Constructivist Perspective of Learning

“We need pupils who are active, who learn early to find out new things by themselves, partly by their spontaneous activity and partly through materials we set up for them.”

—Jean Piaget Over the past decades, contemporary researchers have explained learning from psychological and educational perspectives (Bednar et al., 1992; Hilgard & Bower, 1966;

Schunk, 2012). During this process, learning theories have adopted the fundamental perspectives of behaviorism (Skinner, 1976), cognitivism (Shuell, 1986), and constructivism (Harel & Papert, 1991). Each of these dominant perspectives explains learning processes and the nature of learning from different points of view (Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Nagowah &

Nagowah, 2009). With increased attention to individual learning, researchers clarify that student learning is more than simple changes in behavior (Domjan, 2014; Lachman, 1997).

From the constructivists’ perspectives, learning is a complicated process that can better explain the complexity of modern education (Kintsch, 2009). Therefore, the paradigm used to explain teaching and learning has shifted from behaviorism to constructivism (Cooper, 1993).

Constructivism argues that humans actively form new connections within existing knowledge and construct new understandings (Clark, 1985). The present dissertation adopts the constructivists’ critical assumptions about learning.

Early constructivists argued that individuals are active learners who construct new understandings and ideas based on their prior knowledge and past experiences (Piaget, 1980;

Von Glasersfeld, 2002). Rather than merely accumulating the facts, people actively recall their prior knowledge and past experiences to contribute to future learning. Specifically, during the pursuit of knowledge, people are mentally stimulated, which ultimately encourages meaningful learning (Bransford & Council, 2000). When people are actively engaged, they tend to think more deeply and are more capable of reflecting on the meanings of what they have learned.

Constructivism has further developed to explain how students learn in different contexts, which have broader education implications. By bridging education and psychology, constructivism provides valuable principles for teachers and researchers to interpret their observations.

The second central argument of constructivists is that learning is an active process of acquiring knowledge and understanding new ideas (Lachman, 1997). They stress that learners spontaneously acquire knowledge and develop their competence through engagement. In other words, learning is not a passive process that merely replicates and reproduces knowledge.

Meaningful learning occurs when the learner makes efforts to interpret and make sense of the new information (i.e., input), which is later aggregated into existing knowledge (Fiorella &

Mayer, 2015). In this sense, the existing knowledge and cognitive characteristics of a learner are particularly important. During this incremental process, the learner selects and transforms the relevant information into an appropriate format that contributes to the current understanding (Bruner, 1963a). The more reliably a learner connects new information with the relevant known concepts, the more knowledge they can acquire. Based on this understanding of learning, teaching is supposed to help students make appropriate modifications to their existing knowledge frameworks. When education adapts to learners’ characteristics and needs as necessary, it supports student learning (Corno, 2008; Wang, 2001).

Additionally, from the constructivist perspective, learning is not result-oriented, and learners’ experiences also play a critical role in the process (Wittrock, 1974). In discussing when learning takes place, educational researchers generally focus on the process more than the outcomes. Recent researchers have pointed out that the more opportunities the students gain from the instruction, the more likely they learn well (Simonsen et al., 2008). The topic of student learning also raises concerns about individual characteristics. Student characteristics vary in motivational and cognitive aspects. These characteristics are considered crucial starting points for students and are treated as prerequisites to further learning.

From the constructivist perspective, students have different characteristics in learning that are considered by teachers. As such, the relationship between teaching and learning has become a critical topic in educational research. For instance, the process-product model emphasizes the effect of teaching on learning outcomes (Brophy & Good, 1984). Early theories and models stress the challenges of delivering knowledge to students without opening the black box of student learning processes. Some later researchers focused on the effect of teaching methods on learning processes, such as providing appropriate opportunities for students to enhance their learning (Lipowsky et al., 2009). But they did not assume that learning involves complex phenomena that cannot merely be explained by intrapersonal factors or that instructional and contextual factors also influence the process. A more comprehensive model to explain the interaction between teaching and learning processes is required by acknowledging different learning theories.

In the past decades, constructivist theories have significantly influenced ideas about the interaction between teaching and learning. Educational researchers currently pursue deeper understandings of learning processes and associated factors. Although the explanations of causes, processes, and consequences of learning vary across learning theories and models,

recent developments show a consensus that learning involves a complicated interaction among personal, instructional, and contextual factors. To this end, some educational researchers integrated the structured paradigm with the process paradigm and introduced a multilevel supply-use model (Brühwiler & Blatchford, 2011; Helmke & Schrader, 2013; Seidel, 2014a).

This theoretical framework provides a comprehensive overview of student learning. It explains the influential factors from three broad levels: (a) supply level, (b) use level, and (c) learning outcomes level.

At the first level, the framework primarily focuses on the offer of learning opportunities.

In general, this supply level includes teachers’ professional competencies, teaching processes, and the external environment for learning. Teaching and instruction are viewed as ongoing supply processes that provide students the opportunity to learn. Different instructional characteristics, such as teaching methods, strategies, and technologies, provide varied learning opportunities to students (Corno, 2008). At the second level, the model mainly involves student factors and includes how students perceive and use learning opportunities. The role of each student is considered essential. According to this framework, learning in schools involves a set of interactions between teachers and students. For instance, after a teacher asks a question to test the students' initiative, they expect the student to answer. Then, the student’s answer affects the teacher’s evaluation of feedback or provide elaboration. In this situation, a reciprocal relationship (e.g., teacher-student reflection circle; McGlinn, 2003) is established. In many cases, if teachers and researchers attempt to enhance student learning, it is particularly important to better understand how the learning process takes place.

The idea of achieving an equilibrium between supply and demand in economics is also applicable to education. Only when the teaching process prepares the learners—neither too much nor too little—can it lead to effective learning (Wang, 2001). Thus, teaching should be adaptive, and it should meet students' diverse learning needs over a prolonged period. In this sense, if teaching and instruction are flexible and open to change, they create an ideal situation for individuals to learn. The traditional “one-size-fits-all” instruction may not be suitable for learning nowadays (Gregory & Chapman, 2012). Therefore, it is valuable to know how to match the supply and use of learning opportunities. Educators and researchers pursue alternative methods in classroom implementation to effectively accommodate teaching to students’ prior knowledge and learning characteristics. During the research, it brings a few new questions: what are alternative approaches to supporting learning? How do we make them work?

In response to these concerns, constructivism and the supply-use model provide a rationale for integrating technology in education (Duffy & Jonassen, 1991; Perkins, 1991; Strommen &

Lincoln, 1992). The availability of new technology makes the constructivist theories actualized in real classrooms (McGuire, 1996). Merging the use of technology with constructivist theories provides a better understanding of how knowledge acquisition takes place and possible to enhance in new learning environments (Gabbard, 2000).

In short, the previous discussion follows from the basic assumptions that student learning is an active process, and it is important to involve all students, especially those with diverse characteristics, in the learning processes. A new perspective on the interaction between learning and instruction needs to be considered to facilitate active student learning and involvement. The main priorities are to examine learning in a technology-based context and identify how students learn with technology in the classrooms.