Understanding the Concept of Schemas: Mental Structures of Thought and Behavior, Lecture notes of Psychology

Download Understanding the Concept of Schemas: Mental Structures of Thought and Behavior and more Lecture notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! SEC 4 Page 1 of 8 8. Schema of thought. 8.1 FORMATION OF SCHEMAS OF THOUGHT: In psychology and cognitive science, a schema (plural schemata or schemas) describes an organized pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment. People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since automatic thought is all that is required. People use schemata to organize current knowledge and provide a framework for future understanding. Examples of schemata include academic rubrics, social schemas, stereotypes, social roles, scripts, worldviews, and archetypes. In Piaget's theory of development, children adopt a series of schemata to understand the world. History Before psychology separated from philosophy, the term "schema" was prominently discussed in philosophy by Immanuel Kant. Early developments of the idea in psychology emerged with the gestalt psychologists and Jean Piaget: the term "schema" was introduced by Piaget in 1926. The concept was introduced into psychology and education through the work of the British psychologist Frederic Bartlett, who drew on the term body schema used by neurologist Henry Head. It was expanded into schema theory by educational psychologist R. C. Anderson. Since then, many other terms have been used to describe schema, such as including "frame", "scene", and "script". Schematic processing Through the use of schemata, a heuristic technique to encode and retrieve memories, the majority of typical situations do not require much strenuous SEC 4 Page 2 of 8 processing. People can quickly organize new perceptions into schemata and act without effort. However, schemata can influence and hamper the uptake of new information (proactive interference), such as when existing stereotypes, giving rise to limited or biased discourses and expectations (prejudices), may lead an individual to "see" or "remember" something that has not happened because it is more believable in terms of his/her schema. For example, if a well-dressed businessman draws a knife on a vagrant, the schemata of onlookers may (and often do) lead them to "remember" the vagrant pulling the knife. Such distortion of memory has been demonstrated. (See Background research below.) Schemata are interrelated and multiple conflicting schemata can be applied to the same information. Schemata are generally thought to have a level of activation, which can spread among related schemata. Which schema is selected can depend on factors such as current activation, accessibility, and priming. Accessibility is how easily a schema comes to mind, and is determined by personal experience and expertise. This can be used as a cognitive shortcut; it allows the most common explanation to be chosen for new information. With priming, a brief imperceptible stimulus temporarily provides enough activation to a schema so that it is used for subsequent ambiguous information. Although this may suggest the possibility of subliminal messages, the effect of priming is so fleeting that it is difficult to detect outside laboratory conditions. Furthermore, the mere exposure effect —which requires consciousness of the stimuli— is far more effective than priming. Modification New information that falls within an individual's schema is easily remembered and incorporated into their worldview. However, when new information is perceived that does not fit a schema, many things can happen. The most common reaction is to simply ignore or quickly forget the new information. This can happen on a deep level— frequently an individual does not become conscious of or even perceive the new information. People may also interpret the new information in a way that minimizes how much they must change their schemata. For example, Bob thinks that chickens don't lay eggs. He then sees a chicken laying an egg. Instead of changing the part of his schema that says 'chickens don't lay eggs', he is likely to adopt the belief that the animal in question that he has just seen laying an SEC 4 Page 5 of 8 Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and critical thinking on a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives. There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest: Knowledge Exhibit memory of learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers  Knowledge of specifics - terminology, specific facts  Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics - conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology  Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field - principles and generalizations, theories and structures Questions like: What are the health benefits of eating apples? Comprehension Demonstrate understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating the main ideas  Translation  Interpretation  Extrapolation Questions like: Compare the health benefits of eating apples vs. oranges. Application Using acquired knowledge. Solve problems in new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way Questions like: Which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why? Analysis Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations  Analysis of elements  Analysis of relationships SEC 4 Page 6 of 8  Analysis of organizational principles Questions like: List four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits. Provide references to support your statements. Synthesis Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions  Production of a unique communication  Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations  Derivation of a set of abstract relations Questions like: Convert an "unhealthy" recipe for apple pie to a "healthy" recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones. Evaluation Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria  Judgments in terms of internal evidence  Judgments in terms of external criteria Questions like: Do you feel that serving apple pie for an after school snack for children is healthy? 8.3 Taxonomy de Marzano: Marzano’s New Taxonomy Robert Marzano, respected educational researcher, has proposed what he calls A New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (2000). Developed to respond to the shortcomings of the widely used Bloom’s Taxonomy and the current environment of standards-based instruction, Marzano’s model of thinking skills incorporates a wider range of factors that affect how learners think and provides a more research- based theory to help teachers improve their learners’ thinking. Marzano’s New Taxonomy is made up of three systems and the Knowledge Domain, all of which are important for thinking and learning. The three systems are the Self-System, the Metacognitive System, and the Cognitive System. When faced with the option of starting a new task, the Self-System decides whether to continue the current behaviour or engage in the new activity; the Metacognitive SEC 4 Page 7 of 8 System sets goals and keeps track of how well they are being achieved; the Cognitive System processes all the necessary information, and the Knowledge Domain provides the content. Knowledge Domain Traditionally, the focus of most teaching and learning has been in the component of knowledge. Learners were assumed to need a significant amount of knowledge before they could think seriously about a subject. Unfortunately, in conventional classrooms, teaching rarely moved beyond the accumulation of knowledge, leaving learners with a mental file cabinet full of facts, most of which were quickly- forgotten after the final test. Knowledge is a critical factor in thinking. Without sufficient information about the subject being learned, the other systems have very little to work with and are unable to engineer the learning process successfully. A high-powered automobile with all the latest technological features still needs some kind of fuel to make it fill its purpose. Knowledge is the fuel that powers the thinking process. Marzano identifies three categories of knowledge: information, mental procedures, and physical procedures. Simply put, information is the “what” of knowledge and procedures are the “how-to.” Information Information consists of organizing ideas, such as principles, generalizations, and details, such as vocabulary terms and facts. Principles and generalizations are important because they allow us to store more information with less effort by placing concepts into categories. For example, a person may never have heard of an akbash, but once someone knows that the animal is a dog, he knows quite a bit about it. Mental Procedures Mental procedures can range from complex processes, such as writing a research essay to simpler tasks such as tactics, algorithms, and single rules. Tactics, like reading a map, consist of a set of activities which do not need to be performed in any particular order. Algorithms, like computing long division, follow a strict order which does not vary by situation. Single rules, such as those covering capitalization, are applied individually to specific instances. Physical Procedures