Competency K

Introduction

Libraries and other information organizations are where users go to acquire information and knowledge—that is, to learn. It is the information professional’s task to help them in this endeavor. This is much easier said than done, though, as different groups of people and different individuals learn differently. For guidance, information professionals can turn to learning theories, which Ertmer and Newby (2013) described as “a source of verified instructional strategies, tactics, and techniques . . . for overcoming a given instructional problem” (p. 44).

Competency K tells me that as an information professional, I must understand the theories that describe how people learn and retain information so that I can design experiences that help them acquire knowledge. Among the most prominent learning theories today are behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, and together they provide principles and guidance for information professionals to better fulfill their roles as facilitators of learning and even instructors .

Behaviorism

As its name implies, behaviorism is an observation-based theory that maintains that people’s behaviors hold the key to understanding learning. If somebody gives the right answer to a question, then their behavior is proof of their learning. The instructor’s goal in behaviorism is thus to elicit the right behavior out of the learner in response to a question or situation. Rewarding good behavior, often through praise, is one of the ways of doing this.

Ivan Pavlov conducted one of the most famous behaviorism experiments. By ringing a bell every time a dog was given food, he trained the dogs to drool at the sound of the bell even when the dog didn’t receive food. For Pavlov, this reinforced the behaviorist notion that repetition and reward can lead to consistent desired behaviors, even though the behaviors may be sub-conscious. B. F. Skinner conducted an experiment involving learning on a more conscious level, with rats and pigeons receiving a treat for pressing a bar (Booth, 2011, p. 38). The treat reward resulted in the animals choosing to exhibit the desired behavior.

One of the obvious limitations of behaviorism is that it stops at the surface, gauging success only on the result (the answer the person gives) with no regard for how the person arrived at that answer. An information professional having a learner conduct rote memorization of facts is perfectly acceptable as a teaching and learning mode under behaviorism. As Booth (2011) put it, “Creativity, agency, community, and discovery do not factor significantly into the behaviorist equation” (p. 39). Nor does in-depth understanding. For the behaviorist, the important part of Pavlov’s experiment is the dog’s “correct” drooling behavior in response to the bell. The theory is not concerned with what is going on in the dog’s thought process that leads to this otherwise incongruent response.

Cognitivism

Constructivist theory does go that extra layer deeper and attempts to take cognitive processes into account when explaining how people learn. For cognitivists, conditioning is not learning; an individual’s behavior isn’t enough to demonstrate learning, and that learning can’t simply be imposed upon the person through conditioning and “by the manipulation of stimulus materials” (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 51). Rather, cognitivists believe that learning “is a series of internal processes that result in moments of insight that cannot be satisfactorily explained by trial and error or repetition” (Booth, 2011, p. 39).

These internal processes include motivations and emotions, which cannot be directly observed in the same way behaviors can. The focus is thus more on the way learners learn rather than just on their ability to provide the correct response to stimulus. This includes the way the mind receives, organizes, processes, and recalls information (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 51).

Under cognitivism, understanding these mental processes allows information professionals to create instruction tailored to the learner. This includes helping individuals connect new information to their current knowledge and experience in order to revise what they “know” and how they think about ideas and concepts. The instructor can do this through “anchoring ideas” that help the learner form these connections, and in the process lay “the foundation for a learner to be able to contextualize new information and make it personally relevant and usable” (Booth, 2011, p. 39). This form of instruction requires making the learner an active participant in the process, as opposed to behaviorism’s treatment of learners as passive recipients of teachings (p. 39).

Constructivism

As theorists came up with the cognitivism model to redress perceived flaws in behaviorism, so did they devise constructivism to account for what they saw as shortcomings in both preceding theories. Constructivism puts even more focus on the learner, as opposed to on the stimulus or instructor, by taking not only the learner’s mental states and processes into account, but their environment and social context as well. Booth (2011) explained that one part of this theory’s main idea is “that learners create meaning from their environments by interpreting them through personal attributes, values, and perceptions” (p. 39). This views the acquisition of knowledge as a process and act of construction on the part of the learner.

Knowledge management theory falls under constructivism in that it holds that there are different forms of knowledge, that knowledge requires nurturing, and that its creation is a process. The process starts with data, which Daland (2016) described as “essentially numbers and letters without meaning” (p. 29). Adding meaning to data by placing it in context yields information. Then, according to Serrat (2017), “Knowledge is created and organized by flows of information, shaped by their holder” (p. 291). Semertzaki (2017) further noted that “experiences, education, and the cultural and socioeconomic background of the holder” (p. 573) all play a part in the process in that the individual combines these factors with information to create knowledge, a concept in alignment with Booth’s central idea of constructivism.

For the information professional, then, instructing means creating learning experiences that mimic or represent problems or situations the learner will encounter in the real world. To expound on this notion, Ertmer and Newby (2013) wrote that with constructivism, helping individual learners build knowledge based on their mental constructs and their environmental and social contexts means that “learning objectives are not pre-specified nor is instruction predesigned” (p. 58) and Booth (2011) noted John Dewey’s guidance that “meaningful instruction should build upon engaging learners with realistic, relevant problems in an authentic, community-based atmosphere” (p. 40).

Applying Theories

While each of these theories has important lessons and applications for information professionals who teach learners, there are too many different types of learners and too many different learning scenarios and problems for one theory to be able to address them all. Therefore, according to Snelbecker (1985), an information professional charged with creating actual instructional programs and services “does not have the luxury of restricting himself to only one theoretical position” (p. 8). Rather, Snelbecker recommended studying a swath of learning theories and choosing “those principles and conceptions which seem to be of value for one’s particular educational situation” (p. 8).

Conclusion

Information professionals are in the education business. Stephens (2014) argued “that our libraries of all kinds also serve as creative classrooms, supporting learners by employing” (p. 36) tools and concepts such as emotional intelligence and learning through play and exploration. In my coursework I learned about the prevailing learning theories and how I might best put them into practice to support learners of all ages and backgrounds. This does not mean picking and employing a single theory. Rather, Competency K tells me, and my coursework showed me, that by understanding the theories and their principles, I can select and apply the optimal strategies and practices to create educational content and services for groups of patrons and individual learners.

References

American Association of School Librarians. (n.d.). Common beliefs. https://standards.aasl.org/beliefs

Booth, C. (2011). Reflective teaching, effective learning: Instructional literacy for library educators. American Library Association. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/lib/sjsu/reader.action?ppg=58&docID=675848&tm=1504906209549

Daland, H. (2016). Managing knowledge in academic libraries. Are we? Should we? LIBER Quarterly, 26(1), 28–41. https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10154

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43–71. https://doi.org/10.1002/piq.21143

Kroski, E., & Burke, J. (2018). Makerspaces: A practical guide for librarians (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Semertzaki, E. (2017). Knowledge management skills applicable to information management – Information management skills applicable to knowledge management in an organization. In J. M. Matarazzo & T. Pearlstein (Eds.), The emerald handbook of modern information management (pp. 571–604). https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78714-525-220171023

Serrat, O. (2017). Knowledge solutions. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0983-9_30

Snelbecker, G. E. (1985). Learning theory, instructional theory, and psychoeducational design. University Press of America.

Stephens, M. (2014, May 15). Library as classroom. Library Journal, 139(9), 36. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A367965044/AONE?u=csusj&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=731efb9a