Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology
Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform
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- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT LEARNING, TEACHING, COGNITION, MOTIVATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
- Defining Educational Reform and the Status of Twenty-First-Century Reform Efforts
- What Have We Learned about Learning, Teaching, Cognition, Motivation, Development, and Individual Differences 585
- The Role of Educational Psychology in Reform Efforts
- The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles
- Defining Learner-Centered
- What Have We Learned about Learning, Teaching, Cognition, Motivation, Development, and Individual Differences 587 TABLE 23.1
- Motivational and Affective Factors
- Developmental and Social Factors
- Individual Differences Factors
584 Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform The definitions of educational psychology have been varied over the past century of psychological research on learning, but one commonality exists: There is widespread agreement that educational psychology is by definition an applied science. What that means to me is that it functions to conduct applications-driven research, development, and evaluation in the areas of human motivation, learning, and development. This research creates knowledge that informs practice and can be applied to the teaching and learning process in school settings in ways that enhance human potential and performance. Applications of educational psychology’s knowledge base must of necessity acknowledge the complexities of individu- als and the educational systems and structures within which they operate throughout kindergarten to adult school settings. Systemic and multidisciplinary attention to how what we have learned about teaching and learning from diverse areas of research—including cognitive, motivational, social, and developmental—must be integrated with applications in schooling areas that include curriculum, instruction, assess- ment, teacher development, and school management (to name a few). Those of us working in this arena must therefore understand the context of schools as living systems—systems that operate at personal, technical, and organizational levels and that support personal, organizational, and community levels of learning; this places a responsibility on those work- ing in the field of educational psychology to have both a breadth and depth of knowledge—not only about teaching and learning at the individual or process levels, but also about how this knowledge can be comprehensively integrated for application in diverse school settings and systems. Given its applied nature and broad function, educational psychology also has to satisfy the tension between scientifi- cally defensible research and research that has ecological va- lidity in pre-K–20 school settings. This tension has been with the field since the beginning, and we have learned much in over a century of research. One of our biggest challenges will be to educate others about what we have learned and in the process help them recognize our current and future roles in twenty-first-century educational reform efforts. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT LEARNING, TEACHING, COGNITION, MOTIVATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES? To establish a context for discussing what we have learned that is applicable to educational reform issues, this section begins with a brief review of major educational reform initiatives occurring nationally and internationally in the areas of assessment, standards, and accountability. It includes my perceptions of how educational psychology has been in- volved in reform movements and how the growing knowl- edge base can address reform issues in the twenty-first century. An example of a comprehensive project to define and disseminate the psychological knowledge base on learn- ing, motivation, and development is then provided. This ex- ample involves the work of the APA Task Force on Psychology in Education (1993) and the APA Work Group of the Board of Educational Affairs (1997)—notably, their de- velopment and dissemination of the Learner-Centered Psy- chological Principles as a set of guidelines and a framework for school redesign and reform. Defining Educational Reform and the Status of Twenty-First-Century Reform Efforts Education reform has been a topic in the forefront for educa- tors, researchers, policy makers, and the public since the 1983 Nation at Risk report. From the 1990s into this century, reform efforts have focused on a number of issues, including state and national academic standards, standardized state and national testing, and increased accountability for schools and teachers. The overall goal of all these efforts has been to create better schools in which more students learn to higher levels (Fuhrman & Odden, 2001). In the process of moving toward this goal, there has been increased recognition that improvements are needed in instruction and professional development and that transformed practices rather than more of the old methods are needed. A current focus on high-stakes testing has produced results in some schools but not in all. There is growing recognition that many practices need to be dramatically changed to reflect current knowledge about learning, motivation, and development. Educators and re- searchers are beginning to argue that a research-validated framework is needed to guide systemic reform efforts and that credible findings from educational psychology provide a foundation for this emerging framework. Links between school reform and research in educational psychology are discussed by Marx (2000) in an introduc- tion to a special issue of the Educational Psychologist on this topic. He points out that over the past quarter century, considerable progress has been made in providing new con- ceptions, principles, and models that can guide thinking about reforms that match what we know about learning, motivation, and development. Applying what we know to existing schools is not a simple matter, however, and requires the field to navigate through political and social issues What Have We Learned about Learning, Teaching, Cognition, Motivation, Development, and Individual Differences? 585 and to attend to the best of what we know concerning the reciprocity of learning and change from a psychological perspective. For example, Goertz (2001) argues that for effective reform we will need ways to balance compliance and flexi- bility in implementing standards-based reform that is sensi- tive to federal, state, and local contexts and needs. Educators will also need ways to ensure that substantial learning oppor- tunities are provided for all learners in the system—including teachers, school leaders, students, and parents (Cohen & Ball, 2001). New policies will be needed as well as increased resources for capacity building if performance-based ac- countability practices are to be successful (Elmore & Fuhrman, 2001); ways to bridge the divide between sec- ondary and postsecondary education will also be needed (Kirst & Venezia, 2001). Wassermann (2001) contends that the debate about the use of standardized tests to drive teach- ing must be balanced with collaborative efforts to define what is important to us in the education of our youth. Others are arguing for the increased use of assessment data to guide reform efforts, the need to attend to cultural changes, and the importance of strengthening the role of effective leader- ship and support for reform efforts (Corcoran, Fuhrman, & Belcher, 2001). To support these changes, Odden (2001) argues that new school finance models are needed to incorpo- rate cost findings into school finance structures such that adequate fiscal resources are available to districts and schools for effective programs. Finally, these challenges must be met in an era of increased localization of funding. The Role of Educational Psychology in Reform Efforts The past century of research on learning has journeyed through a variety of theories that have alternately focused on behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects of learning. This range of theoretical perspectives, and the ways in which knowledge that is derived from these theories has been ap- plied to school and classroom practices, have had (at best) a checkered history of successes and failures. For many educa- tors, research-based has become a dirty word—a word that connotes something that is here today and gone tomorrow when the next research fad appears. Since the past decade or two of research, the picture appears to be changing. Current research in educational psychology is looking at learning from a more integrative perspective. This integrative focus—shared by many authors in this volume—is based on a growing recognition from various perspectives (e.g., neurological brain research, psychologi- cal and sociological research) that meaningful, sustained learning is a whole-person phenomenon. Brain research shows that even young children have the capacity for com- plex thinking (e.g., Diamond & Hopson, 1998; Jensen, 1998; Sylwester, 1995). Brain research also shows that affect and cognition work synergistically, with emotion driving atten- tion, learning, memory, and other important mental activities. Research evidence exists on the inseparability of intellect and emotion in learning (e.g., Elias, Zims, et al., 1997; Lazarus, 2000) and the importance of emotional intelligence to human functioning and health (e.g., Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). For example, brain research related to emotional intel- ligence, reported by Goleman (1995), confirms that humans have an emotional as well as an intellectual (or analytical) brain, both of which are in constant communication and in- volved in learning. Recent research highlighted by many of the chapters in this volume is also revealing the social nature of learning. In keeping with this understanding, Elias, Bruene-Bulter, Blum, and Schuyler (1997) discuss a number of research studies, including those in neuropsychology, demonstrating that many elements of learning are relational—that is, based on relationships. Social and emotional skills are essential for the successful development of cognitive thinking and learning skills. In addition to understanding the emotional and social aspects of learning, research is also confirming that learning is a natural process inherent to living organisms (APA Work Group of the Board of Educational Affairs, 1997). From my research and that of others who have ex- plored differences in what learning looks like in and outside of school settings, several things become obvious (e.g., McCombs, 2001b; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). Real-life learning is often playful, recursive, and nonlinear—engaging, self-directed, and meaningful from the learner’s perspective. But why are the natural processes of motivation and learn- ing seen in real life rarely seen in most school settings? Re- search shows that self-motivated learning is only possible in contexts that provide for choice and control. When students have choice and are allowed to control major aspects of their learning (such as what topics to pursue, how and when to study, and the outcomes they want to achieve), they are more likely to achieve self-regulation of thinking and learning processes. Educational models are thus needed to reconnect learners with others and with learning—person-centered models that also offer challenging learning experiences. School learning ex- periences should prepare learners to be knowledge producers, knowledge users, and socially responsible citizens. Of course, we want students to learn socially valued academic knowledge and skills, but is that sufficient? In the twenty-first-century
586 Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform world, content is so abundant as to make it a poor foundation on which to base an educational system; rather, context and mean- ing are the scare commodities today. This situation alters the purpose of education to that of helping learners communicate with others, find relevant and accurate information for the task at hand, and be colearners with teachers and peers in diverse set- tings that go beyond school walls. To move toward this vision will require new concepts defining the learning process and evolving purpose of educa- tion. It will also require rethinking current directions and prac- tices. While maintaining high standards in the learning of desired content and skills, the learner, learning process, and learning environment must not be neglected if we are to ade- quately prepare students for productive and healthy futures. State and national standards, however, must be critically reevaluated in terms of what is necessary to prepare students to be knowledgeable, responsible, and caring citizens. Standards must move beyond knowledge conservation to knowledge creation and production (Hannafin, 1999). The current focus on content must be balanced with a focus on individual learners and their holistic learning needs in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world. The needs of learners are also changing and an issue of concern given its relationships to problems such as school dropout is that of youth alienation. Ryan and Deci (2000) maintain that alienation in any age population is caused by failing to provide supports for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Meeting these needs are also essential to healthy development and creating contexts that engender individual commitment, effort, and high-quality performance. Unfortu- nately, there are too many examples in the current educa- tional reform agenda of coercive and punitive consequences for students, teachers, and administrators when students fail to achieve educational standards on state and national tests. Educational psychologists’ attention to these issues is obvi- ous in several of the chapters in this volume. Educational psychology’s growing knowledge base sup- ports comprehensive and holistic educational models. A cur- rent challenge is to find these models and link their successful practices to what has been demonstrated relative to the needs of learners in research on learning, motivation, and de- velopment. The stories of teachers and other educators must also become part of our credible evidence. For example, Kohl, founder of the open school movement, shares his 36-year experience as a teacher working in dysfunctional, poverty-ridden urban school districts (in Scherer, 1998). He emphasizes the importance of teachers projecting hope— convincing students of their worth and ability to achieve in a difficult world. Kohl advocates what he calls personalized learning based on caring relationship and respect for the unique way each student perceives the world and learns. Respecting students, honoring their perspectives, and provid- ing quality learning are all ways that have been validated in research from educational psychology and related fields. Research from a multitude of studies and contexts has demonstrated the efficacy of these strategies for engaging students in learning communities that encourage invention, creativity, and imagination.
In keeping with an awareness of these trends, proactive ef- forts have been made in the past decade to make educational psychology’s knowledge base more visible and accessible to educators and policy makers. One such example is the work of the American Psychological Association (APA). Begin- ning in 1990, the APA appointed a special Task Force on Psychology in Education, one of whose purposes was to inte- grate research and theory from psychology and education in order to surface general principles that have stood the test of time and can provide a framework for school redesign and reform. The result was a document that originally specified twelve fundamental principles about learners and learning that taken together provide an integrated perspective on factors influencing learning for all learners (APA Task Force on Psychology in Education, 1993). This document was revised in 1997 (APA Work Group of the Board of Educa- tional Affairs, 1997) and now includes 14 principles that are essentially the same as the original 12 principles, except that attention is now given to principles dealing with learning and diversity and with standards and assessment. The 14 learner-centered principles are categorized into four research-validated domains shown in Table 23.1. Do- mains important to learning are metacognitive and cognitive, affective and motivational, developmental and social, and in- dividual differences. These domains and the principles within them provide a framework for designing learner-centered practices at all levels of schooling. They also define learner- centered from a research-validated perspective. Defining Learner-Centered From an integrated and holistic look at the principles, the fol- lowing definition of learner-centered emerges: The perspec- tive that couples a focus on individual learners (their heredity, experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, talents, interests, capacities, and needs) with a focus on learning (the best available knowledge about learning and how it occurs
What Have We Learned about Learning, Teaching, Cognition, Motivation, Development, and Individual Differences? 587 TABLE 23.1 The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors Principle 1: Nature of the learning process. The learning of complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional process of constructing meaning from information and experience. Principle 2: Goals of the learning process. The successful learner—over time and with support and instructional guidance—can create meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge. Principle 3: Construction of knowledge. The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful ways.
The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to achieve complex learning goals.
Higher-order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental operations facilitate creative and critical thinking.
Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology, and instructional practices.
What and how much is learned is influenced by the learner’s motivation. Motivation to learn in turn is influenced by the individual’s emotional states, beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of thinking. Principle 8: Intrinsic motivation to learn. The learner’s creativity, higher-order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks that have optimal novelty and difficulty, are relevant to personal interests, and provide for personal choice and control.
Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and guided practice. Without learners’ motivation to learn, the willingness to exert this effort is unlikely without coercion. Developmental and Social Factors Principle 10: Developmental influence on learning. As individuals develop, they encounter different opportunities and experience different constraints for learning. Learning is most effective when differential development within and across physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains is taken into account.
Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and communication with others.
Learners have different strategies, approaches, and capabilities for learning that are a function of prior experience and heredity.
Learning is most effective when differences in learners’ linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds are taken into account.
Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and assessing the learner and learning progress—including diagnostic, process, and outcome assessment—are integral parts of the learning process. Note. Summarized from the APA Work Group of the Board of Educational Affairs (1997, November). Learner-centered psychological principles: Guidelines for school reform and redesign. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. and about teaching practices that are most effective in promoting the highest levels of motivation, learning, and achievement for all learners). This dual focus then informs and drives educational decision making. The learner-centered perspective is a reflection in practice of the learner-centered psychological principles in the programs, practices, policies, and people that support learning for all (McCombs & Whisler, 1997, p. 9). This definition highlights that the learner-centered psy- chological principles apply to all learners—in and outside of school, young and old. Learner-centered is also related to the beliefs, characteristics, dispositions, and practices of teach- ers. When teachers derive their practices from an under- standing of the principles, they (a) include learners in decisions about how and what they learn and how that learn- ing is assessed; (b) value each learner’s unique perspectives; (c) respect and accommodate individual differences in learn- ers’ backgrounds, interests, abilities, and experiences; and (d) treat learners as cocreators and partners in teaching and learning. My research with learner-centered practices and self- assessment tools based on the principles for teachers and stu- dents from K–12 and college classrooms confirms that what defines learner-centeredness is not solely a function of partic- ular instructional practices or programs (McCombs & Lauer, 1997; McCombs & Whisler, 1997). Rather, it is a complex in- teraction of teacher qualities in combination with characteris- tics of instructional practices—as perceived by individual learners. Learner-centeredness varies as a function of learner perceptions that in turn are the result of each learner’s prior experiences, self-beliefs, and attitudes about schools and learning as well as their current interests, values, and goals. Thus, the quality of learner-centeredness does not reside in programs or practices by themselves. When learner-centered is defined from a research perspec- tive, it also clarifies what is needed to create positive learning contexts and communities at the classroom and school levels. In addition, it increases the likelihood of success for more students and their teachers and can lead to increased clarity about the requisite dispositions and characteristics of school personnel who are in service to learners and learning. From this perspective, the learner-centered principles become foundational for determining how to use and assess the effi- cacy of learner-centered programs in providing instruction, curricula, and personnel to enhance the teaching and learning process. The confirm that perceptions of the learner regarding how well programs and practices meet individual needs are part of the assessment of ongoing learning, growth, and development.
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