation that are often seen as opposites: the cognitive framework and the sociocultural framework. The cognitive framework is characterized by a focus on what is happening within the individual student. The expectancy X value model of motivation is a good example of a cognitive framework. Expectancy deals with how well the student thinks he’ll perform on a given activity: Does he have the knowledge and skills needed to complete the activity successfully? How do his goals influence his perception of what it means to "complete the activity successfully"? To what does he attribute his successes and failures and how does that affect his sense of competence? The value component looks at the value a student places on the activity: Is it worthwhile for the student to put his full effort into successfully completing the activity? To what extent does the student identify with the activity? With both of these components – expectancy and value – it is easy to see the focus on characteristics of the individual: his goals, his expectations, his sense of competency, what he values, how he identifies himself. This emphasis on the student as a discrete unit is a key feature of a cognitive framework.
The sociocultural framework takes a different view of the student. In this framework, the student is not seen as an isolated entity, but rather she is viewed as being part of a larger cultural and social milieu. Success in the environment depends upon the extent to which she understands and internalizes the norms of the culture. For example, a young student for whom English is not her primary language and who may still be learning to communicate in English may find it more difficult to learn in a classroom (a cultural environment) that uses English as the means of communicating. Because she is still developing skills related to the cultural expectations of the classroom, she cannot take full advantage of the instructional activities. Vygotsky’s theories are prime examples of the sociocultural framework. His theory of the zone of proximal development typifies the importance of the interactions between student and teacher. The theory proposes that a student learns best when the activity is too difficult for the child to do alone, but not so difficult that she cannot do it with help. The zone of proximal development includes those activities that she can do with the help of the teacher. The optimal learning situation, in Vygotsky’s theory, is one in which the teacher helps the student, perhaps by modeling the activity or teaching the student to think about the problem in a new way. The student is learning in the social interaction with a more knowledgeable person. Other Vygotskyan theories illustrate this even further. He proposes that cultural signs play a vital role in learning and development. These signs, such as language, are established within a cultural setting. For those of us that know English, the pattern of the letters CAT has a certain socially constructed meaning for us. For those of us that know French, CHAT has a similar meaning. Because the cultures in which these languages developed are not the same, the signs for these meanings are different. Signs mediate learning.
These two alternatives are not competing frameworks, even though the cognitive framework focuses on internal characteristics of the individual and the sociocultural framework focuses on the social interaction of the individual with other individuals within a cultural setting. Cognitive frameworks recognize the importance of the social setting, as evidenced by the classroom management advice from our textbook: create cooperative learning environments, not competitive ones; work with students to change their attributions of success or failure; help students buy into the incremental theory of ability rather then the entity theory. The differences between these two frameworks are important because they provide unique lenses through with to see and understand how students are learning (or not learning, as the case may be). The part of the cognitive framework that I find most useful is illustrated by the example of Alex presented in the article. We judge students according to our cultural norms, which may not coincide with the cultural norms of our students’ home cultures. Without the sociocultural perspective, we may see a student "falling in with the wrong crowd" when there may be a good reason for the him to do so, at least a good reason from his perspective. Is the student not getting something they need from the classroom or school, such as a sense of affiliation? Does his actions give any indication what they might be missing from the setting? How can we as teachers and administrators and parents supply what the student is missing? The cognitive framework would not allow us to propose these types of questions because it looks at the student as the individual, perhaps labeling him as having "work-avoidance goals." With the cognitive framework alone, we would not think to look beyond the behavior to sociocultural reasons. In addition to the theoretical differences between the two frameworks, the described situation illustrates the practical difference between them. I don’t think one framework is better to the exclusion of the other. Neither do I think that they are contradictory. They are two ways of viewing a situation, with both providing different insights into motivational issues in classrooms.