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Some comments on research into school learning
Journal of School Psychology 1971 • Vol. 9, No. 1
SOME COMMENTS ON RESEARCH INTO SCHOOL LEARNING MICHAEL
J. A. H O W E
The University of Alberta Summary. The author suggests that research into school learning has tended to neglect some important problems. He discusses the reasons for this and indicates that special needs and pressures in this area require consideration. Much recent thinking about the factors that are important for school learning has come, quite appropriately, from teachers (e.g., Holt, 1964, 1967, 1969; Kohl, 1967; Marshall, 1963; Richardson, 1964) or from psychologists and others outside the experimental tradition (e.g., Glasser, 1969; Leonard, 1968; Postman & Weingartner, 1969; Rogers, 1969). They have stressed the importance of factors such as the interest to the learner of what is being learned, relevance to the learner's perceived needs and values, awareness of the functions of what is being learned, degree of involvement by the learner, and so on. There has been considerable discussion and speculation about the ways in which variables such as these seem to influence the learning process and about their operation in the school environment. Not all of the ideas and speculations that have been expressed are likely to be valuable: some may contain more fashionable rhetoric than real substance. Most are by no means new. But it would seem that experimental research on learning can play an important role in using controlled experimental situations to examine the role in learning of factors such as the ones that have been mentioned. If we ask an educated person to list the things that he feels have been most important in his learning experiences he is likely to mention interest, perceived relevance, and the like. However, a survey of the research in school learning indicates that much of it has been concerned with the effects of variables that may have rather little importance for h u m a n learning in educational settings. Factors related more specifically to the actual presentation of knowledge, such as organization of paragraphs, size of steps or frames, noise level in the classroom, mode of presentation, response mode, prompting procedures, explicit provision for knowledge of results, massed or distributed practice, etc. probably have somewhat marginal significance as determinants of an individual's educational achievements. Yet, interest, relevance, comprehensibility and the like seem to have received less attention in experimental research than have the variables related to presentation of information, and it is at least worth asking whether the distribution of research efforts between the various areas of learning research bears a realistic relationship to their importance for human learning in school. 51 J o u r n a l of S c h o o l P s y c h o l o g y , V o l u m e 9, 1 9 7 1
52
Michael J. A. Howe
Why should such a question arise? The direction of research in a science is influenced by the ease with which existing methodologies can be used to submit various factors to the conditions of controlled observation. It is necessary to guard against having the existing procedures influence the direction of research efforts to the extent that intrinsically important problems are neglected in favor of less important problems which can more easily be accommodated in terms of familiar methodologies and habits of thinking. Workers in a comparatively new science such as psychology may be especially vulnerable to this pitfall. Research into human learning has often been carried out by people trained in experimental psychology, and this has sometimes appeared to dominate the choice both of methods and of problems to be attacked. An allegiance to the habits of experimental psychology may have certain beneficial effects (e.g., statistical and methodological sophistication), but it may also result in research being instigated by those who are ignorant of the currents of educational thinking, who have little idea of the problems raised by the day-to-day realities of classroom learning, and whose awareness of the forces that bear upon the educational enterprise is rather narrow. The influences determining researchers' efforts may come from issues and problems raised both in educational practice and in academic psychology, but although the two should complement each other, this does not always occur. In sum, it sometimes seems as if people who carry out research into school learning tend to limit their thinking about learning to those ideas that stem directly from experimental research. Jackson (1969) pointed out the absurdity of the belief that educational psychologists are the only professionals who are thinking seriously about the processes of teaching and learning in schools. Research into school learning might benefit if the researchers were more willing to attack problems and evaluate ideas raised by thinkers outside academic experimental psychology. The shift of emphasis in modern psychology towards the c o n s t r u c t i v e nature of human activities in learning and cognition (see, for example, Neisser, 1967; Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960; Biggs, 1968; and the recent writings of J. S. Bruner, G. A. Miller and others) is consistent with greater focus upon the role of the learner himself in the learning situation. To some extent, the work by R o t h k o p f (1968) on "Mathamagenics," which directed attention away from variables such as duration of exposure and distribution of practice, and towards behaviors in the learner, such as attending, that are thought to influence learning was a step in this direction. However, to examine the role of factors like interest is to go further and, as far as experimental research is concerned, necessitates a rather fundamental change in the way variables are specified which some researchers might not find to their taste. The difference is this. If I want to carry out an experiment into the effects of varying duration of time in a learning task, it is up to me, the experimenter, to set the values of the independent variable (duration). But if my experiment concerns the role of interest, I cannot set the values of the interest in the material: only the learner can specify how interested he is in whatever I ask him to learn. In a sense, this situation requires the subject rather than the Journal of S c h o o l P s y c h o l o g y , V o l u m e 9, 1971
Some Comments on Research Into School Learning
53
experimenter to assign values to the independent variable, and this definitely constitutes an alteration in the nature of the experimental research. Of course, research of the second type does exist; some of the studies in which learning and attitude are correlated approximate this form. Psychologists engaged in research or school learning have expressed concern about the fact that much research on learning has little relevance for learning in schools (Ausubel,. 1968 ; Jackson, 1968; Lindgren, 1967; Travers, 1969). It has been recognized that more independence is needed, and Ausubel (1968) in particular emphasized the necessity to set up goals and ask questions that are sometimes very different from those raised in traditional psychology. It has become apparent that some types of classroom learning are so different from and so much more complex than the learning that psychologists have studied in basic research that neither attempting to extrapolate from the results of such research to the reality of school learning, nor waiting for the results of future basic research to become more relevant to meaningful learning, is likely in the near future to be an effective strategy towards understanding the practical determinants of learning in schools. A move towards greater independence in defining the goals of research in school learning need not constitute a separation from the content and discipline of experimental psychology; the links between the practice of education and the theoretical insights of basic psychology will remain invaluable. In other respects there has been rather less willingness to recognize that research on school learning has special needs and problems that are very different from those of basic experimental psychology. Psychologists have tended to model their methods and approaches upon those of the physical sciences, and there are good reasons for this. But while physical scientists can often pursue their research without having to pay very close attention to those social forces and issues which are outside their jurisdiction, the psychologist interested in school learning has to contend with various political, philosophical, moral, and socio-economic issues that may affect his work rather directly. It is not possible to pursue research into school learning without thinking seriously about questions such as "What is worth learning?" "What are the purposes of school learning? . . . . To what extent should individuality and independence or the ability to adjust to existing society predominate as attributes of the educated person?" But for none of these questions is there a simple " c o r r e c t " answer, nor can the learning psychologist, or any other individual, be regarded as being uniquely qualified to make decisions that would be regarded as authoritative among those who wield the power of decision. These questions generally concern criteria. If we wish to use research methods for comparing the effectiveness of two learning methods, a criterion of effectiveness must first be established. If we cannot agree on this, no amount of research can decide for us. In short, the interests of the researcher in the area of school learning are closely bound to a world in which not all questions can be decided by the results of scientific investigation. Certainly the psychologist may be regarded as an expert in the area of learning, but there may often be disagreement as to the weight that should be accorded to scientific knowledge in deciding a particular question. J o u r n a l o f S c h o o l P s y c h o l o g y , V o l u m e 9, 1971
54
Michael J. A. H o w e
It m a y b e t h a t , as J a c k s o n ( 1 9 6 9 ) suggested, " e d u c a t i o n a l p s y c h o l o g i s t s , as a group, seem t o h o n o r r e s e a r c h m o r e t h a n t h o u g h t " [p. 6 7 ] . If this is so, it is u n f o r t u n a t e , b e c a u s e t h e c o m p l e x j u x t a p o s i t i o n of p r o b l e m s t h a t are researchable b y e x p e r i m e n t a l m e t h o d s a n d t h o s e t h a t are n o t r e q u i r e s close and thoughtful attention by those who hope to contribute towards greater u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f s c h o o l learning. REFERENCES
Ausubel, D. P. Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. Biggs, J. B. Information and human learning. North Melbourne, Victoria: Cassell Australia, Ltd., 1968. Glasser, W. Schools without failure. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Holt, J. How children fail. New York: Pitman, 1964. - . How children learn. New York: Pitman, 1967. - . The underachieving school. New York: Pitman, 1969. Jackson, P. W. Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. - . Stalking beasts and swatting flies: Comments on educational psychology and teacher training. In J. Herbert & D. P. Ausubel (Eds.), Psychology in teacher preparation. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1969. Pp. 65-73. Kohl, H. 36 Children. New York: New American Library, 1967. Lindgren, H. C. Theories of human learning revisited. In E. M. Bowen & W. G. Hollister (Eds.), Behavioral science frontiers in education. New York: Wiley, 1967. Pp. 181-191. Leonard, G. B. Education and ecstasy. New York: Delacorte Press, 1968. Marshall, S. An experiment in education. Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1963. Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K. H. Plans and the structure o f behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Neisser, V. Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. Teaching as a subversive activity. New York: Detacorte Press, 1969. Richardson, E. S. In the early world. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 1964. Rogers, C. R. Freedom to learn. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1969. Rothkopf, E. Z. Two scientific approaches to the management of instruction. In R. M. Gagn6 & W. J. Gephart (Eds.), Learning research and school sub]ects. Itasca, Illinois: Peacock, 1968. Pp. 107-132. Travers, R. M. W. Introduction to educational research; Third Edition. New York: Macmillan, 1969. Michael J. A. Howe Associate Professor Department of Educational Psychology The University of Alberta Edmonton 7, Canada Received: October 28, 1970 Revision Received: May 7, 1970
Journal of S c h o o l Psychology, V o l u m e 9, 1 9 7 1
SOME COMMENTS ON RESEARCH INTO SCHOOL LEARNING MICHAEL
J. A. H O W E
The University of Alberta Summary. The author suggests that research into school learning has tended to neglect some important problems. He discusses the reasons for this and indicates that special needs and pressures in this area require consideration. Much recent thinking about the factors that are important for school learning has come, quite appropriately, from teachers (e.g., Holt, 1964, 1967, 1969; Kohl, 1967; Marshall, 1963; Richardson, 1964) or from psychologists and others outside the experimental tradition (e.g., Glasser, 1969; Leonard, 1968; Postman & Weingartner, 1969; Rogers, 1969). They have stressed the importance of factors such as the interest to the learner of what is being learned, relevance to the learner's perceived needs and values, awareness of the functions of what is being learned, degree of involvement by the learner, and so on. There has been considerable discussion and speculation about the ways in which variables such as these seem to influence the learning process and about their operation in the school environment. Not all of the ideas and speculations that have been expressed are likely to be valuable: some may contain more fashionable rhetoric than real substance. Most are by no means new. But it would seem that experimental research on learning can play an important role in using controlled experimental situations to examine the role in learning of factors such as the ones that have been mentioned. If we ask an educated person to list the things that he feels have been most important in his learning experiences he is likely to mention interest, perceived relevance, and the like. However, a survey of the research in school learning indicates that much of it has been concerned with the effects of variables that may have rather little importance for h u m a n learning in educational settings. Factors related more specifically to the actual presentation of knowledge, such as organization of paragraphs, size of steps or frames, noise level in the classroom, mode of presentation, response mode, prompting procedures, explicit provision for knowledge of results, massed or distributed practice, etc. probably have somewhat marginal significance as determinants of an individual's educational achievements. Yet, interest, relevance, comprehensibility and the like seem to have received less attention in experimental research than have the variables related to presentation of information, and it is at least worth asking whether the distribution of research efforts between the various areas of learning research bears a realistic relationship to their importance for human learning in school. 51 J o u r n a l of S c h o o l P s y c h o l o g y , V o l u m e 9, 1 9 7 1
52
Michael J. A. Howe
Why should such a question arise? The direction of research in a science is influenced by the ease with which existing methodologies can be used to submit various factors to the conditions of controlled observation. It is necessary to guard against having the existing procedures influence the direction of research efforts to the extent that intrinsically important problems are neglected in favor of less important problems which can more easily be accommodated in terms of familiar methodologies and habits of thinking. Workers in a comparatively new science such as psychology may be especially vulnerable to this pitfall. Research into human learning has often been carried out by people trained in experimental psychology, and this has sometimes appeared to dominate the choice both of methods and of problems to be attacked. An allegiance to the habits of experimental psychology may have certain beneficial effects (e.g., statistical and methodological sophistication), but it may also result in research being instigated by those who are ignorant of the currents of educational thinking, who have little idea of the problems raised by the day-to-day realities of classroom learning, and whose awareness of the forces that bear upon the educational enterprise is rather narrow. The influences determining researchers' efforts may come from issues and problems raised both in educational practice and in academic psychology, but although the two should complement each other, this does not always occur. In sum, it sometimes seems as if people who carry out research into school learning tend to limit their thinking about learning to those ideas that stem directly from experimental research. Jackson (1969) pointed out the absurdity of the belief that educational psychologists are the only professionals who are thinking seriously about the processes of teaching and learning in schools. Research into school learning might benefit if the researchers were more willing to attack problems and evaluate ideas raised by thinkers outside academic experimental psychology. The shift of emphasis in modern psychology towards the c o n s t r u c t i v e nature of human activities in learning and cognition (see, for example, Neisser, 1967; Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960; Biggs, 1968; and the recent writings of J. S. Bruner, G. A. Miller and others) is consistent with greater focus upon the role of the learner himself in the learning situation. To some extent, the work by R o t h k o p f (1968) on "Mathamagenics," which directed attention away from variables such as duration of exposure and distribution of practice, and towards behaviors in the learner, such as attending, that are thought to influence learning was a step in this direction. However, to examine the role of factors like interest is to go further and, as far as experimental research is concerned, necessitates a rather fundamental change in the way variables are specified which some researchers might not find to their taste. The difference is this. If I want to carry out an experiment into the effects of varying duration of time in a learning task, it is up to me, the experimenter, to set the values of the independent variable (duration). But if my experiment concerns the role of interest, I cannot set the values of the interest in the material: only the learner can specify how interested he is in whatever I ask him to learn. In a sense, this situation requires the subject rather than the Journal of S c h o o l P s y c h o l o g y , V o l u m e 9, 1971
Some Comments on Research Into School Learning
53
experimenter to assign values to the independent variable, and this definitely constitutes an alteration in the nature of the experimental research. Of course, research of the second type does exist; some of the studies in which learning and attitude are correlated approximate this form. Psychologists engaged in research or school learning have expressed concern about the fact that much research on learning has little relevance for learning in schools (Ausubel,. 1968 ; Jackson, 1968; Lindgren, 1967; Travers, 1969). It has been recognized that more independence is needed, and Ausubel (1968) in particular emphasized the necessity to set up goals and ask questions that are sometimes very different from those raised in traditional psychology. It has become apparent that some types of classroom learning are so different from and so much more complex than the learning that psychologists have studied in basic research that neither attempting to extrapolate from the results of such research to the reality of school learning, nor waiting for the results of future basic research to become more relevant to meaningful learning, is likely in the near future to be an effective strategy towards understanding the practical determinants of learning in schools. A move towards greater independence in defining the goals of research in school learning need not constitute a separation from the content and discipline of experimental psychology; the links between the practice of education and the theoretical insights of basic psychology will remain invaluable. In other respects there has been rather less willingness to recognize that research on school learning has special needs and problems that are very different from those of basic experimental psychology. Psychologists have tended to model their methods and approaches upon those of the physical sciences, and there are good reasons for this. But while physical scientists can often pursue their research without having to pay very close attention to those social forces and issues which are outside their jurisdiction, the psychologist interested in school learning has to contend with various political, philosophical, moral, and socio-economic issues that may affect his work rather directly. It is not possible to pursue research into school learning without thinking seriously about questions such as "What is worth learning?" "What are the purposes of school learning? . . . . To what extent should individuality and independence or the ability to adjust to existing society predominate as attributes of the educated person?" But for none of these questions is there a simple " c o r r e c t " answer, nor can the learning psychologist, or any other individual, be regarded as being uniquely qualified to make decisions that would be regarded as authoritative among those who wield the power of decision. These questions generally concern criteria. If we wish to use research methods for comparing the effectiveness of two learning methods, a criterion of effectiveness must first be established. If we cannot agree on this, no amount of research can decide for us. In short, the interests of the researcher in the area of school learning are closely bound to a world in which not all questions can be decided by the results of scientific investigation. Certainly the psychologist may be regarded as an expert in the area of learning, but there may often be disagreement as to the weight that should be accorded to scientific knowledge in deciding a particular question. J o u r n a l o f S c h o o l P s y c h o l o g y , V o l u m e 9, 1971
54
Michael J. A. H o w e
It m a y b e t h a t , as J a c k s o n ( 1 9 6 9 ) suggested, " e d u c a t i o n a l p s y c h o l o g i s t s , as a group, seem t o h o n o r r e s e a r c h m o r e t h a n t h o u g h t " [p. 6 7 ] . If this is so, it is u n f o r t u n a t e , b e c a u s e t h e c o m p l e x j u x t a p o s i t i o n of p r o b l e m s t h a t are researchable b y e x p e r i m e n t a l m e t h o d s a n d t h o s e t h a t are n o t r e q u i r e s close and thoughtful attention by those who hope to contribute towards greater u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f s c h o o l learning. REFERENCES
Ausubel, D. P. Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. Biggs, J. B. Information and human learning. North Melbourne, Victoria: Cassell Australia, Ltd., 1968. Glasser, W. Schools without failure. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Holt, J. How children fail. New York: Pitman, 1964. - . How children learn. New York: Pitman, 1967. - . The underachieving school. New York: Pitman, 1969. Jackson, P. W. Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. - . Stalking beasts and swatting flies: Comments on educational psychology and teacher training. In J. Herbert & D. P. Ausubel (Eds.), Psychology in teacher preparation. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1969. Pp. 65-73. Kohl, H. 36 Children. New York: New American Library, 1967. Lindgren, H. C. Theories of human learning revisited. In E. M. Bowen & W. G. Hollister (Eds.), Behavioral science frontiers in education. New York: Wiley, 1967. Pp. 181-191. Leonard, G. B. Education and ecstasy. New York: Delacorte Press, 1968. Marshall, S. An experiment in education. Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1963. Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K. H. Plans and the structure o f behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Neisser, V. Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. Teaching as a subversive activity. New York: Detacorte Press, 1969. Richardson, E. S. In the early world. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 1964. Rogers, C. R. Freedom to learn. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1969. Rothkopf, E. Z. Two scientific approaches to the management of instruction. In R. M. Gagn6 & W. J. Gephart (Eds.), Learning research and school sub]ects. Itasca, Illinois: Peacock, 1968. Pp. 107-132. Travers, R. M. W. Introduction to educational research; Third Edition. New York: Macmillan, 1969. Michael J. A. Howe Associate Professor Department of Educational Psychology The University of Alberta Edmonton 7, Canada Received: October 28, 1970 Revision Received: May 7, 1970
Journal of S c h o o l Psychology, V o l u m e 9, 1 9 7 1