From Passive to Active to Intentional: Changing Conceptions of the Learner

Gale M. Sinatra, University of Utah -- Summary of Key Points

Abstract: The cognitive revolution of the 1970s and 1980s changed psychologists’ view of learners by abandoning the predominate behaviorist view of learners as passive receptacles of information who were reacting to their environment to a view of learners whose minds acted on the information constructing new meaning. The current revolution of psychological and educational literature views learners as intentional learners who can monitor and regulate their learning based on their knowledge, beliefs, and objectives. The various researchers exploring this concept are creating widespread confusion by using different terminology to explain intentional learning and by failing to communicate between disciplines. The goals of this article are to: trace how conceptions of learners have changed, illustrate how intentional constructs are viewed by cognitive psychologists and educational researchers, and examine how each perspective may benefit from the other in describing an intentional learner.

From Passive to Active:

• Behaviorists considered learners to be passive in their own learning, reacting to external stimulus, not under the conscious control of the learner
• Critical claim of the cognitive revolution was that the mind does act on information, not just react to the environment, creating mental constructs which in turn explains how the mind acts on knowledge
• In reading comprehension research, found that background knowledge played a significant role in constructing an interpretation of events; this led to schema theory
• Variety of disciplines have redesigned curriculum: math curricula was designed to promote reasoning rather than rote calculation; in science, inquiry-based instruction replaced traditional laboratory classes where passive students followed set processes

From Active to Intentional:

• Major contribution of cognitive revolution was demonstrating that knowledge construction happened in the mind and not in the environment
• Psychologists and educational researchers agree that learning is influenced by more than prior knowledge and active processing; learning is influenced by constructs at the next level of cognition–constructs that reflect intentions
• The cognitive system is organized into hierarchical levels: implementation level (puts thinking into action), algorithmic level (working memory triggered by the environment for carrying out cognitive tasks like name recognition), and intentional level which is conscious, goal-directed, internally-initiated thought.
• Intentional learner is one who uses knowledge and beliefs to engage in internally-initiated, goal-directed action, to acquire knowledge or skills (control their learning)

Intentional level constructs in cognitive psychology:

• Researchers have documented individual differences in problem solving that cannot be attributed solely to differences in prior knowledge or ability; these differences are due to intentional level cognitive and personality variables called "thinking dispositions".

• Thinking dispositions: inclination to weigh new evidence against favored beliefs; disposition to spend a great deal of time or very little on a problem before giving up, or the disposition to consider opinion of others before forming your own opinion.
• Unlike algorithmic level characteristics which are generally automatic (fact retrieval from long term memory), dispositions are under the learner’s conscious control and can be internally-initiated.
• Key benefit of dispositions is that unlike cognitive processing differences (algorithmic level), dispositions can be impacted by instruction.
• Thinking dispositions that foster the tendency to evaluate arguments, suspend one’s beliefs when examining alternative points of view, and to think flexibly tend to promote more effective reasoning and critical thinking abilities.
• "Self-explanation effect" promotes knowledge construction and integration of new information with existing knowledge by engaging in strategies which promote active construction of meaning through consciously generating explanations to examples; clearly a benefit derived at the intentional level of cognition.
• "Theory of mind research"–traces the development of children’s ability to understand human behavior by explaining why others are thinking the way they do; the ability to attribute intentional mental states to others indicates the potential for intentional learning.

Intentional constructs in educational learning theory:

• Metacognition is commonly defined as knowledge about cognition as well as the monitoring and control of cognition and this is clearly intentional because it involves conscious, goal-directed and internally-initiated use.
• Empirical work in metacognition reveals that learners become more accurate in judging what they know as they mature and this along with theory of mind research illustrates a significant advance in cognition for the learner.
• As students learn to use thinking strategies, they move from the intentional to the algorithmic (automatic) level, but little work has been done by educational researchers to understand how teachers and or curriculum design could foster the transition of processes from strategic to automatic.
• Motivational research demonstrates a clear tie to intentionality by the idea that self-regulated learners’ use of knowledge is internally initiated and goal directed and that the developmental nature of self-regulation may be tied to the development of metacognitive ability.
• A motivational construct located at the intentional level is volition which is what is thought to control intentions; motivation promotes decisions to learn but volition carries out the decision to learn–indicating that volition might be at a higher level of cognition than motivation.
• Just as metacognitive strategies may be either intentional or automatic, the debate is also that motivations may also lie on this continuum of control.

• Another construct that combines motivation and metacognition is engagement (when the task becomes the central focus of a learner’s conscious attention); research suggests that instruction inspired by the notion of engagement can promote learning.

Intentionality and hot cognition: Two roads that diverged in the woods?

• Hot cognition constructs include motivation, metacognition and engagement.
• Similarities in two areas of research: both changed in their conception of the learner from passive to active, both accept the learner as having greater control in the learning process, both acknowledge that the previously unexplored level of cognition is where the action of learning is regulated, monitored, and controlled.
• Differences: educational researchers reject old theories and adopt new ones not allowing for conceptual evolution like cognitive theorists who build upon earlier theories thus allowing for the explanation of various levels of cognition and intentionality.
• Educational researchers could benefit from a greater appreciation of levels of cognition and how they interact during learning (some are automatic and some are intentional)
• Cognitive researchers can also benefit from educational researchers by exploring how these constructs play out in the real world classrooms instead of controlled experiments.
• Bridging the gap between educational and cognitive research could lead to the next revolution in our view of the learning process.

Discussion questions:

• Why do you think there is so much confusion as to what constitutes an intentional learner?
• Which construct do you think contributes most to the success of a learner: metacognition, motivation, volition, or reinforcement?
• Assuming you have a classroom of intentional learners, what instructional methods would you use to enhance the learning environment?

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