Aptitude, Learning, and Instruction

Volume 3: Conative and Affective Process Analyses

Richard E. Snow, Marshall J. Farr, Richard E. Snow, Marshall J. Farr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000392098
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología cognitiva y cognición

Originally published in 1987, this book reports the proceedings of a conference held in 1983 at Stanford, California. The purpose of the conference was to bring together individuals whose research reflected advanced theoretical thinking and empirical evidence on the combined analysis of cognitive, conative, and affective processes, the role of these processes in learning from instruction, and the importance of individual differences therein. The Editors believed that this volume made an early and important contribution to the reemphasis and reexamination of the conative and affective aspects of human performance, in coordination with cognitive psychology, in the study of aptitude, learning, and instruction. It takes its place as Volume 3 of the Aptitude, Learning, and Instruction series.

1

Cognitive-Conative-Affective Processes in Aptitude, Learning, and Instruction An Introduction

Richard E. Snow

Stanford University

Marshall J. Farr^*

Office of Naval Research

The understanding of learning from instruction, and of individual differences in aptitude for such learning, has been advanced substantially over the past 2 decades by the growth of theory and research in cognitive psychology, and its extension to the analysis of instruction and of cognitive ability constructs relevant to instruction. There are now established fields of work that can be called Cognitive Instructional Psychology and Cognitive Differential Psychology. There are important new information processing theories of learning and cognition, and of intelligence. And, research and development on the design of adaptive instructional systems is profiting from this basic work.

But the general improvement of instruction ultimately requires a “whole person” view that integrates cognitive, conative, and affective aspects of learning, and individual differences therein. The convenient fiction that has long separated theories of cognitive and affective behavior, and caused the conative aspects of behavior to be more or less ignored, must eventually be discarded in the analysis of aptitude, learning, and instruction. These are three facets of individual performance, not isolated provinces, and they undoubtedly interact in complex ways during learning and problem solving.

*Marshall Farr is currently with the Farr-Sight Co., 2520 N. Vernon St., Arlington, VA 22207.

The incorporation of conative and affective aspects of cognition and learning into information processing theories relevant to instruction will require substantial investments in basic research. In recent years, some cognitive and instructional psychologists have begun to turn their attention to this goal, and the results from these explorations suggest many intriguing and potentially useful hypotheses. But it seems likely that primary experimental attention must continue to be directed at the principles governing the interaction of the cognitive-affective-conative trinity as they influence behavior in general. This focus is desirable because we still know so little about how affect and conation modify or modulate human information-processing operations, especially those impacting on learning activities. Because the array of possible approaches to improved theory and research in this domain is so vast and heterogeneous, this volume can only deal with a selected subset. Although motivation and emotion are not at all the usual targets of mainstream cognitive and instructional psychologists, there is no denying their pervasive importance: They can significantly alter and mold the perceived input and the actual products of cognition. The task of the experimental or instructional psychologist who seeks to study the intersection of the three constructs in rigorous, meaningful, and manageable ways is indeed a formidable one. Unfortunately, many investigators address only isolated parts of the problem, and many work at different levels of detail.

Averill (1983), in addressing issues relating to the social bases of anger and aggression, and their implications for theories of emotions, gave a brief, historical look at these theories in the 20th century. He cites the 1960s as marking the start of the cognitive revolution, but then asserts: “There are now signs that this cognitive wave is on the wane” (p. 1145). He amplifies this view by observing that, although “. . . much of psychology has become cognitive in a broad sense, within this broad domain, old distinctions are beginning to reemerge. As yet, the various critiques do not provide any united front, but they do suggest that the hegemony of cognition over affect is coming to an end” (p. 1145).

Schacter & Singer (1962), for example, were key figures in the 1960s invasion of cognition into the sphere of affect. Their theory of emotional states, typically referred to as the “cognitive-arousal theory of emotions,” is considered by some to be the most influential cognitive approach to emotions in contemporary psychology. Indeed, Reisenzein (1983) credits the theory for its importance “in focusing psychologists’ attention on the long-neglected cognitive component of emotional states” (p. 258). Today, there are an increasing number of demonstrations of the reverse perspective, i.e., the importance of emotional states on cognitive processing.

There seems as yet, however, to be little in the way of coordinated theory and few direct ways to identify lines of investigation that hold the strongest promise for early solid payoff. And it is not clear how best to keep the ultimate goal of instructional improvement for individual learners squarely in the focus of this research. Thus, the time seems ripe, both for stock-taking and for soul searching, in this realm. The present conference was convened to examine the early evidence and consider the alternative lines of inquiry that seem most likely to be pursuable with profit. Our hope was that the conference would provide an up-to-date review of relevant theory and evidence as a guide to new research, but would also serve to move continuing research in cognitive and differential psychology toward more direct and sustained attempts to incorporate conative and affective processes into theories relevant to instruction.

Conference Background

The conference has several antecedents. One can go back first to the groundbreaking effect that the Learning and Individual Differences conference and book had in 1965 (Gagné, 1967). That event called upon leading researchers to stretch themselves beyond their conventional paradigms to face the problem of incorporating individual differences into cognitive research on learning and instruction. Some would have thought that that effort was premature. But a series of later conferences, and extensive subsequent research, carried the theme forward. Over the past decade, especially, information processing analyses of individual differences in cognitive aptitude, complex learning, and problem solving have been coming together with instructional research, including aptitude-instructional treatment interaction studies and research on the promotion of improved learning strategies. Among the previous conferences and books that reflect this development are those edited by Klahr (1976) on Cognition and Instruction, Resnick (1976) on The Nature of Intelligence, Anderson, Spiro and Montague (1977) on Schooling and the Acquisition of Knowledge, O’Neil (1978) on Learning Strategies, and O’Neil and Spielberger (1979) on Cognitive and Affective Learning Strategies. Much of this work has been sponsored by either the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center (NPRDC), or the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Institute of Eduction (NIE) have also contributed support.

Another preceding conference, sponsored jointly by ONR and NPRDC, was designed to bring representative strands of this research together. It resulted in a two-volume work entitled Aptitude, Learning and Instruction, edited by Snow, Federico, and Montague (1980). Volume 1 was subtitled Cognitive Process Analyses of Aptitude. Volume 2 was Cognitive Process Analyses of Learning and Problem Solving. The present collection of conference papers constitutes Volume 3 of that series; its subtitle Conative and Affective Process Analyses reflects the parallelism with these prior volumes.

Although there are, and perhaps will always be, distinguishable schools of thought with many subcategories in the field born of this development, some unified methodologies and unified theories are foreseeable. This collection should convince the reader that there is at least enough theory and methodology available now to provide a base from which to launch research aimed at incorporating the other facets—the conative and affective aspects—of integrated human performance.

As a measure of the degree to which cognitive psychologists seem ready to turn toward the consideration of affective-cognitive intersections, it is noted that still another conference, the 1981 Carnegie-Mellon Symposium on Cognition was devoted to Affect and Cognition, (Clark & Fiske 1982). That symposium contained many important papers suggesting future directions for theory and basic research. But it did not concern the needs of instructional psychology, nor did it address the problem of individual differences in aptitude. Yet analysis of the confluence of cognitive, conative, and affective processes is nowhere more important than in cognitive instructional and differential psychology. We hope that the following chapters are more than tangentially useful in promoting this analysis for the eventual benefit of instructional theory and research at a point early enough to be influential in the course of further work.

Research Background

There is a long history of theory and research related to the tripartite distinction of cognition, conation, and affection, and this history relates in turn to the status of consciousness in psychology. All this cannot be reviewed here (but see Hilgard, 1980a, 1980b). It will suffice to start by recalling the traditional definitions (excerpted and reorganized here from definitions given by English and English, 1958, pp. 15, 93, 104).

Historically, three modes of mental functioning...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Preface
• 1. Cognitive-Conative-Affective Processes in Aptitude, Learning, and Instruction: An Introduction
• 2. Aptitude Complexes
• 3. Structural Relationships Across Cognition, Personality, and Style
• 4. Intelligence and Cognitive Style
• 5. Cerebral, Cognitive, and Conative Processes
• 6. Test Anxiety, Cognitive Interference, and Performance
• 7. The Influence of Positive Affect on Cognitive Organization: Implications for Education
• 8. Thinking about Feelings: The Development and Organization of Emotional Knowledge
• 9. Some Educational Implications of Sympathy and Anger from an Attributional Perspective
• 10. Making Learning Fun: A Taxonomy of Intrinsic Motivations for Learning
• 11. Intrinsic Motivation and Instructional Effectiveness in Computer-Based Education
• 12. Interestingness of Children’s Reading Material
• 13. If You Don’t Know It Work On it: Knowledge, Self-Regulation and Instruction
• 14. Discussion
• 15. Discussion
• 16. Discussion
• 17. Cognition, Affect and Motivation: Issues, Perspectives and Directions Toward Unity
• Author Index
• Subject Index