Cognitivist Frameworks of Learning and Instruction

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the main research results on the functioning of human memory and how cognitive instructional models integrate these findings into their proposals for optimizing learning. It also covers some of the main cognitive theories of instruction where we highlight the cognitive theory of multimedia learning and the cognitive load theory. These theories appeared alongside an emerging framework called the “cognitive revolution” in the 1950s. In this framework, human cognition can be compared to a biological computer that represents and processes information that comes from the outside world through various sensory systems. This information must be recorded in memory and then retrieved so that any biological or digital system can perform the activities that are expected in various situations. Learning in this framework is to form new mental schemes in long-term memory, to integrate simple and already formed schemes into more complex ones, and to automate some schemes through a compilation process. The cognitive theories of instruction take the way human memory works very seriously.