Cognitive Flexibility Theory
Biography
Rand Spiro is a professor of educational psychology who earned his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University . His research has explored knowledge acquisition in complex domains, hypermedia learning environments, multimedia case-based methods in professional education, biomedical cognition, and constructive processes in text comprehension and recall. Dr. Spiro is Professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology, Michigan State University (1999- present)
Much of his research is concerned with the question, "How should learning proceed so that tendencies toward conceptual oversimplification are counteracted and a wide range of future applications of knowledge are supported"?
A central part of the research program involves the development and testing of theory-based hypermedia learning environments designed to promote cognitive flexibility.
His areas of expertise include professional learning, learning in complex domains, interactive multimedia and reading comprehension.
Theory
Spiro suggested that a successful (i.e. cognitively flexible) learner is one who can readily re-organize and apply knowledge in response to varying situational demands. To attain this flexibility, learners must understand problems in their full complexity and must `criss-cross” the problem space multiple times in order to observe how shifts in variables and goals alter the space. How well one can do this is a function of both the way knowledge is represented and the processes that operate on those mental representations.
CFT concerns the transfer of knowledge and skills after the initial learning situation. Initially, students learn the basic concepts, theories, etc. in a linear context. However, when advanced knowledge acquisition occurs, a non-linear approach is necessary to navigate the ill-structured domain in which the learning occurs. Thus, information must be presented from multiple perspectives.
Based on constructivist theory, this model describes how learning may take place in complex situations. Spiro is especially interested in what he termed "ill-structured domains," such as medicine, literary criticism, or history. It is based on the notion that humans can restructure their knowledge as an adaptive response to changing input and situational demands. This deals with knowledge representations and processes that are used to internally manipulate the representations.
Spiro rejects the common view of constructivism, claiming that it relies too heavily on "the retrieval of organized packets of knowledge, or schemas, from memory". Spiro's perspective on constructivism is less rigid and suggests two aspects of the constructive process: (1)understandings are constructed by using prior knowledge to go beyond the information given; and (2) the prior knowledge that is accessed is itself constructed, rather than retrieved intact from memory.
The theory has implications for transfer of learning to new contexts. State-dependency and context-dependency are supported, and application of the theory recommend that learners be facilitated in developing unique and multiple representations of information. Resources should be interconnected rather than linear. The theory has found usage in the teaching of literature, sciences, and history.
Major principles of CFT-informed instruction:
- Avoid oversimplification of instruction, recognizing
the interconnectedness of ideas in advanced knowledge
domains.
- Provide multiple representations of learning content.
- Offer multiple examples and cases to acknowledge that
a variety of cases can be used to illustrate the multiple
perspectives of the content to be learned.
- Use practical, real-world context to allow transfer
of basic concepts and theories to be applied in dynamic
situations.
- Construct knowledge instead of transmitting
knowledge; therefore, encouraging transfer by
allowing learners to develop their own knowledge
representations to adapt knowledge for future use in
different types of situations.
- Support complexity for comparing and contrasting the
similarities and differences of cases in ill-structured
learning domains by presenting multiple representations
of the same information and different thematic
perspectives on the information.
Learning Theory Bibliography
Kearsley, G. (n.d.) Cognitive Flexibility Theory. Retrieved November 9, /2002 from http://tip.psychology.org/spiro/html
Spiro, R. et al (1991)