Learner Trait Discourses

Information Processing Theory combines Cognitivism and Developmentalist Discourses. As it aims to offer an account of mental development in which information-processing notions are applied literally (i.e., the mind is asserted to be a computer) to interpret growth, maturation, and evolving abilities to make sense of the world. (Compare Information Pickup Theory.)

Personal Agency Discourses address matters related to involving individuals in decisions that define their educational experience. These discourses tend to be grounded in the assumption that the individual learner can and should be trusted to participate in selecting topics, competency levels, learning environments, pacing, and other elements.

Personality Types Theories comprise dozens of perspectives and tests focused on defining, componentizing, and quantifying personalities, typically by focusing on distinguishing traits.

Within Developmental Discourses, learning is understood as a recursively elaborative process rather than a linear accumulative one. Most Developmental Discourses focus on how learners’ key habits of perception and interpretation change amid predictable sequences of biological, psychological, and emotional transformation.

Well-Being Discourses are concerned with the physical, mental, emotional, and/or social health of individuals. For the most part, these discourses are more concerned with the conditions of learning than the dynamics of cognition or approaches to teaching. Some consensus has arisen around the assertion that attending to learners’ well-being is integral to all aspects of formal education.

Identity Discourses do not separate one’s knowing, one’s doing, and one’s being. Consequently, “learning” is tied to all aspects on one’s ever-evolving identity. How and what is learned, then, is not shaped by pre-given and measurable personal traits (compare: Learner Trait Discourses); rather, how and what is learned has everything to do with how and what has been learned.

Motivation Theories are attempts to explain the “why” of human action, and most of them are developed around lists of factors. It is difficult to offer overarching categories of these theories, but we find a trio of distinctions to be helpful: Extrinsic Motivation vs. Intrinsic Motivation; Conscious Motivations vs. Unconscious Motivations; Drives/Needs/Desires Theories vs. Cognitive Motivation Theories. Over the past half-century, trends in formal education have shifted from extrinsic, unconscious, drives/needs/desires to intrinsic, conscious, cognitive.

Cognitivism is explicitly developed around the metaphor “brain as computer.” It thus focuses on how information is acquired, processed, and organized. Learning is seen in terms of integration of new information into existing structures through processes of internal codification.

Positivism asserts that the highest standard of truth is scientific fact – which, it is further asserted, can only be derived through observation, experimentation, and other direct experiences of phenomena.