Noncognitive factors in high-road/low-road learning: I. Modes of abstraction in adulthood

Abstract

Since the terms cognition and cognitive are broadly used but not clearly defined, it may be helpful to clarify what is meant by noncognitive factors. In cognitive science, the terms cognition and cognitive generally describe mental processes that are informational insofar as they carry information about the organism's own body and the material world. Thus defined, there are three sorts of noncognitive organismic factors important in adult learning: affective processes, self-developmental processes, and hardware factors (i.e., noninformational, purely organismic constraints such as mental capacity/working memory limitations, gestaItist field factors, etc.). In this series of papers, we attempt to show how these noncognitive factors interact with cognitive factors to facilitate adult learning. We outline and give reference to a dialectical constructivist (neoPiagetian) model of the psychological organism that integrates noncognitive with cognitive factors and that can serve to explicate the findings of the literature and to process/task analyze adult learning. An important aim is the integration of the findings of decline and regression from the cognitive literature with the findings regarding the increase in "self-directedness" reported by adult education theorists. This is explicated through a process-analytic account of the will, particularly as it pertains to noncognitive factors. In Part II, we continue our explication of a dialectical model of the ego and conclude with a discussion of modes of learning/instruction in adulthood.

Learning and Development as Dialectical Factors in Cognitive Growth

“…1989: 1991b: Pascual-Leone and Goodman. 1979: Pascual-Leone and Irwin. 1994, Two of these are content learning (C learning) and logical-structural or pat terned learning (/.…”

“…We : Pascual-Leone and Goodman. 1979: Pascual-Leone and Irwin. 1994] refer to such learn ing as l.M learning, because mental attentional capacity (M 'energy') must be used to boost into hyperactivation the symbol's constituent schemes.…”

Narrative competence and constructive developmental theory: A proposal for rewriting theBildungsroman in the postmodern world

“…Finally, with the achievement of the Integrated level, both change and difference are valued; the ego is more permeable and less controlling of internal processes but is also at the same time more committed to its values and choices, however nonabsolute they may be, because they reflect more internal and organismic aspects of our selves. The distinction between the Intersystemic and the Integrated levels seems parallel to Pascual-Leone and Irwin's (1994aIrwin's ( , 1994b distinction between the predialectical and dialectical periods.…”

“…Psychological and organismic processes can be combined with social norms and canonical life scripts in a dialectical synthesis that enables truly innovative life choices and structures. In the model of ego of Pascual-Leone and Irwin (1994aIrwin ( , 1994b, the Ethos comes to predominate in its control of metaexecutive processes. The Ethos is that repertoire of ego schemes which is synthesized out of the schemes of the Passions and the Communion repertoires in dialectical interaction with projects, ego ideals, values and goals (the Ego-Milieu).…”

Understanding the Effects of Different Study Methods on Retention of Information and Transfer of Learning

“…According to Piaget, to re-equilibrate individuals must assimilate (adjust information to fit current schema), accommodate (adjust schema to fit new information), or develop a new schema. In these studies and others it has been suggested that adjusting schematic structure, or accommodation, requires more mental effort and concentration (Pascual -Leone & Irwin, 1994;Piaget, 1977;Rumelhart, 1980;Rumelhart & Norman, 1978;Wadsworth, 1984).…”