An Overview of Selected Learning Theories
about Student Learning
Sanjay Goel
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, India
sanjay.goel@jiit.ac.in,
goelsan@yahoo.com
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Computing Education
• Weakest contribution of engineering
education in computing related disciplines
is in (58 professionals)
– Decision making ability
– Thinking ability
– Procedural knowledge
– Conceptual Knowledge
– Learning ability
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
41%
24%
15%
15%
3%
1. Soloway’s 1983 study at Yale: “The Rainfall Problem”: Write a
program that repeatedly reads in positive integers, until it reads the integer
99999. After seeing 99999, it should print out the average.
Only 14% of students CS1 could solve this problem correctly.
2. Hestenes’ 1985 study: 80% students could state Newton’s Third Law
at the beginning of the course… <15% of them fully understood it at the
end.
3. McCracken’s 2001 MIMN study wrt CS1: WAP to evaluate arithmetic
expressions in a text file.
The average score of 215 students was 21%. Many of the participants
never got past the design part of the problem to write any code at all.
4. Tew’s 2010 PhD thesis 3 universities wrt CS1: Majority of her 952
test-takers failed both pseudo-code and native language exams, based on
a small subset of what anyone teaches in CS1.
Mark Guzdia, Education - From ScienceSanjay
to Engineering:
Exploring the dual nature of
Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
computing education research, CACM
Feb 2011
National Survey of Student Engagement
(NSSE)
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Stages of Intellectual Development, W.G. Perry,
1970
• Two Central interwoven dynamics:
– Confronting and coping with diversity and multiples:
• Multiple opinions about a given subject or issue (1-3);
• Multiple contexts/perspectives from which to understand or analyze
issues or arguments (4 - 6);
• Multiple Commitments through which one defines his or her values
and identity (7 - 9).
– Evolution of meaning making about learning and self
• Knowledge is seen as increasingly conjectural and uncertain, open to
(and requiring) interpretation
• Role of the student -- moving from a passive receptor of facts to an
active agent in defining arguments and creating new knowledge.
• Role of the teacher -- moving from an Authority as the source of
"Truth" to an authority as a resource with specific expertise to share.
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Stages of Intellectual Development, W.G. Perry,
1970
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
What kind of learning experiences
caused the forward movement?
•
•
•
•
•
Unexpected results.
Questions regarding evidence and choice.
Variety of Observation.
Absence of satisfactory answers from authority.
Assignment at Bloom’s higher level, application in new
context.
• Engagement in Reasoning.
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Learning retention rates: Some results
Sources:
Bruce Nyland, 1950’s
Wiman and Mierhenry, 1960, 1969
Standard Oil of NY
Socony-Vacuum Oil Company
Dale and Nyland, 1985
Nyland/Dole, 1972
NTL Institute
James Stice, 1984 Seminar
Gustafson, 1985
Brady, 1989
Glasser, 1990
Bruce Nyland, 2000
•
5% Lecture
•
10% What we read
•
15% What we see
•
20% Audio-Visual
•
20% What we see and hear
•
20% What we hear
•
26% What we hear
•
30% What we see
•
30% Passive Verbal
•
30% Demonstration
•
40% What we discuss
•
50% Visual Receiving
•
50% See and hear
•
50% Discussion Group
•
70% Discuss with others
•
70% Active Receiving and Participating
•
70% Say
•
70% Say and Write
•
70% Say or Write
•
70% Say as they talk
•
75% Practice by Doing
•
80% Experience Personally
•
80% What we experience directly or practice doing
•
90% Say as they do a thing
•
90% Say and perform a task
•
90% Teach to others/Immediate Use
Sanjay
Goel,
•
90% What we attempt to teach others
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
•
95% of what we teach someone else
Androgogy
Knowles, 1970
• Learners need to know why they need to learn
something.
• Adults need to learn experientially.
• Adults approach learning as problem-solving.
• Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
What working IT engineers think about
Teaching Methods?, SPINE based Study, 2004-05
No
(j)
Teaching Method
Normalised
Figure of
Merit
(Max. = 10)
Category
1
Group Projects
10.0
Pivotal
2
Project
9.8
Pivotal
3
Practical Training
9.2
Pivotal
4
Industrial Training /Internship
6.5
Obligatory
5
Lecture
6.5
Obligatory
6
Seminars
6.3
Obligatory
7
Written projects/studies
6.2
Obligatory
8
Home work/Out of class
3.8
Sanjay Goel,
assignment
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Complementary
Effective lecturing in engineering and
computing courses, 2005-06?
• Documentation: 250 Anecdotes of most effective lecture
– 110 anecdotes of as recalled by computing students
– 99 anecdotes of as recalled by faculty from their student days
– 43 anecdotes of as recalled by faculty as teachers.
• Observations
• Most effective lectures were found to have at least one form of active and
collaborative learning strategies e.g., problem solving, group work,
discussions, critique and so on:
– 90% anecdotes by final year students
– 55% anecdotes by second year students
– 80% anecdotes by faculty members (as students)
– 94% anecdotes by faculty members (as teachers)
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
What students think about lectures attributes?
Lecture Format property
Most Effective
for
learning
Least
Effective
for
learning
Most Often
used
1. careful listening and preparing notes
36.36%
70.45%
79.55%
2. explain textbook
11.36%
90.91%
88.64%
6. creative thinking
75.00%
4.55%
9.09%
7. in-class-group-work
63.64%
4.55%
2.27%
14. discover
63.64%
2.27%
0.00%
Correlation
Most Effective for
Learning
Least Effective for
Learning
-0.79
Most Often used
Lecture Format
-0.69
Sanjay Goel,
Least Effective for
Learning
0.99
Goel Sanjay (2006), Do Engineering Faculty Know What’s Broken? The National Teaching &
Learning Forum, Vol 15 Numberwww.goelsan.wordpress.com
2, USA
Table A10.1: Effectiveness of educational experiences for competency
enhancement of software developers
67 Software developers - (How) Did your college help you in your development?”
Pedagogical Engagements
Rating
Avg
(0-4)
• Projects
• Laboratory work
3.40
2.99
• Discussions with other students
2.96
• Teaching peers/juniors
2.84
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
2.76
2.70
2.60
2.55
2.39
1.97
Thinking and work oriented Lectures
Discussions with Faculty
Industrial Training.
Research Literature survey oriented assignments
Discussions with others
Homework and Tutorial
Knowledge transmission oriented Lectures (explain and
follow the textbooks)
Sanjay
Goel,
• Written examinations and required
preparation
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
1.91
1.85
Two Core Principles Related to Learning
Cognitive Dissonance Leon Festinger (1957)
1. Humans are sensitive to inconsistencies between actions and beliefs.
2. Recognition of an inconsistency results in cognitive dissonance, and
motivates an individual to resolve the dissonance.
3. Dissonance can be resolved in one of three ways:
• change in beliefs,
• change actions, or
• change perception of actions.
Cognitive Flexibility Rand Spiro (1991)
The ability to ‘transfer’ what learners have learned in a context, to
different, even unique situations is referred to as ‘cognitive flexibility’
• In advanced knowledge domains, interconnectedness of ideas must
be emphasized.
• For deeper learning, Information must be presented in a variety of
ways and contexts
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Teaching
Socrates
Galileo
Einstein
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Teaching
Socrates
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make
them think.
Galileo
You cannot teach a man anything.
You can only help him to find it for himself.
Einstein
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide
the conditions in which they can learn.
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Levels of Cognition
What students think they get to do?
calculate, explain, prove (studied theorem,
studied method), define (studied definitions),
write, solve, compute, show (studied fact,
studied method), evaluate(computation), derive,
state, describe, determine, find, analyze, justify, …
What students think works well for them wrt
learning?
design, analyze, understand, build, apply,
adapt, implement, create, develop, demonstrate,
validate, define (new things), show (unstudied fact
in the direct context of studied material) , illustrate,
compare, enjoy, correlate, argue, research,
Correlation
evaluate (the options), ...
What professional engineers recommend ?
analyse, design, develop, implement,
What students
evaluate (the options), integrate, build,
conclude, define (new things), acquire,
get in exams?
demonstrate, justify, assess, organize, formulate,
estimate, summarize, categorize, validate, …
1.
2.
What
professional
engineers
recommend ?
-0.57
Goel Sanjay and Sharda Nalin (2004), What do engineers want? Examining engineering education through
Bloom’s taxonomy, Conference of Australasian Association of Engineering Education, September, 2004,
Australia.
Sanjay
Goel,: Examining Engineering Education Through
Goel Sanjay (2004), What is high about higher
education
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Bloom’s Taxonomy, The National Teaching
& Learning Forum, Vol. 13 Number 4, pp 1-5, USA.
Rating Comparison
What
students
think they
get ?
What
students
get in
exams ?
What
students
think works
well for them
?
What
engineers
recommend ?
Knowledge
0.24
0.36
0.04
0.09
Comprehen
-sion
0.24
0.16
0.11
0.10
Application
0.22
0.40
0.13
0.10
Analysis
0.14
0.04
0.15
0.19
Synthesis
0.14
0.05
0.46
0.38
Evaluation
0.02
0.11
0.15
Bloom
levels
Sanjay
0.00Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Modifications to Bloom’s Taxonomy
Florida Taxonomy of Cognitive Behavior
(9 levels), 1967
• Knowledge
– Knowledge of Specifics
– Knowledge of ways and means to deal with specifics
– Knowledge of universals and abstract
• Comprehension
– Translation
– Interpretation
• Compare, summarize, conclude, show cause and effect
relationship, give analogy, perform a directed task
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Active Engagement Levels: Extending Bloom’s Taxonomy
Minger, 2000
Rowe & Boulgerides, 1992
Sternberg, 1999
Sanjay Goel,
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Sanjay Goel,
PhD Thesis, 2010
Four-dimensional Taxonomy of Pedagogic
Engagements in Software Development Education
Active Engagements
Individual engagement
problem solving activity
Inclusion and integration of various
ideas and diverse perspectives.
Integrative Engagements
Reflective Engagements
Collaborative
Engagements
Think deeply to evaluate and
refine/transform their own approach and
views
Collaborate with others to solve
Sanjay Goel,
problems
www.goelsan.wordpress.com
Sanjay Goel,
PhD Thesis, 2010