backup:adfs::0.$.chap3
14th October 1993
Chapter 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FROM PSYCHOLOGY COMPARED
In the previous chapter, I outlined a particular theoretical approach
to understanding cognition: a "sociocultural" approach. I believe it
helps clarify psychological issues arising within educational
practice. I suggested that this framework could have a particular
value for addressing issues relating to the educational use of new
technology. However, it is not the only source for such inspiration:
other theoretical frameworks in Psychology also claim insights into
these same practical problems. In the present chapter, two such
psychological perspectives that have been attractive to
educationalists will be identified and discussed.
The aim of this Chapter is partly to bring the socio-cultural view
into sharper focus, by contrasting it with two traditions of
psychological theorising that are more established and may be more
familiar. Each of these presents a distinctive perspective on
understanding teaching and learning. Moreover, they each have
influenced the deployment of technology within education. Evidently,
the nature of that particular influence will be of special concern to
us here. The first of these theoretical frameworks corresponds to the
mainstream of cognitive psychology - I am choosing to label it
"experimental cognitive psychology" to capture a preference of
methodology that reflects a distinctive worldview. The second is the
Piagetian constructivist theory of development: one that has been
particularly influential within educational and developmental
psychology.
THE PERSPECTIVE OF EXPERIMENTAL COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
The term "cognitive psychology" describes a broad church. Any
critical comparisons made here with cultural approaches do
not apply wholesale. The modern term "cognitive science" is hardly
more satisfactory as a target: it seems to embrace all sorts of theory
- including some very much in tune with the cultural ideas described
in the last chapter (eg., Hutchins, 1991). Nevertheless, I do feel
that within all this variety there is a general direction of
thought dominating current cognitive psychology - especially where it
is preoccupied with the experimental method. Perhaps another phrase
that captures well this tradition is "human information processing".
To some cognitive psychologists this phrase may sound old-fashioned.
Their research literature tends now to refer more to "symbol
manipulation". However, modern cognitive writers slip easily enough
into using the "information processing" vocabulary of the core
metaphor (eg. Vera and Simon, 1993). It still effectively captures
the private, computational nature of their approach - and that is the
key to any contrast with cultural perspectives.
The idea of defining and studying a mental "mechanism" dedicated to
information processing has enjoyed great appeal among psychologists.
With it, intelligence is understood in terms of managing a flow of
information from sensory systems, and from representational devices
implicated in the "coding" and "storage" of experience. Recent
advances in information technology itself, have encouraged computation
metaphors as a basis for modelling the cognitive "apparatus" (eg.
McShane, Dockrell and Wells, 1992). The work of Newell and Simon is
seminal in defining this agenda. The link with functions performed by
computers is easily identified in their writing:
The theory posits a set of processes or mechanisms that produce the
behavior of the thinking human....The processes posited by the theory
presumably exist in the central nervous system; they are internal to
the organism...Our theory posits internal mechanisms of great extent
and complexity, and endeavours to make contact between them and
visible evidence of problem solving.
(1972, p.9-10)
It is true that these concepts are under debate given new developments
in cognitive science (such as connectionism), but there remains a
widely-shared focus on a mental, symbol-manipulating apparatus. An
apparatus for encoding, symbolising and decoding - the computational
mechanism within our heads, if you will. In such a vision, culture
and socially-organized experience are important, but they are often
considerations to be grafted on afterwards. They become the
independent variables of research. Their possible relevance to
something central, basic and cognitive easily becomes an issue to be
explored later, in experiments designed to "control" such things.
This language of cognitive psychology has intuitive appeal. More so
perhaps, as we have become accustomed to ascribe "intelligence" to
computers themselves - an analogy encouraging a whole language of
explanation common to minds and machines. Such a language also offers
some sense of assurance to the seductive enterprise of *measuring*
intelligence: it seems credible that we might check the fine tuning of
this apparatus by administering suitable cognitive *tests*.
So, I am identifying characteristics of modern cognitive psychology
that are appealing, but they are in some tension with my preferred
cultural approach. The principle conceptual tension relates to
defining appropriate units for analysis. Within experimental
cognitive psychology this has generally been the individual - a
circumscribed mentality typically examined apart from any embedding in
socio-historical context. Only recently have some cognitive
psychologists considered that intelligent activity may need to be
analysed as something achieved through coordination with an external
environment of supportive intellectual resources. Hence, recently,
there has emerged an attempt to model such coordination in terms of
"distributed artificial intelligence" (eg., Gasser, 1991). By
contrast, within cultural psychology that mentality has always been
seen as inherently continuous with an historical, technological and
social context. Intelligence involves mediated action and any
conceptual vocabulary for studying it must accommodate mediational
means. There is also a methodological tension between these
approaches. Cognitive psychology has tended to practice a
laboratory-based style of science. Psychological processes are
abstracted for controlled study: "context" may be only conceived as a
catalogue of variables, any of which might be manipulated in such
settings. Cultural psychologists, on the other hand, are uneasy with
the controlled experiment (although, admittedly, they may still be
seeking a distinctive empirical strategy of their own).
The methods and analytic vocabulary of cognitive psychology have
furnished real understandings. Many psychologists influenced by
cultural alternatives are certainly happy to admit this (eg. Greeno
and Moore, 1993; Wertsch, 1991b). The approach has allowed progress
on at least some sorts of practical concerns. Surely this is so, or
it would not still be flourishing? Yet while there may be real
progress arising from this cognitive tradition, the reach of its
insights may be less than the investment might lead us to expect. In
my own view, the mainstream of cognitive psychology remains a
tradition of theorising that narrows our perspective on psychological
functions. It is particularly constraining when we turn to address
the needs felt by educational practitioners: the theory is weak in
addressing issues of learning or cognitive *change*. Arguably, this
has meant that cognitive psychology has had rather little impact on
educational practice (Saljo, 1987), or it has had localised and,
sometimes, rather distorting effects. Desforges' (1985) observation
is pertinent here: he notes that most influential psychological
theories of learning have been formulated with no empirical reference
to what happens in classrooms. This is strange, given that classrooms
are the places where learning is explicitly organized. In other
words, these theories refer largely to conceptualisations of the
abstracted human cognitive system. One theme that is neglected in the
laboratories within which such theories are generated is the situated,
interactional nature of teaching and learning. That social quality of
education is of special interest to the cultural approach and
underpins the discussion of computer use pursued in this book.
Earlier, I used the case of literacy to illustrate features of a
cultural psychological analysis. The same case serves to mark some of
the difference between a cultural and a cognitive approach. For
cognitive psychology the topic of literacy largely reduces to theories
of skilled reading. Conventional "psychological" accounts of reading
are often couched in terms of information decoding and processing
mechanisms. The processes referred to by these models tend to dwell
on a "bottom-up" analysis of reading: approaching it as an activity
founded on fundamental information handling skills and to be
cultivated through increased understanding of the nature of those
skills.
Such empirical work is elegant and persuasive and it does advance our
understanding of an extraordinary childhood achievement. Yet it is
incomplete. It fails to capture reading as an activity: as an
achievement that is located within a framework of
culturally-determined possibilities. Reading as we actually
experience it is carried out for purposes, and the written word enters
into and re-organizes our interactions with the world in a wide
variety of ways. Making it accessible to novices will depend upon
some sensitivity to an elaboration of its place within the novice's
world. But there is little suggestion within information processing
theories that, for example, reading difficulties are approachable in
terms of this cultural context (Brown and Campione, 1986); or little
characterization of reading as an activity involving mastery over
cultural resources (Heath, 1983); or little implication that we think
"through" the written word - that our modes of reasoning reflect
enforced contact with this medium (Scribner and Cole, 1981; Olson,
1986). This is not to say that this broader, cultural view of the
achievement does not inform a lot of what is done about developing
reading in classrooms. I think that it does. The point is merely
that any such insights will rarely have their origins in influences
from traditional cognitive psychology.
I believe the limitation of much cognitive psychology resides in an
agenda that is too focussed and constraining. The approach creates a
determination to conceptualise cognition in terms of general
symbolic processes (say, relating to attention, memory or reasoning),
and to investigate such processes in the environment of laboratories.
In these impoverished settings, contexts can be controlled such that
properties of cognitive processes can be documented in their
abstracted states. This is not to deny the reality of central
cognitive processes that might be shared by all members of our
species: characteristics arising under common circumstances of
biological and cultural heritage. Neither do I wish to deny that it
might sometimes be informative to study these in abstraction.
However, by itself, this is a very limiting empirical agenda. The
richness of intelligent action is not comprehensively expressed in
terms of central representational processes. It surely arises as a
consequence of the cognitive subject's participation in episodes of
interaction, organized within diverse cultural settings. Human agents
are ceaselessly coordinating with their environments: so the nature of
the environment and a description of this dynamic exchange needs to be
embraced within any analysis of intelligent action. Experimental
psychology has fared poorly in capturing and understanding this
variety - say in ways that are of significance to educational
practitioners.
So, the legacy of contemporary psychological theorising seems to
include a strong faith in the possibility of content-free mental
processes. Consider a particular case: many psychologists study human
*memory* through observation of how their experimental subjects cope
with lists of words. The enterprise assumes a cognitive function of
memory can be usefully "purified" in this way - isolated for
exploration in parametric studies. Thereby the components of a memory
system are abstracted; the assumption being that they are normally
obscured from us by the "noise" inherent in everyday circumstances of
remembering. This approach exemplifies the view that refined
experimental materials can help segregate and expose certain core
mental functions. If, however, one adopts the cultural perspective of
recognizing that thinking is mediated through artefacts and social
practice, then the device of a word list seems very constraining. To
be sure, there are culturally-organized situations where such
remembering might be valued as a system of activity, but the minor
significance of such circumstances bears no relation to the popularity
of the word list device in memory research.
Not only is the specification of context-free cognitive functions an
inspiration for psychological research, such an idea also underpins a
strand of everyday educational thinking. There is a common sense view
about learning that seems to regard schools as sites for the
transmission of general purpose intellectual skills. Yet this
perspective may require critical consideration. Against it, for
example, Lave (1988) offers a vigorous critique of schooling, in which
she questions a determination to teach cognitive skills as if they
could be disembedded from the particular routines in which they are
exercised. The tradition of class tests reflects this - situations in
which the testee's thinking is deprived of conventional support from
material resources or from classmates. The academic examination has
evolved as a highly ritualized and condensed ordeal conceived in this
spirit.
So, I am characterising an influential mainstream of cognitive
psychology as being closely concerned with isolating human information
processing capacities; concerned to characterise a private mental
space wherein the manipulation of symbols serves to guide action. How
would we expect such an analysis of cognition to interpret and
influence the place of new technology in education - and how would it
differ from a culturally-influenced approach? Some observers conclude
that the practical contribution of cognitive psychology in this area
remains modest (Beynon and Mackay, 1993; Laurillard, 1987). I believe
its influence may be visible in very general terms - in terms of a
broad theoretical orientation to computer-based practice - but less
visible at the level of specific software design.
Yet, a greater influence at just this level might be possible. I have
stressed that an information processing analysis has its strengths.
The issue is more one of its scope. So, for example, where a
significant part of a learner's task is to decode and manipulate some
symbolic system (say, in relation to the written word, mathematical
conventions, music etc.), then we might expect a cognitive
psychological analysis to be helpful in designing certain kinds of
challenging computer-based experiences. Similarly, the considerable
volume of research concerned with the acquisition of reading skills
might be expected to inspire a certain class of computer-based
learning resources. In fact, this does not seem to be happening on
any scale.
On the other hand, I believe there has been quite a strong *indirect*
influence from the cognitive tradition of psychology. It is indirect
because it tends to legitimise (without always being explicitly
invoked) certain common sense conceptions of cognition: in particular,
a faith in content-free thinking "skills". This, in turn, tends to
encourage a certain kind of educational purpose in relation to
computer-based learning. At the same time, the approach has
discouraged attention to the social fabric that is created during
learning. This is a context that it seems easy for most researchers
to overlook, yet which is of key importance to a cultural perspective.
I shall take up this theme in a later section of this chapter: where
each approach is considered in relation to its perspective on
computers for learning. First, however, the approach of cultural
psychology can be usefully contrasted with the second influential
movement within cognitive developmental theory: Piagetian
constructivism. I shall suggest similar limitations to this approach
as a comprehensive perspective on computer-based learning.
THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
Educational practice has not only been influenced by theory within
*cognitive* psychology. Developmental psychology has also been
influential. In fact, it is widely accepted that psychological theory
has had its greatest impact on education through the developmental
work of Piaget. In this section I shall make a contrast between the
Piagetian "constructivist" approach and the cultural theory discussed
earlier. My main concern will be the priority the different theories
assign to autonomous discovery versus guided intervention as
underpinning the growth of understanding.
Piaget's work offers us a number of ideas regarding educational
practice that we now virtually take for granted. From him we derive a
strong sense of the distinction between development and learning; in
this scheme, what is termed development has an inwardly driven quality
and it must proceed in advance of formal teaching. Indeed, its
progress must underpin any strategy of organized teaching. The course
of such development depends upon things the child discovers
independently. Moreover, these discoveries emerge from opportunities
to act upon the material world and to reflect upon the consequences,
conditions and outcomes of such actions.
One feature of Piagetian theory echoes a theme identified above in
discussion of mainstream cognitive psychology: there is a commitment
to "central process" cognitive functions over more situated,
context-specific achievements. Piagetian researchers are not so fond
of laboratories as cognitive psychologists. However, their research
remains vulnerable to the criticism of neglecting context. Their
account of childhood reasoning fails to capture the senses in which it
is located in a social and cultural setting (Donaldson, 1978). I will
not review this issue again but, instead, focus on a further feature
of Piagetian thinking that is in tension with cultural perspectives -
one that has attracted more conspicuous unease in recent critical
commentary. This is the sparse reference to social factors in
Piaget's account of development.
It is frequently claimed that Piaget neglected social influences on
cognition. There is some injustice in such claims: at least, the more
vigorous of them. Piaget did not overlook interpersonal aspects of
cognitive development. Indeed, his early treatment of egocentric and
sociocentric thinking (Piaget, 1926) might be said to anticipate more
contemporary "social" perspectives on cognition. Nevertheless, it is
fair to claim that this concern played no significant role in the bulk
of his later theorising about cognitive development. Moreover,
although his concern for the social may be real, Piaget has been
largely interpreted *as if* his theory did not accommodate
interpersonal influences. Thus, for example, computer-based learning
materials inspired by Piaget may chose to neglect consideration of the
social context of their use - this is no less significant a trend
because it is based on interpretations of Piaget rather than an honest
appraisal of his ideas.
In contrast, what seems to be best known about Vygotsky and the early
socio-cultural theorists is that they promoted a view of development
strongly stressing the impact of social events. Moreover, this was
not simply a plea for more social psychology - at least, not if that
merely implied more attention to "social variables". Vygotsky was not
advocating a social psychology in the familiar sense of an
inter-personal psychology, one that reduces social experience to the
consideration of exchanges between individual social actors. His view
has us more thoroughly immersed in the social nature of life. Whereas
Piagetian and other psychological theory tends to start from the
individual and derive accounts of the social; Vygotsky proceeds the
other way round. For Vygotsky the social dimension of conscious
mental life is fundamental - 'individual consciousness is derivative
and secondary' (Vygotsky, 1979, p. 30).
At first encounter, Vygotsky's alternative might seem to have a
natural appeal. It prioritises the role of people (parents and
teachers, for example) in supporting the child's psychological
development. However, highlighting the role of other people may
necessitate querying another appealing perspective: one that puts
children themselves at the centre of their own development. This is
very much a view we associate with Piaget.
The nature of cognitive development in Piaget's scheme of things is
attractively captured in the term "constructivism": children are
actively "constructing" their understanding of the world. Surely we
will feel an affinity towards such a view. It offers us (personal)
responsibility for our psychological nature; it does not leave us
passive victims of social forces. In this spirit, Wood articulates a
widely-felt caution when warning that we should be wary of attributing
to 'the effects of instruction what is properly an achievement of the
child' (1989, p. 59). But as Wood's own work elegantly demonstrates,
any simple dichotomy of instruction and autonomy is misleading. In a
cultural view, the term "social" is used to help us see beyond those
(important) interpersonal activities that characterise direct tutorial
instruction. It identifies the fact that any material environment of
learning will manifest a structure reflecting some particular
socio-cultural history. Pupils learn interpretative practices that
have this social grounding. The appropriation of such practices may
not be exclusively within the contexts of face-to-face interaction.
One focal point for confronting this tension might be Piaget's
compelling account of the active, constructing infant. In "Origins of
Intelligence" (1953), Piaget directs our attention towards the energy
and curiosity of children in their first two years of life. We are
reminded of their relentless exploration of the material world, of the
energy invested in acting upon it. In contrast, Vygotsky makes
persuasive use of the same infant explorations to illustrate his own
contrasting view: a view of early cognition as socially-mediated. He
highlights within this early period of development the basic process
whereby children come to access mediational means. Vygotsky notes
that the infant's act of grasping is re-mediated into a cultural tool
(the sign of pointing) by virtue of how the social environment reacts
to this simple activity. This was a perspective to be widely adopted
later in accounts of the social context for language acquisition (eg.
Lock, 1978). Vygotsky's interpretation of such events renders a
re-reading of Piaget's careful natural history a curious experience.
One becomes sensitive to a strange neglect of the structuring presence
of the observer himself. The parent/researcher Piaget locates and
manipulates domestic bits and pieces around which the playful
observations are made - yet, fails to incorporate an account of that
mediation in the final theory.
Perhaps there is something of a projective test entailed in witnessing
infant behaviour. One observer might be most impressed by an
autonomous and creative exploration. Another by the manner in which
the infant's environment is structured to afford particular
possibilities, and by how the inevitable presence of adults serves to
create structure through joint activity. (This same projective
quality might apply to our experience of witnessing classroom life.)
In reflecting on theoretical perspectives that help us think about
cognitive development, Goodnow (1990) expresses a contemporary
judgement on Piaget's vision of the world: '....essentially
free-market and benign. All the information is available. You may
help yourself and act for yourself. The only limitations are imposed
by the nature of your own abilities - the extent to which your schemas
or logical structures allow you to take in the information' (p. 277).
This is a characteristically modern view on the Piagetian tradition.
It regrets a failure to recognize ways in which the child's
environment is culturally structured and, in particular, ways in which
socially-organized encounters serve to constrain and afford activity
in the Piagetian "free-market" environment.
Yet, there is also a sense in the contemporary literature of wanting
to reach some compromise with Piaget. In particular, the powerful
motive to act upon the world that is implied within constructivist
accounts may be too important to risk losing sight of. We sense this
in the writing of some current cultural theorists. So, Scott et al
(1992) refer to "cultural constructivism" and in the Introduction to
his book "Culture and cognitive development", Saxe (1991) is able to
cite both Vygotsky and Piaget as working in the constructivist
tradition. Finally, the concept of "co-construction" has found favour
recently, apparently to capture a potent mix of social engagement and
creative exploration.
I am persuaded that Piaget's constructivism does fail to come to terms
with the inherently social nature of cognition. However, I am also
wary that a pendulum of opinion may now swing too carelessly towards a
version of the "social" view that is excessively narrow. Moreover,
this narrow view can not thrive as an exclusive alternative to
unadorned constructivism. Earlier in this chapter I contrasted a
societal with a social interactional interpretation of cognition's
social nature. My concern is that only the social interactional
interpretation will be recognized and, for this reason, it will be
assumed that all learning has to be organized within contexts of
face-to-face social exchange. Expressed as a crude theoretical
confrontation: the social encounter within Vygotsky's zone of proximal
development is taken as the *exclusive* model of learning - in
opposition to the reflective abstractions engaged in by Piaget's
privately constructing child.
Gelman, Massey and McManus (1991) have recently toyed with such a
contrast. They argue that learning may be supported by a great
variety of resources. Moreover, they suggest that learners can
themselves sometimes be the best judges of what defines a good
supporting environment. They may sometimes be more expert in this
than the adults (teachers and parents) who will often make these
decisions on children's' behalf. The argument is illustrated with
studies of young children learning from exhibits in a hands-on science
museum. One challenging finding is that accompanying adults often did
not take opportunities to scaffold their charges' investigations of
the learning materials to hand. So, cultural theorists should not
assume that adults are always obliging in this respect (although they
might be within the structured settings that we observe as
researchers). Another finding concerned a display dealing with
principles of motion: a computer-based demonstration was more
effective in helping children abstract the central ideas than was the
spontaneous support of accompanying adults. The warning here is that
interaction with sympathetic adults is not the exclusive route to
understanding - indeed this museum example highlights computers as one
alternative media.
I do not feel that observations of this kind seriously question the
need to view cognition and learning as socially mediated. Take a more
classroom-based example than the one described above: consider the
pupil who independently explores turtle Logo and discovers something
about, say, geometry. The learning is not scaffolded in the same
sense as the example above perhaps. But the pupil's discovery is
located in a classroom on a device that has been configured by
programmers and now used according to a schedule that is determined by
teachers and administrators. Classrooms, programmers, and teacher-led
routines are typical features of these learning circumstances:
features that reveal their socially-constituted nature. They may be
taken for granted as the (mere) backcloth against which learning
occurs, but this familiarity should not cause us to miss the
profoundly social nature of the educational setting. Moreover, having
done so, we may accept that a pupil's learning need not finally
crystallise in the particular context of (tutorial) interaction with
another person. In short, how we organize a pupil's concrete
experience at the focus of this socially-organized world need not
always demand the more intimate engagement of face-to-face discourse.
This possibility is explored in an essay by Davidson (1992). He cites
the case of Pascal, who independently reinvented much of Euclid's
geometry - an interest expressly forbidden by his father. Surely,
this illustrates an intellectual achievement that had to be divorced
from the tutorial support of face-to-face interaction? But
face-to-face exchanges are just one realization of the "social" nature
of mental life. While, in this sense, aspects of Pascal's
achievements are solitary in character, they do remain embedded in the
social world. The symbol systems that the young Pascal appropriated
arose within the conventionalising discourse of mathematicians. Yet
Davidson's example of Pascal is useful. It illustrates the
possibility of considerable intellectual achievement sustained outside
of social interaction. We are reminded that such solitary analysis is
possible; although we may believe that what is involved is more
certainly more likely to be precipitated within social interaction:
'..the inferences needed to construct knowledge do not differ
according to whether they are prompted by independently observed or by
socially received reasons - although their rate might vary
considerably' (1992, p.28).
Thus, the cultural perspective should not insist that the final path
of all new learning is a scaffolded social encounter. Neither should
it deny the creative energy that characterises our typically
constructivist attitude as individual learners. However, this does
not imply that the cultural and the Piagetian constructivist
perspectives are easily harmonised. In the end, the cultural view
distinctively analyses learning in terms of the social structure of
activity - and not in terms of changes within individuals. This
suggests a different style and content to any programme of empirical
research: a cultural approach will be more about the participatory
dimension of problem solving and of the cultural resources that can be
mobilised in the process. These two views of 'learning' also imply
different points of focus for the design of computer-based support.
What exactly is implied by constructivism for the design of such
support? Papert and his colleagues have been the most vigorous group
applying this theoretical framework to development of computer
environments for learning. Papert's original (1980) clash with the
prevailing conception of computer-as-tutor arose from his faith in a
pupil's capacity for self-directed discovery - and his mistrust of
didactic, teacher-led alternatives. With the Logo microworld, Papert
offered a marriage between this new technology and Piaget's
discovery-oriented, child-centred perspective on cognitive
development. Logo was a tool for the making of discoveries. The
child was thereby allowed to control the computer, not the computer
control the child. In this conception, the technology presents a
responsive and versatile environment within which children may extend
their discoveries of nature. Recently, Papert and his colleagues have
coined the term "constructionism" (Harel and Papert, 1991) to capture
their particular perspective on teaching and learning: one that arises
from their experience of developing these ideas in practice.
However, as we have already noted, there has been a growing unease
associated with the outcome of applying the constructivist agenda in
the form of Logo. Of course, enthusiasts can claim that the overall
vision has not been thoroughly implemented and that Logo still remains
the only fully developed illustration of what is possible (Papert,
1987). Yet, the record of success associated with this prime example
remains disappointing. A response to this might be to cite the worry
I am expressing here: the neglect of interpersonal support for the
learning. A teacher's participation does not seem to have been
written into the detailed design of such activities. Yazdani voices a
solution; although it seems to involve only a tinkering with this
balance of autonomy and collaboration. He comments: 'This shortcoming
may be alleviated by designing course-ware within which such activity
is fitted. Here a human teacher holds the pupil's hand when necessary
and leaves him free to explore when educationally effective'
(Yazdani, 1987, p.112). Thus, the social dimension of learning is
respected - but, here, only in the modest sense of teachers being
loosely-coupled to exploratory microworlds.
This hand-holding conception of teaching participation is, so far,
still a rather insubstantial middle ground. It is useful to warn
against constructivist theorisers putting so much faith in autonomous
learning that the social context is neglected. And it is useful to
query cultural theorists who might suggest that all learning must be
scaffolded through social dialogue. However, if teacher intervention
within pupils' computer-based learning is to be one way forward, we
need a greater appreciation of the particular forms that it must take.
While, agreeing with Yazdani (1987) that 'three elements are needed -
students, teachers and the computational system' (p.112), his
suggestion that teachers are furnishing the 'emotional context' does
not take us far enough. Such a "missing bit" view also is implied
within recent work by Lepper and colleagues (Lepper and Chabbay, 1988;
Lepper, Wolverton, Mumme and Gurtner, 1993). Their analysis of
limitations in computer-based tutoring suggests that what is
characteristically missing from such systems is a social capacity.
However, they believe that the difficulties of simulation have arisen
in respect of particular social skills: those concerned with managing
the affective and motivational dimensions of learning. These are
awkwardly fractured from a cognitive dimension inherent in the social
discourse of instruction (a dimension whose management is thought to
be more tractable).
I doubt that constructivist environments of computer-based learning
can be made more complete by simply appending human support - as if it
were just another resource to call upon. In particular, I question
whether the main gap that such interventions would fill is a gap in
the 'emotional context' of learning. In the next chapter, I will
consider how the nature of teacher-pupil collaborative interaction
typically goes further than this. However, here I have merely been
concerned to identify what is entailed by the theoretical orientation
of constructivism in general terms. There is much that is valuable in
this perspective. Perhaps it is only the advent of computer
technology that has associated it with the controversy of displacing
human tutoring. I will return to constructivism in the second part of
the present chapter, where I shall consider how each of the
perspectives I have outlined - cognitive, constructivist and cultural
- influence the way in which computers may be used in educational
settings.
SYNTHESIS: ARTEFACT AND THEORY
In this chapter, I have been exploring psychological frameworks on
cognition and learning. The point has been to find a useful
conceptual vocabulary: one that might help systematise our thinking
about teaching and learning supported by new technology. I am anxious
to prepare for dealing with one characteristic of computer-based
learning - the ease with which it separates from the interpersonal
communication typical of learning from other resources. In Chapter 1,
we noted that this dislocation from the social exchange of classrooms
worried practitioners. The point of adopting some distinctive
theoretical framework is to help articulate the basis for such
concerns. Until recently, practitioners will have found little
support within psychology for any commitment they may feel towards
regarding learning as a socially-organized achievement. Now there is
a framework that helps develop this idea. I outlined the framework
in Chapter 2 - the socio-cultural approach.
In the present chapter, the cultural approach to cognition has been
contrasted with others from the mainstream of psychology. "Approach"
is a carefully chosen word in this context. The contrasts I have been
making identify fairly loosely-knit collections of ideas. Others
exploring such contrasts have suggested that these approaches might be
best characterised as "worldviews" (Agre, 1993) - rather than
"theories". Is there a focal point for that collection of ideas
comprising the cultural worldview on cognition? One good contender is
found in Suchman's characterisation of this framework: 'constructing
accounts of relations among people, and between people and the
historically and culturally constituted worlds that they inhabit
together' (Suchman, 1993, p.71). She contrasts this with a
perspective more typical of mainstream psychology 'dedicated to
explicating those processes of perception and reasoning understood
traditionally to go on inside the head' (op. cit., p.71).
This *social* perspective on cognition is the one which I am most
anxious to capture here. In what follows, I shall call upon this
perspective, as well as others that have arisen above in reviewing the
various worldviews. I shall consider how they each furnish a
distinctive approach to the realization of computer-supported
learning. In my own view, the worldview of cultural psychology offers
the most promising way forward. However, concrete examples of
practice guided by a cultural perspective may make that claim more
convincing. Such examples will be elaborated in later chapters. What
should be possible first is a general situating of the
culturally-inspired approach: locating it in relation to other
theoretical options. Characterising my preferred framework in this
way should create a useful springboard for the themes of collaboration
to be explored in the remainder of this book.
This review of theory will comprise four brief sections. The aim is
to reflect on a tension between artefact and theory: between
computers-for-learning and psychologies-of-learning. So, first, I
shall make some observations about microcomputers as physical objects
that get located in classrooms. It will be argued that their material
nature invites a certain pattern of use. Then, I shall highlight
certain central features of cognitive, constructivist and cultural
worldviews that interact with this material nature in important ways.
In fact, I hope this review will highlight a certain chemistry
involving theory and artefact: one that may be underpinning
distinctive (and controversial) varieties of educational practice.
Some relevant features of computers as artefacts
One distinctive feature of this technology is its physically
self-contained nature. This is significant for determining how gets
used in teaching and learning. It is true that computers can be
hooked up to other classroom equipment (say, in support of scientific
measurements) but, in general, they naturally function as
circumscribed screen-plus-input devices. A consequence of this design
is that they are readily positioned in their own classroom locations;
perhaps physically set apart from the main arena of educational
activity.
This need not be so, but other properties of computers surely
encourage this dislocated status. Many programmes written for them
may strike teachers as explicitly designed to function as stand-alone
activities. Suchman (1987) identifies three properties of the
technology that indirectly may promote this way of thinking. She
notes that computers have reactive, linguistic and opaque properties.
They are *reactive* because user actions are typically and immediately
met with (non-random) machine re-actions. Suchman argues that this
encourages the attribution of a sense of purpose - a capability,
perhaps, for sustaining self-contained interactions. Then, they are
*linguistic* because users employ common language to control them
(rather than buttons and levers). Suchman argues that this reinforces
talking about our encounters with computers in the same terms we talk
about human interaction. Finally, they are *opaque*. This argument
echoes Dennett's (1978) claim that the urge to ascribe intention to
human behaviour arises from our inability to see inside each others
heads - our mutual opacity. So, similarly, we may ascribe intention
and purpose to these opaque machines. The argument also refers to the
complex, yet structurally undifferentiated nature of the computer: the
fact that functioning is not readily describable in terms of
particular, graspable local events. This encourages a reification -
we speak of "its" activity.
In summary, then, this technology has both a self-contained and an
interactive quality. So, it may strike practitioners as offering a
focal point within a particular classroom niche: one where autonomous
and lively activity can be supported. The apparently purposeful,
challenging nature of the medium sustains pupils' interest and keeps
them busy. They may be seen as productively "getting on with it".
Conversely, the technology does not seem strongly to invite teacher
intervention. This, of course, may be very welcome in the demanding
environment of a full classroom.
How may learning in such an environment be interpreted? What happens
to pupils when they to go there to learn? Perhaps they retreat to the
computer area and occupy themselves until a task is complete.
(Educational software will often furnish a comfortable sense of
closure - the exercises are done, the pattern is constructed, the
treasure is found, and so on.) At the end, what is there to show for
this investment? Sometimes there will be visible, maybe tangible,
products; but, even then, the *process* whereby this creativity was
possible is invariably lost. What was actually done is too often
hidden from tutorial support (from teachers and others). It is
hidden simply because of the transitory nature of interactions
mediated by screen displays. The task may create a conclusion, and by
some criterion or other it may be satisfactory; but there will
probably be no recoverable record of the pupils' landmarking
achievements along the way to their final product. Moreover, as
Hoyles comments: '..correct answers may well hide incorrect processes'
(1985b, p.10) - a point noted and well illustrated in relation to
computer work by Moore (1993).
I have suggested that the structural properties of this technology
naturally promote a rather dislocated pattern of use. This is for
two reasons. The technology is materially self-contained, and it is
also "interactive". Together, these properties serve to sustain
circumscribed pupil engagements. This may or may not be seen
as a desirable style of working. So, what is its relation with
psychological theories about good circumstances for learning - are
they in harmony, or not? I shall argue below that some of the
theoretical themes discussed earlier seem actively to endorse this
pattern of use. Others can be made consistent with it. But others
caution that we should configure the place of computers-for-learning
differently: we should make them more central to the social fabric of
educational communities.
The artefact in conjunction with cognitive theories
Cognitive psychological perspectives were outlined earlier in this
chapter. At their core is a commitment to explaining intelligent
activity in terms of mental information processing. Human knowledge
is understood in terms of stored symbols; thinking or reasoning
is understood in terms of symbol manipulation. According to Vera and
Simon (1993), these symbols are patterns - of some kind; they are
organized into symbol structures through sets of relations. Their
physical representation in the brain is assumed, but not known; and,
for purposes of psychological analysis, not needed to be known. Such
theories, long-established within Psychology are now attracting some
criticism. Clancey (1993) has cited numerous commentators who argue
that this view of cognition has exercised an unwelcome influence:
serving to distort creativity within a variety of human enterprises.
Organizational practices within modern economies are cited as one
broad example: Winograd and Flores (1986) make such a case in relation
to the deployment of new technology in business. We must include
among these examples the danger of distorting effects in respect of
computers and education. Cognitive theories, in which all intelligent
activity is understood in terms of computations in a private mental
world, tend to cultivate a particular stance on the psychology of
learning. Traditional cognitive theorising does not adequately
challenge the organization of computers into self-contained
arrangements - as characterised above. In fact, it may tend to
reinforce them. It may offer some endorsement to the dislocation of
computer work from a mainstream of socially-organized educational
practice.
I suggest that this arises through the promotion of two particular
ideas. The first concerns the possibility of empowering computers to
participate in something like human conversational dialogue. If this
is thought possible, then software authors will attempt machine-based
reproductions of the dialogues associated with instruction. The
second idea concerns conceptions of the outcomes of "learning": how
the symbolising cognitive apparatus gets altered by participation in
educational activities. Some characterisations of such outcomes are,
again, in harmony with more self-contained modes of arranging
computer-based learning. I will briefly elaborate each of these two
cognitive themes in order to clarify their bearing on educational
practice.
First, on the conversational potential of this technology: It was
noted above that the reactive, linguistic and opaque properties of
computers combine to create a sense of interactivity. Such
impressions have intrigued cognitive theorists. They have pursued the
goal of refining this interactivity to make it appear increasingly
intelligent; increasingly reflecting the feel of human communication.
Yet, Suchman (1987) questions whether orthodox cognitive approaches
are likely to succeed in this aim. She evaluates their agenda in
relation to the problem of designing a particular instructional
sequence - one that can be incorporated into a piece of office
equipment, and delivered so as to guide its operation by a novice
user. Even this apparently simple task is shown to be very difficult
to bring off. Her empirical observations suggest that simulating real
open-ended educational discourse will turn out to be a particularly
daunting task.
However, Suchman's view - which I find persuasive - is not simply
that, in practice, it proves hard to automate instruction
sequences. It may be an inherently flawed enterprise. She argues it
is grounded in a mistaken conception of how human communication is
managed. This conception is one derived from cognitive theory. It
reflects a preoccupation with explanations of behaviour built around
plans: resources arising from cognitive computations and supposedly
guiding our actions. In cognitive theory, the execution of plans is
supposed to explain individual actions. It is also invoked to explain
joint activity, particularly communication. In such a model,
effective communication is said to depend upon our capacity to read
the underlying plans of others. During communication, this mutual
interpretative ability allows us to recognize and exploit access to
bodies of shared understanding - data to drive our exchanges. Such a
computational model may seem to offer the prospect of simulating
discourse (say, instructional discourse) within a human-computer
interaction. A machine might be programmed to have the same symbolic
computing capacity as a human communicator. So it might generate, and
recognize in others, plans. It might, thereby, communicate. Yet this
is a controversial account of what must be simulated in order to
reproduce human discourse. I shall examine the controversy in the
following chapter, where the possible instructional capabilities of
computers are considered in a little more detail. For present
purposes, I only wish to identify this tradition of cognitive
theorising as offering authority to the idea of computers
"instructing". We need not dwell at once on whether this authority is
credible when closely analysed. The point is, it forms some part of a
climate of beliefs: beliefs that this technology can, at least
sometimes, be trusted to conduct the traditionally social task of
instruction. Moreover, to some extent, we can leave it to go about
doing this.
Faith in the possible simulation of instructional conversation is one
product of cognitive psychology that I believe reinforces the social
dislocation of classroom computers. The second concerns how we
conceptualise the very ingredients of cognition - and, thus, how we
conceptualise what gets learned. There is an orthodox cognitivist
perspective on this. It may originate in the attraction many
cognitive psychologists have towards research on human skilled action
(cf. Miller, Galanter and Pribram, 1960). What research on skills
tends to encourage is an expression of the computations of mental
activity in terms of "thinking skills". From there, the metaphor of
intelligence as underpinned by a cognitive "toolkit" is easily
appropriated. This form of analysis is nicely illustrated in a book
on computers and learning written from within the cognitive
psychological tradition by Underwood and Underwood (1990).
These authors define an approach for using computers in learning whose
aim is:
..to provide children with the ability to think. This is achieved
by providing them with the basic skills - the cognitive toolkit - and
with experiences of the use of different combinations of the
components of their toolkit in problem-solving exercises.
(1990,p.29)
I find this acquisition/application distinction difficult to sustain;
a different psychological model may be more helpful. The distinction
suggests that we offer learners activities that equip them with the
basic tools and, then, activities that allow them to reach for these
tools and apply them (in creative and novel combinations). But where
does the break occur: how clearly can learning tasks be identified as
being about acquiring new tools versus using them?
It is implied teachers need to involve computers in 'two broad classes
of activity' (Underwood and Underwood, 1990, p. 29) but they turn out
to be hard to differentiate. In fact, these authors resist taking the
differentiating step that might tempt many practitioners: offer
children one class of focussed activities (drills) that give dense
practice in the underlying skills while, at other times, offer more
open-ended problems in which the skills are integrated and applied.
This is the very route that such theorising might encourage.
However, Underwood and Underwood's own preference is an exclusive
promotion of activities in the open-ended category. This is welcome.
But hard to derive from a toolkit model. Their rejection of
programmes offering intensive skill-centred practice is made on
the grounds of them being less motivating (op. cit., p.34). Thus,
presumably, they are less efficient. However, even the early
developers of computer drills identified the very opposite problem as
common: students "trapped" into a sustained use of such activities
(cf. Noble, 1991, chapter 7). In any case, when under- or over-
motivation does not seem a conspicuous problem, why not provide skills
practice in a drilled way - rather than tolerate the low density
practice inherent in open-ended programs?
The notion of discrete, general purpose thinking skills may encourage
just this kind of reasoning. The analogies driving this theoretical
framework are seductive. We do, intuitively, recognize that certain
ways of thinking and reasoning seem to have generality: they seem to
get mobilized within a variety of particular situations. So this
invites reification. "Tool" is one metaphor that follows. Although
there is a mixed bag of metaphors possible: for example, "skills",
"tools" and "cognitive health" (op. cit., p.38). What they share,
however, is a focus on cognition as involving core mental processes
that are deployed freely across problem solving domains. Yet do such
processes provide the best explanation of the continuity that we
sense within our thinking and reasoning? I believe such theorising
trades too much on becoming "equipped" with private, self-contained
mental resources. However, what is relevant to the theme of the
present chapter is the classroom practice potentially encouraged by
such an analysis. The analysis may tempt the cultivation of core
tools through efficient but decontextualised activities. It may,
then, tempt a belief that when a learner is witnessed to be exercising
a particular cognitive tool, so the work of acquisition for that core
skill has been achieved. It is available and we merely have to
*motivate* its application elsewhere. Computers may seem to furnish
circumscribed settings in which the use of a given tool can be
precipitated; or suitably honed for application in other settings - a
kind of workshop environment. In other words, the availability of the
tool is not contextually studied in this analysis. So, it becomes a
perspective that may distract attention from overarching social
processes in instruction: the very processes I would suggest are
implicated in creating such cross-situational continuities of thinking
and reasoning that we intuitively recognize do occur.
In summary, cognitive psychology fails to take seriously the social
context of computer-based learning. Indirectly, then, it may
legitimise a dislocation of classroom computers: a social decoupling
already suggested by the material nature of this artefact. I have
argued that, firstly, a cognitivist orientation encourages attempts to
develop machine-based instructional dialogue. Evidently, such
computer-as-tutor applications separate the technology from a social
context: the whole point is to reproduce and replace (human) teacher
intervention. Secondly, cognitive psychology neglects the
contextualised nature of learning in favour of the view that
what is acquired are general-purpose ways of acting. So, it
encourages a "bottom-up" analysis of mental life: an orientation
suggesting a toolshed of discrete, cognitive resources. Within such a
framework, computers might seem attractive and self-contained
laboratory environments for a forging of the tools.
The artefact in conjunction with constructivist theory
Cognitivist and constructivist perspectives have plenty of common
ground. For one thing, constructivist theories (as epitomised by
Piaget's work) share an interest in defining general purpose cognitive
structures. For another, they do not favour contextualist analyses of
cognition. Thus, some of the worries rehearsed in the previous
section apply again in this one. However, there are two aspects of
constructivist thinking that I wish to highlight as distinctive to the
tradition. They are each very relevant to this problem of integrating
computers into a social context of learning. The first concerns a
pupil-centred view of learning; the second, again, concerns the
application of a certain tool-for-thinking species of metaphor.
Neither aspects of the approach are inherently incompatible with the
computational orientation of cognitive psychology. Rather, they
represent considerations that are simply more central to a
constructivist view.
Cognitive psychologists often turn to constructivism when they
confront questions of how conditions for learning should be organized.
Unfortunately, their own perspective on the nature of cognition
has inspired few rich theories concerned with managing the processes
of learning. Theorising tends to focus on the varieties of
structuring that must be imposed on to-be-learned material -
structuring that will best harmonise with human information processing
strategies. For some, this may seem to place the pupil in an
unattractively passive posture: a hapless processor of well-packaged
knowledge. Cognitive psychologists sensitive to the atmosphere of
actual classrooms (cf. Underwood and Underwood, 1990) may turn to
constructivist ideas. They may argue for a learning environment that
respects the exploratory, creative basis of cognitive change. In such
a Piagetian constructivist environment, the learner acts upon the
world, and then abstracts understandings from private reflection on
the consequences of that action. There is a metaphor within this of
the learner as (experimental) scientist. In general terms,
psychologists concerned with information processing may relate
favourably to this image. Although, it is not clear whether learning
that is pupil-centred in this sense can be systematised comfortably
within their preferred vocabulary of cognitive computations.
The significant point is that this theorising tends to direct
attention towards the crafting of environments suitable for such
learning-by-discovery: how to define settings where pupils may explore
and, thereby, construct new understandings for themselves.
Inevitably, at the same time, pupil-centred theorising distracts our
attention from the interpersonal dimension of learning: how it is
supported by the interventions of other people. In such a
climate of theorising, computers may be appropriated to provide just
this kind of self-contained, facilitating setting. In a book
concerning constructivist computer environments, the following is
asserted:
But education - real education - is not something performed on
someone, nor is it something one *gets*; it is something one *does*
for oneself (Falbel, 1991, p.30).
The idea that it might be a *collaborative* achievement is not an
option in this list. Of course, in principle, actual constructivist
computer environments might well incorporate opportunities for support
at the level of tutorial collaboration. But, in reality, the
interactivity of computer-based microworlds can render this support
(apparently) less necessary: pupils who get stuck can often experiment
their way forward. Indeed, such autonomy may seem very desirable.
There is a second constructivist theme that I believe can seduce us
into neglecting the social context of education. It concerns how to
define the nature of structural changes associated with learning
something. Again, we encounter the tool metaphor, but in a rather
different guise. Constructivism dwells upon pupil activity. It
encourages the design of environments in which that activity may be
creative. So, under this tradition, computers are unlikely to be
deployed in their more didactic tutorial mode. Instead, an ideal
constructivist computer environment might be one that furnishes the
pupil with some generic tool (text processor, spreadsheet etc.). At
other times, the computer might offer rather more specific
"microworlds" for pupils to explore or control: again, we may say they
are enjoying a "*tool* to think with". If a pupil succeeds in
effectively controlling such a tool, the designers of these
environments obviously seek to characterise what cognitive benefits
have resulted.
Sometimes the framework of cognitive psychology, as presented above,
might be invoked. It might be said that the computer environment is
allowing the exercise or integration of core cognitive skills. But
the ambitious designer might wish to identify more far-reaching
impacts than refinement-through-meaningful-practice. In such cases,
effects on the learner are naturally expressed in terms of
cognitive-structural changes. Most straightforwardly, it may be
claimed that acquired ways of acting with the computer tool get
internalized. This thereby creates cognitive structures to be
understood as new private tools of thought. In Salomon's (1988)
apposite phrase, we witness IA, or 'artificial intelligence in
reverse'. "Reversed", because the intelligence acquired originates in
the artefact: the human computer-user internalises computational
resources encountered in the course of controlling the technology.
For Salomon and others there is, thus, a 'cognitive residue' arising
from mastering certain computer tools or controlling certain
microworlds.
"Internalization" is an attractive concept to express such an outcome;
although not the only one. One alternative is that proposed for the
'cognitive residue' associated with learning computer programming.
It is claimed that programming in Logo is a cognitively "powerful"
experience because it makes concrete for the novice programmer certain
strategic processes fundamental to problem solving (Lawler, 1987). An
example might be the mastery of writing "procedures" - self-contained
units of code, the building blocks of a program. Here, it is argued,
what mediates the creation of a useful cognitive residue is not
"internalization". It is some (more constructivist) process of
reflective abstraction - reflection centred about these procedures as
products of thought. Through successful programming, learners are
empowered to confront and examine a concrete representation of their
problem solving processes.
Such interpretation converges on a view of learning similar to the
cognitive psychological theorising outlined above. The key similarity
(for present purposes) is that the outcomes of effective
computer-based learning experiences are characterised in tool-like,
domain-general terms. (On the other hand, a difference might be that
the cognitivist orientation tends to focus on activities that afford
"practice" from the learner; while the constructivist orientation
tends to focus on activities that afford "reflective abstraction".)
Regarding the similarities of position, I should stress that neither
cognitive nor constructivist theorists will necessarily highlight
these claims about tools. They will not necessarily foreground the
general-purpose character of a given cognitive acquisition - as if it
were always a strong empirical claim. It would be fairer to say that
such claims emerge from the literature as implications that invariably
are easily drawn. This is simply because cognitive and constructivist
empirical work on computer-based learning largely ignores the issue of
contextual constraints on acquisitions. It proceeds *as if* what is
learned has generality - or takes the form of new cognitive tools.
Both themes discussed in this section probably enjoy a natural appeal
and, thereby, may readily underpin classroom practice. Firstly, the
notion of pupil-centred learning probably resonates will with
prevailing ideology in cultures where individual agency is highly
prized. Secondly, the notion of acquiring general tools of thought is
an attractively straightforward metaphor for intellectual change
during development. It fits with our fashioning the classroom to be a
general purpose environment - rather than another particular context
where rather particular things get done (Lave, 1988; Guberman and
Greenfield, 1991). Again, my conclusion is as in the previous
section. An influential tradition of psychological theorising
conspires with the material nature of the computer to encourage a
certain pattern of use. That pattern of use makes it too easy for
computer-based learning to fracture from a mainstream of
socially-organized educational practice.
The artefact in conjunction with cultural theory
I see the framework of socio-cultural theorising as a check on this
fracturing tendency. However, first, note the continuity between
cultural and constructivist thinking - the shared commitment to an
active learner. Cole and Griffin's remark: '...thinking is always and
everywhere the internalization of the means, modes and contents of the
communications activities that exist in the culture into which one is
born' (1980, p.356). This suggests an image of learners actively
abstracting order from the world - as a consequence of their
participatory encounters within it. However, compared to traditional
constructivist thinking, the cultural version pays more attention to
an "order" in the world that specifically arises from social history
(artefacts, institutions, technologies etc.). It also sees processes
of social interaction as more important in supporting cognitive change
- where traditional constructivism may stress processes of
(independent) reflective abstraction. Finally, socio-cultural
theorising is less ready to conceptualise general (tool-like)
cognitive changes as the outcome of learning encounters.
These points of contrast identify two themes that I wish to highlight.
They are each theoretical commitments relevant to guiding the
educational use of computers. The discussion of them will involve
some consolidation of points that I have already made. The two themes
concern: (i) the cultural perspective on conceputalising the
cognitive change arising from "learning" and, (ii) how this
perspective characterises environments that are supportive of learners
- environments of education.
The theoretical concepts central to these two themes are,
respectively, mediational means and social interaction. In relation
to them, the following typically is claimed. Appropriation of
mediational means is central to characterising the achievements of
learning. Social interaction is crucial to supporting the effort
towards such achievements. However, these propositions may sometimes
seem tangled. For social interaction can also constitute the actual
mediational means to be acquired - as well as being implicated in the
process of educational support (on occasions where other, more
materially-based forms of mediation are being appropriated). Social
interaction can constitute interpretative practices that we acquire as
new mediational means: such 'ways with words' may mediate new forms of
interaction within our environments. We may often analyse
participation within social interaction in terms of these outcomes.
Yet, at other times (particularly in classrooms) we may wish to
analyse social processes in terms of their contribution to the mastery
of some other mediational means: in terms of a system of learning
support.
Thus, the contemporary cultural literature happens to have much more
to say about social interaction than any other theme. Put the other
way round, it has so far been distracted from saying very much about
other forms of mediation: other technologies and artefacts entering
into cognitive activity. For example, in a recent review, Wertsch and
Kanner (1992) can fill several pages identifying studies of social
interaction within learning. But when they come to summarise
empirical work on mediation, their discussion is much shorter.
Moreover, their discussion is exclusively about "ways of talking" as
mediational means. This is quite legitimate: language practices are
potent examples for any discussion of this topic. However, a focus on
language tends to blur the separate consideration of "social
interaction" and "mediation" - a distinction being made here (and one
made by others such as Wertsch and Kanner). This blurring may
contribute to the popular impression that cultural theory is only
concerned with interpersonal interaction. While, strictly, this may
be a false impression, it remains true that there is scant empirical
research in the cultural tradition that is about other mediational
means than spoken or written language. So, there are few examples of
a socio-cultural analysis applied to learning where material artefacts
are central to the mediational process (although see Hutchins (1986)
for one relevant analysis). This is particularly disappointing for my
present purposes here, as I am anxious to locate such a potential case
for analysis - computers - within this cultural framework.
Yet, such an analysis remains viable. It can be applied most
naturally to styles of computer-based learning described in Chapter 1
in terms of computer-as-pupil/tool. In what follows, I shall consider
the general directions a culturally-influenced account of
computer-supported learning might take.
First it may be necessary to accept a different unit of analysis from
that typical in psychological theorising. In characterising human
cognition, Psychologists have focussed on the individual (and the
individual's covert cognitive structures). Cultural approaches
suggest attention to "functional systems": systems of cognitive
activity in which individuals are participants - interacting with
various mediational means in the interests of achieving some goal.
There is a parallel here with physiological systems (a link developed
by certain early cultural psychologists (eg., Luria, 1973), through
their practical interest in neuropsychology). For example, when
"respiration" is termed a physiological function - this does not mean
it is something with a simple location in some tissue or other (cf.
treatments of "memory" located thus as a psychological function).
Respiration is properly termed a "functional system" because it
comprises a variable mechanism organized towards an invariant goal.
That is, the constituent activities of a system such as respiration
are versatile: they may, for example, permit substitutions or
reorganizations in the face of disruption applied to that system. So,
we may say the same for a psychological function: disruption of an
existing reliable mechanism may allow reorganisation through alternate
mediational means.
The case for orienting towards functional systems - rather than
individual cognitions - has been more fully argued by Newman et al
(1989, chapter 4). They suggest that efforts to characterise
*internal* cognitive representations should be greatly aided by being
able to observe their 'external analogues' in functional systems of
activity (op. cit., p.73). In other words, the intrapsychological
plane of mental life is comprehensively related to an
interpsychological plane of practical activity, and theorising should
explore that dialectic (cf. Hutchins, 1986). An advantage for our
present interest is that this perspective can take much more seriously
the status of external cognitive supports: such as the various
material technologies that enter into problem solving efforts. We
are, thereby, lead to ask how computers - as a particular example of
interest - might enter into such functional systems as mediational
means.
Consider cases from the computer-as-pupil/tool range of possibilities.
A pupil's production of geometrical shapes might be analysed as a
functional system of activity - typical of those cultivated within
classroom life. The resources of Logo-based turtle graphics could
then be viewed as new mediational means that are inserted into this
system. Logo provides children with a new device for manipulating
certain familiar graphic products: generating visual patterns through
controlling the execution of various computer commands and procedures.
In the course of all this, we say that the manner in which the
activity of *doing* geometry is organized gets altered. Our
analysis of this achievement turns away from expressing it in terms
of changes in underlying cognitive storehouses of knowledge. It
turns instead to characterise mediational changes in cognitive
*practice*. To take another example, the effects of computer-based
word processing on the functional system of children's writing
also might be analysed in just this way. Word processing technology
re-mediates the activity of producing text. This is reflected in
new ways of presenting, composing and communicating ideas in
writing. In these examples, what is changed is how we go about being
"mathematicians" or being "story writers" (or, on other occasions, it
might be changes within our efforts to be "biologists", "designers"
and so forth).
Of course such changes may not always be welcomed. In fact,
some criticism of educational technology is grounded in worries about
its mediational effects. For example, in Chapter 1, I noted Cuffaro's
(1984) concern that access to highly manipulable computer painting and
drawing tools will narrow a pupil's experience of graphical
representation. The expressive possibilities in becoming a visual
artist, it is argued, can be effectively constrained by this new
mediational means. Another example would be Johnson's (1991) concern
that database programmes might re-organize the activity of being an
historian, leading it to become dominated by arid data manipulation.
Roszak (1986) voices similar concerns over a much wider range of
intellectual activities.
More often, the effects of introducing computers into a functional
system are greeted favourably. For instance, this is frequently the
case for the examples of Logo and word processing. However, both
enthusiasm and criticism arises from the fact that re-mediation
involves more than creating some expected intellectual product more
quickly, or more profusely or more fluently. This narrower sense of
"amplifying" what is achieved may be claimed (cf. Cole and Griffin,
1980). What is more interesting is how the "prospects" for the
learner may have altered. The creation or elaboration of functional
systems promises extended resources for new patterns of intellectual
involvement - in mathematics, writing or whatever. New mediational
means may sometimes narrow such future creative possibilities (as
critics can claim) but they may also enrich them. For example, word
processing may well make the writer more productive (more words, more
quickly etc.). But it may also have other effects. It may alter the
way the system is carried out. So, computer-mediated writing may
afford new ways of editing text. It may alter the way in which this
system relates to, and enters into, other systems of activity. Thus,
computer-mediated writing may permit the products to contribute to new
patterns of communication with others (eg., desk top publishing or
electronic mail). It may also displace or undermine earlier skills and
patterns of exchange.
Raising these possibilities brings us to what I think is a
particularly important contribution of cultural theorising to the
interpretation of computer-based learning. It concerns how we
understand any extended "reach" that new forms of mediation might
create for a given functional system: how the learner is
empowered to think more effectively in new situations. Traditional
approaches propose that learning involves changes in underlying
cognitive structures: these are then brought into play to enrich new
activities. The cultural approach sees the extension of a functional
system of activity as arising more from organizing and directing
pressures arising from the socio-cultural environment. More exactly:
first, the approach tends to regard new learning as strongly situated
or circumscribed within the particular contexts of activity that are
arranged for it. Second, it assumes generalisation and elaboration
occur because of various forms of socially-organized intervention.
Particularly in school, steps are actively taken by others to
appropriate newly organized functional systems into other, associated
systems of activity. I shall say more about this in the next chapter.
For the moment, this leads us to confront and define the social
organization that does usually characterise educational settings.
For, the business of encountering new mediational means is claimed to
be strongly supported by such social engagements. Recall that
mediation was the first of two cultural psychological themes I am
highlighting here - the second being a focus on the socially-grounded
nature of cognition. I will conclude this section by bringing into
focus the nature of the social context that pupils currently encounter
during schooled learning. The word "social" applied to this context
is intended to identify more than face-to-face exchanges between
people. However, I shall suggest that a richer sense of "social" that
is intended still requires such interpersonal exchanges to be
prominent - if the societal context of activity is to work effectively
as an environment for learning. This key role for social
*interaction* is a theme I shall then develop in the next chapter.
As I have stressed in the last chapter, cultural psychology promotes
two senses in which cognition and cognitive change are "socially"
grounded. Firstly, learning has a social quality by virtue of its
relation to practices of interpersonal exchange - participating in
relevant discourse and joint activity. Secondly, learning is socially
grounded in the "societal" sense: it takes place within an
historically-defined and socially-organized framework of cultural
resources - artefacts, rituals, symbol systems and so forth.
The first of these two senses of social context has been more easily
grasped, and more widely implicated in educational theorising. It is
evidently relevant to my concern that computer-based learning may not
be assimilated into the social fabric of learning. It might lead to
the suggestion that teachers intervene more in (solitary)
pupil-machine learning. This would create more tutorial input - in
the social interactional sense. Such solutions encourage more
assertive or more carefully contrived episodes of instructional
intervention: teachers playing more part in their pupils'
explorations. Lepper and Chabay (1988) and Yazdani (1987) toy with
possibilities of this general kind. Perhaps they may be appropriate
where the form of activity in question is exploratory
(computer-as-pupil); although it is less clear how more assertive
involvement is created for more closed types of exercise
(computer-as-tutor). However, I believe dwelling only on this form of
solution will miss the significance of a cultural analysis as implied
by the second sense in which learning is viewed as socially grounded -
the societal sense.
What does this second sense of cognition's social character imply for
the effective incorporation of computers? It requires us to attend to
the kind of consideration expressed in a quotation from Scribner
(1990) used earlier in this chapter. She encourages us to give more
consideration to 'how cultural communities this world over organize
activity settings for the "social transfer of cognition"' (p.93).
This invites us to attend more to the social fabric that surrounds and
supports the learner - the established traditions and technologies
that constitute 'activity settings'.
To observe a school and to declare that the learning therein has a
"socially-organized basis" need not suggest that pupils' activities
are constantly guided by intimate tutorial contact. They may be a lot
of the time, but - particularly where computers have penetrated - what
pupils are often doing may have a solitary character. That is, it may
not incorporate much face-to-face social interaction. However,
schools and other traditional sites for the organization of learning
are socially-defined in a more profound sense than this. Thus,
schools and their classrooms are structures comprising conventions,
technologies, rituals, architecture and other distinctive features
that have evolved through our cultural history. This sociocultural
identity therefore influences learning through its' structuring of
motives, goals, values, priorities, assessment and so forth. It
specifies a pattern of relations among domains of knowledge that
define a "curriculum"; it describes social roles and rules for the
management of attention; it exercises various links with other
community structures, including families; it furnishes various kinds
of technologies and resources to support study; it imposes a
particular style of cognitive work through the organization and
management of physical space. Of all the human activity we may
suggest to be "socially-grounded", learning within the setting of
institutionalized schooling must be one of the most vivid examples.
How can the incorporation of computers into education bear upon its
"social" nature in this sense? At one level, the classroom computer
is merely another technological intrusion into an environment that is
already preoccupied with technologies and their deployment. This
invites a cultural line of analysis that dwells upon the social
history of their development: revealing how the activity of designers
and innovators has imparted to this technology characteristics that
afford or constrain how it might now be used (cf. Habermas, 1987;
Noble, 1991). However, my purpose in raising this second sense of
learning as socially-grounded was not to open up the possibility of
that particular discussion. My purpose was to make a more
straightforward point: namely, that this social fabric of education
does evoke a participant structure. There are ways in which people
must act in order to coordinate it and, thereby, make it work for
pupils. Such a sophisticated sociocultural system has to be kept
knitted together; the system will incorporate roles, responsibilities
and expectations that serve to support such integration. Through it,
various kinds of continuity and connection may be created that define
the overall experience of "school" or "learning". Particular things
get done and said to integrate pupils' discrete learning experiences
into a richer texture of shared communication and understanding.
One way to put this, is to claim that the classroom community will
resist the creation of "vacuums" for learning to occur in: resist the
possibility of learning becoming divorced from other past and present
understandings achieved in the overall setting. However, it might be
hard for the participants to appreciate that this quality of
continuity does characterise their enterprise - hard to identify it
from the familiarity of being inside it, as it were. The significant
point is that this consideration of a schooling context returns us to
an interest in the organization of communicative activities. But now
these activities arise, not in the form of intimate tutorial guidance
(the most accessible sense in which "learning" is recognized as being
about social interaction). Instead, they arise through the demands of
sustaining a certain socio-cultural fabric.
Naturally, I am suggesting that this fabric is important. What pupils
achieve depends upon schools grounding learning in a socio-cultural
context understood in this sense. But I am also suggesting that the
way we deploy new technology in classrooms is very relevant to the
quality of such a context. So, the tension between computers and the
social character of education arises not simply because we have some
rigid belief that learning must always be mediated by a human
instructor acting in a tutorial relationship to a pupil. There may be
a need to preserve comprehensive opportunities for such focussed
guidance. However, there is also this other, more overarching sense
of social interaction that needs consideration. Computer-based
activities may encourage a dispersal of learning into discrete and too
self-contained experiences. This technology has a capacity for
motivating and directing problem solving activity to be a fairly
autonomous experience. There is something attractive to this. But
it does serve to moderate some of the preparatory or synthesising
interventions that teachers naturally offer.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I identified two well-established traditions of
psychological theorising: cognitive psychology and constructivism. I
sketched their features in a way that I hope allows the character of a
third possible perspective (cultural psychology) to be appreciated
more clearly. I then considered the relationship of these theories to
computer-based learning. My argument has been that there is a certain
chemistry involving the material nature of the technology and ideas at
the core of orthodox psychological theorising about learning. The
product of this chemistry is that computers are all too readily
separated from the mainstream of classroom life. Their material
properties tend to invite this, and prevailing theories about learning
and cognition do not adequately challenge such a trend.
Is there evidence that dislocation from the social context of learning
can undermine what pupils achieve? The little direct evidence
available tends to point this way. Thus, to some commentators,
evaluation studies of learning with certain computer microworlds (such
as Logo) are strongly suggestive: they imply that the impacts of
learning in these settings are not readily visible outside of the
microworlds themselves (eg., Simon, 1987; Yazdani, 1987). The
shortfall of these microworlds in practice is well expressed in
reflections from one commentator working inside the cognitive
tradition of artificial intelligence (AI):
AI has not yet been able to translate its successful attempts with
microworlds to the real world. There seems to be such a level of
increase in complexity of the domain when moving away from the
microworlds to the real ones, that most lessons need to be relearned.
(Yazdani, 1987, p.112)
The evidence suggests that the problems are located in poor contact
between the pupils' microworld activity and traditional forms of
teacher intervention (Pea and Kurland, 1987). These conclusions are
fairly compelling - although there is debate as to whether
constructivist agendas for educational technology really did intend
that computer-based learning should separate from socially-organized
instruction (Papert, 1987). Whatever, the intention, it seems that
this dislocation does easily happen. It is also clear that, in their
current work, the early innovators now pay much more attention to
specifying a supportive social framework (Ennals, 1993; Resnick, 1991;
Turkle and Papert, 1991).
My account here of a cultural perspective on learning and cognition
should indicate that this approach will have a particular interest in
computers as they are applied to education. This is partly because a
central concept in the cultural approach is "mediation". Cognition is
viewed as human activity mediated by the technologies, artefacts and
rituals that have emerged within the history of a particular culture.
Cognitive change and development then involves the appropriation of
such mediational means as those represented in new technology. I
suggested above that the proper unit of analysis for understanding
this cognition was a functional system: coordinated cognitive
*activity*, often incorporating forms of external support (as well
illustrated by the example of computers). Mediation, as it occurs
within functional systems of activity, helps us understand the nature
of cognition. What of learning, or cognitive *change*? Here again
the cultural perspective should have a special interest in computers.
This is because their common pattern of use can conflict with a second
key concept in this tradition of theorising: the social basis of
cognition.
A concern with mediation was certainly one concept central to the
cultural approach of Vygotsky and his contemporaries. But, alone, it
would not set the socio-cultural theorists apart as a distinctive
movement within psychology. What does set them apart is the
combination of their concern for mediation and their commitment to a
related claim: the claim that cognition is *socially* constituted.
Cultural psychology makes sense of "learning" by reference to the
social structure of activity - rather than by reference to the mental
structure of individuals. We are encouraged to analyse learning by
paying careful attention to two features of its typical format.
Firstly, learners bring established functional systems of cognition to
any new situation for learning: we should try to understand their
nature. Secondly, other people (particularly teachers) act in ways
that allow these systems to be re-mediated or elaborated. Social
interaction, it is claimed, makes possible the extension and
transformation of existing cognitive systems. This is a theme to be
taken up further in the next chapter.
If cultural theory alerts us to the social texture inherent in
educational activity, what is recommended when we sense its disruption
- as we might in the face of new technology? Evidently, any answer to
this will arise from better understanding of the interpersonal
*processes* that normally are active within classrooms. The repair
will have to be organized at these points. I shall consider what we
understand about these processes in the next chapter, using it to
start deriving preferred ways of deploying new technology. A key
concept will be that of socially-shared cognition or - to employ a
term in contemporary favour - "intersubjectivity". I shall argue that
the opportunities to create and exploit this state underpin much of
what is achieved in formal educational settings. We discover it not
just in the face-to-face social interactions that constitute
"tutoring" in these settings but also in more extensively mediated
forms of social exchange. The significant challenge will be to
determine how computers can "enter into" these practices - rather than
sidestep or undermine them.