Learning theories timeline: key ideas from educational psychology

John B. Watson was the first to use the term ‘behaviourist’. A behaviourist approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviours and states that all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment. Watson’s methodological behaviourism asserts the mind is tabula rasa (a blank slate) at birth. He is also notable for emphasising scientific and objective methods of investigation. Behaviourism

FC Bartlett was the first person to write about schemas. Schema theory is a branch of cognitive science concerned with how the brain structures knowledge. A schema is an organised unit of knowledge for a subject or event. It is based on past experience and is accessed to guide current understanding or action. Cognitivism

B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour. Through operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular behaviour and a consequence. Behaviourism

George A. Miller theorised that most adults can store 7 plus or minus 2 items in their short-term memory because our memory only has a certain number of “slots” in which items could be stored. Cognitivism

Bandura, Ross and Ross carried out the Bobo doll experiment. They found that children who had observed an adult behaving violently towards the Bobo doll were more likely to act aggressively towards it themselves when given the opportunity. These findings indicate that learning takes place not only when individuals are rewarded or punished for their own behaviour, but also when they observe another person exhibiting violent behaviour – a process called observational learning.
Social Cognitive Theory and social learning

Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. The term ‘proximal’ refers to those skills that the learner is ‘close’ to mastering. Constructivism

Jerome Bruner’s theory of cognitive growth does not link changes in development with cognitive structures as Piaget did. Instead it highlights the various ways that children represent knowledge. Constructivism

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore model of memory proposes that memory consists of three stores: a sensory register, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). Information passes from store to store in a linear way, and has been described as an information processing model (like a computer) with an input, process and output. Cognitivism

Craik and Lockhart’s levels of processing theory focuses on the depth of processing involved in memory, and predicts the deeper information is processed, the longer a memory trace will last. Cognitivism

Endel Tulving proposed a distinction between episodic, semantic and procedural memory. Semantic memory is a part of the long-term memory responsible for storing information about the world. Procedural memory is a part of the long-term memory responsible for knowing how to do things, i.e. memory of motor skills. Cognitivism

Wood, Bruner and Ross devised the term ‘scaffolding’. Scaffolding consists of the activities provided by the educator, or more competent peer, to support the student as he or she is led through the zone of proximal development. Support is phased out as it becomes unnecessary, much as a scaffold is removed from a building during construction. The student will then be able to complete the task again independently. Constructivism

Albert Bandura’s social learning theory proposes that mediating processes occur between stimuli and responses and that behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.
Social Cognitive Theory and social learning

Eccles and Wigfield’s expectancy-value theory suggests that behaviour is a function of how much one values a particular outcome and one’s expectation of obtaining that outcome as a result of performing a behaviour. Motivation and self-regulated learning

Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory emphasises the role of the social environment in learning. By observing others (models), people acquire knowledge, rules, skills, strategies, beliefs and attitudes.
Social Cognitive Theory and social learning

Dweck and Leggett’s paper ‘A Social Cognitive approach to motivation and personality’ examines the extent to which an individual believes change is possible, largely determines their ability to affect change.
Motivation and self-regulated learning

John Anderson’s Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT) theory provides a model of cognitive architecture which attempts to explain how all components of the mind work together to produce coherent cognition. Cognitivism

Etienne Wenger summarises Communities of Practice (CoP) as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” This learning that takes place is not necessarily intentional. Three components are required in order to be a CoP: (1) the domain, (2) the community, and (3) the practice.
Social Cognitive Theory and social learning

Barry Zimmerman defined self-regulated learning as the self-directive process through which learners transform their mental and physical abilities into task-related skills. This form of learning involves metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral subprocesses that are personally initiated to acquire knowledge and skill, such as goal setting, planning, learning strategies, self-reinforcement, self-recording, and self-instruction.
Motivation and self-regulated learning

Richard Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning specifies five cognitive processes in multimedia learning: selecting relevant words from the presented text or narration, selecting relevant images from the presented graphics, organizing the selected words into a coherent verbal representation, organizing selected images into a coherent pictorial representation, and integrating the pictorial and verbal representations and prior knowledge. Multimedia

The Cognitive‐Affective Theory of Learning with Media was devised by Roxana Moreno. It proposes that affective factors as well as individual learner characteristics impact multimedia learning. Multimedia

John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivation is based upon the idea that there are four key elements in the learning process which can encourage and sustain learners’ motivation: Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction (ARCS).
Motivation and self-regulated learning

Linda Harasim’s Online collaborative learning (OCL) theory, is a form of constructivist teaching that takes the form of instructor-led group learning online. In OCL, students are encouraged to collaboratively solve problems through discourse instead of memorizing correct answers. The teacher plays a crucial role as a facilitator as well as a member of the knowledge community under study. Online collaborative learning theory

Colvin-Clark and Mayer’s seminal book ‘e-Learning and the Science of Instruction’ exemplifies the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning theory and provides research-based guidelines on how best to present content with text, graphics, and audio as well as the conditions under which those guidelines are most effective. Multimedia

As Cognitive Load Theory developed, it has been used to generate a large number of instructional effects by reducing element interactivity, primarily associated with extraneous cognitive load. This book provides a summary of theoretical developments over recent years and the empirical consequences of that development. Cognitive Load Theory