CD 112
FOUNDATION OF
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
Lecture Six: Cognitive Learning theory
What is Cognitive Learning theory?
• Cognitive Learning theory (CLT) is about understand how the
human mind works while people learn.
• The theory focuses on how information is processed by the brain
and how learning occur through that internal processing of
information.
• It is based on the idea that people mentally process the information
they receive, rather than simple responding to stimuli from their
environment.
About Cognitive Learning theory?
• CLT is broad theory used to explain the mental
processes and how they are influenced by both internal
and external factors in order to produce learning in an
individual.
• The theory is credited to education psychologist Jean
Piaget.
• He believed knowledge is something that is actively
constructed by learners based on their existing cognitive
structures.
Piaget's Theory and Stages of
Cognitive Development
• Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that
intelligence changes as children grow.
• A child's cognitive development is not just about acquiring
knowledge, the child has to develop or construct a mental model of
the world.
• Cognitive development occurs through the interaction of innate
capacities and environmental events, and children pass through a
series of stages.
Piaget's Theory and Stages
of Cognitive Development
Piaget's stages are:
• Sensorimotor stage: birth to 18-24 months
• Preoperational stage: 2 to 7 years
• Concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years
• Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up
The sequence of the stages is universal across cultures and follow the
same invariant (unchanging) order.
All children go through the same stages in the same order (but not all
at the same rate).
Piaget's Theory and Stages of
Cognitive Development
Piaget branched out on his own with a new set of assumptions
about children’s intelligence:
i. Children’s intelligence differs from an adult’s in quality rather
than in quantity. This means that children reason (think)
differently from adults and see the world in different ways.
ii. Children actively build up their knowledge about the world.
They are not passive creatures waiting for someone to fill their
heads with knowledge.
iii. The best way to understand children’s reasoning was to see
things from their point of view.
Piaget's Theory and Stages of
Cognitive Development
• What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children
could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their
I.Q.
• What he was more interested in was the way in which
fundamental concepts like the very idea of number, time,
quantity, causality, justice and so on emerged.
About Cognitive Learning theory?
• Piaget disagree with behaviorist theory which focuses
strictly on observable behavior.
• He concentrated more attention to what went on inside
the learner’s head, instead of how they reacted.
Behaviorist approach Vs. Cognitive
Approach
• The behaviorists approach only studies external observable
behavior that can be objectively measured.
• This theory is based on a stimulus and person’s response to that
stimulus.
• Behaviorist believe that internal behavior cannot be studied because
internal mental processes cannot be observed and objectively
measured.
• In other words, we cannot see what happens in a person’s mind
therefore, we cannot measure it.
Behaviorist approach Vs. Cognitive
Approach
• However, unlike behaviorism, cognitive approach believes that
internal mental processes can be scientifically studied.
• It focuses on the thought process behind the behavior.
• Cognitive psychologists believe in order to understand behavior you
need to understand what goes on in the brain to cause behavior.
• Therefore, the cognitive approach to learning pays more attention to
what goes on inside the learner’s head and focuses on mental
processes, rather than just observable behavior.
• Changes in behavior are observed but only as an indicator to what
is going on the learner’s brain.
Behaviorist approach Vs. Cognitive
Approach
Cognitive Learning Processes
• Cognitive learning is centered on mental processes by which the
learner takes in interprets, stores, and retrieves information.
• These mental processes occur between stimulus/input and
response/output.
• The individual takes in the stimulus, processes it in their mind, and
then acts on stimulus.
• Those mental processes have several elements including;
i. Attention
ii. Observing
iii. Perception
iv. Interpreting
v. Organizing
vi. Memory (storing and retrieval)
vii. Categorizing
viii. Form generalizations.
Cognitive Learning Processes
