Cognitivism

The Human Brain as a Computer Processor

In the composition field, cognitivst theories and research functions with the underlying assumption that the human brain interprets outside information just like a computer processes data. Cognitive science views all human processes as necessarily quantifiable and, therefore, researchable. This research focuses on how students are similar to computers in their processing of information. Consequently, composition studies and reading comprehension are thought of as composition and reading skills. Occasionally, cognitivism then leads to a banking-system model in the classroom. However, cognitivism also suggests that learning literacy can be a "problem-solving process" and also a socio-culturally influenced event through the idea of schemata. 

Schema Theory

As an increasingly influential component of cognitive theory, shema theory posits that literacy is due in great part to both the prior knowledge of readers and whether they are "active readers." In order to actively read a text, students are seen as interpreting and constructing meaning from texts using their background knowledge, otherwise known as their schemata. 

Schema theory creates a correlation between cognitive theory and sociocultural theories; yet, they differ in their idea of absolutes. Cultural theories believe there are no universal ways of knowing, but cognitive/schema theory believes that human understanding is quantifiable. (Cognitivsm is criticized of oversimplification of schema, not allowing for the diversity of people and experiences in their defining of schema.) 

With the goal of knowing through schema, cognivist theory and research defines schema as abstract, mental constructions that enable people to both understand and make inferences about the world. In order to create meaning, people create relationships between schemata and a text, inferring meaning and interpreting knowledge. As active readers encounter texts (or the world), they constantly make hypothesis and revise hypothesis as a way to interpret and construct meaning. 

Important Players

McCormick points out that, "The study and teaching of cognivist processes involved in reading has produced a huge research industry. As Dykstra notes, there are over 1,000 articles published per year (quoted in Willinsky, 160)..." She names and discusses the theories and research of a few key cognivists in her book, The Culture of Reading and the Teaching of English:

• H. Gardner
• Just and Capenter
• Flower and Hayes
• Anderson
• Sir Frederic Bartlett
• Crawford and Chaffin
• Bransford and Johnson
• Back and McKeown