Abstract :
Cognitive psychological research has produced rich descriptions of the mental representations and processes that underlie performance in many school-related subject matter areas, making it possible to be much more precise than before in our descriptions of the outcomes of learning. Nevertheless, the epistemology of cognitive psychology has not been helpful in providing fruitful hypotheses about the environmental variables that facilitate learning and the acquisition of expertise. For this reason, an applied science of learning developed, where instructional interventions and experiments became the means of developing a theory of learning almost in a trial and error fashion. As we are now evaluating the results of these research findings it becomes obvious that a new theoretical framework is needed to further guide research on learning and instruction. It is argued that such a theoretical framework can be found in cognitive psychology if the original epistemology that guided cognitive psychological research is revised. What is needed is a new conception of the mind, not as an individual information processor, but as a biological, developing system that exists equally well within an individual brain and in the tools, artifacts, and symbolic systems used to facilitate social and cultural interaction. With such a revised epistemology, coupled with the methodology of experimental psychology and of cognitive task analysis, cognitive psychology can be a much more powerful theoretical framework than we ever had before, capable of leading us to new insights about learning and instruction.
