Personal Construct Theory

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

Correspondence Discourses are perspectives on learning that assume a radical separation of mental (or internal, or brain-based) and physical (or external, or body-based). That separation sets up the need for a correspondence between what’s happening in the real, objective world and what’s happening in one’s inner, subjective world. Most assume object-based metaphors, linear/direct imagery, and Newtonian mechanics, thus framing learning in terms of acquiring, attaining, inputting, and/or linking.

Psychoanalytic Theories comprise several schools of thought that are concerned with the study of the actions and beliefs that are not mediated (and often not moderated) by the conscious mind. Psychoanalytic Theories are most often focused on mental-health disorders. Many of these theories’ core constructs have come to be embedded in Western culture, and some are commonly assumed in prominent educational discourses.

The Construction Metaphor frames learning in terms of individuals assembling their knowledge from bits of information received from the outside world. In its most trivial and common usage, it is a Folk Theory that is only a slight elaboration of the Acquisition Metaphor, retaining separations of inside from outside and mental from physical. More radical uses of the metaphor are encountered among Embodiment Discourses.

“Learning as acquisition” – the Acquisition Metaphor – is probably the most commonly invoked learning metaphor in English. It is evident in such phrases as “grasping the point,” “taking things in,” “getting it,” “picking things up,” “hard to swallow,” “remember this stuff,” and “cramming for the test.” It is not theoretically sophisticated, relying on the assumption that knowledge comprises externalized objects, and asserting that learning is a process of moving those objects from the outside to the inside.

Folk Theories exist within every realm of human engagement. They are, in effect, uncritical and often-indefensible principles of action and interpretation that are woven through everyday language and broad cultural sensibilities. In effect, most of the past 150 years of research into learning has been focused on exposing Folk Theories and exploring more conscious and scientifically robust alternatives.