Concepts from Cognitive Psychology

1
Concepts from Cognitive Psychology

• Levels of Processing deep, surface, strategic
• The deep approach is associated with
• intention of understanding what is to be learned
• intrinsic motivation (interest in subject)
• The surface approach is associated with
• reproducing what teachers desire
• instrumental motivation or fear of failure
• concerned primarily with memorization, not
  understanding
• The strategic approach is associated with
• a combination of deep and surface strategies
• a desire for highest possible grades
• competitive form of motivation (need for
  achievement)

2
The Deep Approach

• Focuses on what is of significance (i.e.
  teachers argument or the concepts applied to
  solving a problem).
• Relates previous knowledge to new knowledge.
• Relates knowledge from different courses.
• Relates theoretical ideas to everyday
  experiences.
• Relates and distinguish evidence and argument.
• Organizes and structures content into a coherent
  whole.

3
The Surface Approach

• Focuses on the signs (i.e. words and sentences
  of the text, or unthinkingly on the formula
  needed to solve a problem).
• Focuses on unrelated parts of the task.
• Memorizes information for assessments.
• Associates facts and concepts unreflectively.
• Fails to distinguish principles from examples.
• Treats the task as an external imposition.

4
Deep or Surface Approach?

• I suppose Im trying to imagine what the
  experiment is talking about, in a physical sense,
  sort of get a picture of what its about. This
  one says an ultraviolet lamp emits one watt of
  power it says calculate the energy falling on a
  square centimeter per second. Im just thinking
  of the light and the way it spreads out, so
  therefore I know its the inverse-square law.

5
Deep or Surface Approach?

• You have got to go into the exam with as many
  formulae as possible. So you learn those
  parrot-fashion. And approaches to the way you
  work out problems, techniques involved in math,
  you know. I seem to remember these just sort of
  one day or two.

6
Promoting Deep Approaches

• emphasizing concepts over isolated facts
• essay questions
• problem solving
• project reports
• alternative/authentic assessments
• no study guides
• depth of coverage over breadth
• clear explanations and challenging ideas
• deal with relevant and interestingilize
  cooperative learning
• high teacher expectations

7
Promoting Surface Approaches

• using factually oriented short-answer or
  mutliple-choice questions
• providing detailed study guides
• breadth of coverage over depth
• spoon feeding students
• teaching to the test (IGAP for instance)
• low teacher expectations

8
Deep or Surface Approach

• How will you teach?
• What effects will your teaching have?

9
Based on the following

• Entwistle, N. (1992). Student Learning and Study
  Strategies. In B. Clark G. Neave (Eds.), The
  Encyclopedia of Higher Education, 3, New York
  Pergamon Press.
• Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to Teach in Higher
  Education. New York Routledge.