The three dominant learning theories that motivate instructional design (ID), teaching practice, and educational research include behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. In this paper, I seek to provide a broad definition and description of each theory focusing on their philosophical and psychological underpinnings, some reasons why each theory became dominant during its particular period of time, some of the main scholars within each theoretical tradition, and the basic assumptions, explanations, and predictions of each theory relative to learning, the learner, teaching, and the teacher. After discussing the theoretical positions, I provide a brief reflection on the applications of each learning theory to ID and project management research and practice. In my reflection, I also discuss my own theoretical and philosophical perspective regarding the theories of learning that I subscribe to.
Learning Theories
Learning theories are “sets of laws and principles that broadly explain learning and behavior” (Morrison, Ross, Kalman, & Kemp, 2013; p. 351) and require a broad understanding of “the role of human behavior and mental functions of the mind” (Richey et al., 2011). Instructional designers, educational researchers and instructors use learning theories to describe the learning process and understand how learning occurs (Reigeluth, 1999; Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, 2009; Schunk, 2012). The use of learning theories helps “the prediction, observation, and interpretation of events become much more orderly rather than intuitive or subjective” (Morrison et al., 2013, p. 351). Furthermore, learning theories underlie the development of more concrete ID theories that directly apply to the problems of educational research and practice. Whereas ID theories “describe specific events outside of the learner that facilitate learning”, learning theories describe “what goes on inside a learner’s head when learning occurs” (Reigeluth, 1999). Most educational researchers agree that the three dominant learning theories that underlie ID, teaching practice, and educational research are behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. In some ways these three large categories of learning theory overlap. However, each learning theory has its own ways to explain how different types of learning occur, and as such, Bruner (cited in Schunk, 2004) notes that the explanative ability and the methods that each theory uses vary.
Join me tomorrow for some of the philosophical perspectives that underlie the dominant theories of learning… Until then!