Just as behaviourism developed as a reaction to the highly subjective, introspective approach to psychology common in the late 19th and early 20th century, cognitive constructivism was conceived, in no small part, as a response to the strict focus on observable phenomena encouraged by behaviourism.

Educational psychologists such as Jean Piaget and William Perry therefore developed a cognitive approach, which focused much more on mental processes than on external behaviour.

For most cognitive constructivists, knowledge is seen as actively constructed (hence, ‘construct-ivism’) based on the learner’s existing cognitive structures (hence, ‘cognitive’). These structures may include the learner’s language, experiences, and cultural background.

A key idea in cognitive constructivism is that learning should be tailored to the learner’s current stage of development. This is very advantageous, as it establishes the learner as the central consideration when designing learning experiences for them, thus making it much more likely that these experiences will be relevant and rewarding.

Cognitive constructionists tend to view motivation as largely intrinsic, eschewing the focus on reward and punishment put forward by most behaviourists.

How is all this relevant to digital learning?

One of the key ways I find cognitive constructivism relevant is the focus on the learner first and foremost. I will always want to know as much as possible about the background, experience and knowledge level of learners that I am writing for:

What is their cultural background?
What is their experience level?
What’s their mean age?
How long have they been with the business?
Are there any barriers to learning?
If the materials will be delivered in English, how are their language skills?
What will they definitely already know, and what needs to be explained?

And so on, and so on.

Most of the learning resources I design are time limited; it’s therefore criticial to pitch them at the right level so that time is not wasted teaching learners things they already know, or things they don’t have the knowledge or experience to absorb. Naturally, a course I write for new starters fresh into the business will be very different from a course aimed a high level executives who may potentially have been with the company for decades.

Less convincing for me is constructivism’s focus on intrinsic motivation at the expense of extrinsic motivation.

In my experience, employees are certainly focused on intrinsic rewards — such as the feeling of having done a good job or having learned a new skill — but the majority will quickly become demotivated if they don’t feel externally valued and rewarded, for example by formal recognition and/or remuneration.

Cognitive constructivism: strengths and weaknesses

Cognitive constructivism provides the invalable insight that we should use the learner — their experiences, their background, their challenges — as the starting point of any learning we design.

However, the view of motivation as mostly intrinsic strikes me as too reactionary to behaviourism’s extrinsic focus; it should therefore be viewed with some skepticism.

Lev Vygotsky, in developing social constructivism, took a step farther than  cognitive constructivism. He believed that while we should indeed use the learner as a starting point, we must also recognise that humans are fundamentally social creatures, inextricably bound up within the conventions of their community.

I will look at social constructivism in more detail in next week’s blog!