READ | TEACHING @ | HOW STUDENTS LEARN | DIFFERENCES
learning | motivation | differences
Cognitive Development
The most widely known work on the cognitive development of college students is Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years by William Perry (1970). Although Perry's study was completed some time ago and was based on a small sample of students from Harvard and Radcliffe, the scheme of development that he described has proven helpful in understanding students in many different settings. Perry concludes that students move through stages of cognitive development, each of which is qualitatively different and more complex than the previous stage. As students move through these stages, the ways in which they perceive, organize, and evaluate experiences and events in their lives change. Perry (1970, p. 9) describes nine positions, of which the first six pertain most directly to cognitive development.Dualistic Stages
Perry uses the term dualistic to describe the first three positions. The ways in which students at these stages differ are based on how they account for uncertainty:Position 1. All information is either right or wrong. Uncertainty is not perceived.
Position 2. All information is either right or wrong, and where uncertainty seems to exist, it is really an error committed by a wrong authority.
Position 3. All information is either right or wrong, but uncertainty is acceptable in areas where experts do not know the answers yet. Someday the right answer will be discovered or found.
Students in the dualistic stage are often confused or hostile in a classroom setting in which multiple points of view are presented. They want "just the facts, please" and do not want to hear that there are conflicting opinions. They want the teacher to be strong, authoritative, and clear in the position that is taken. These students are apt to view their roles as passive recipients of a body of knowledge and will often resent being asked to play an active role in class. They regard the teacher as the person who already has the knowledge and may not feel that there is any value in contributing an opinion or listening to the opinions of their fellow students.
Students in Positions 1 and 2 are able to learn (often by memorizing) basic facts and definitions of words and concepts, identify parts of a whole, begin to compare and contrast, and provide an explanation of why they answer as they do. In Position 3, the student can compare and contrast and see multiple perspectives, parts, opinions, and evaluations. The student can do basic analytic tasks but needs to learn to use supportive evidence.
Relativistic Stages
Perry uses the term relativistic to describe students in Positions 4–6. During this phase, the students' previous categories of right and wrong are transformed. Knowledge is now seen as uncertain or valid only within a context. The positions are differentiated by the following traits:Position 4. The student begins to feel that most questions cannot be answered with absolute certainty and, when uncertainty prevails, feels that all answers are of equal value.
Position 5. The sense of relativism enlarges and the student begins to form nonabsolute criteria for making judgments.
Position 6. The ability to make judgments increases and a personal stance or commitment develops.
Students in Position 4 can compare and contrast, do abstract analysis, and do some synthesis. They can do both positive and negative critiques and use supportive arguments well. At this stage, the student is developing the capacity to relate learning in one context or class to other issues in other classes or to issues in real life.
In Positions 5 and 6, the student can relate learning in one context to learning in another with some ease and can look for relationships in learning. The student can evaluate, conclude, and support his or her own analysis and can synthesize various points of view. Finally, the student learns to modify and expand concepts of knowledge, and perhaps generates new ways of looking at a given question or formulates new questions.
Implications
Administration of instruments designed to assess cognitive development in terms of Perry's scheme has revealed that, although students of a given age category vary in their cognitive levels, most college students in the traditional age range of 18–24 enter at the dualistic stage and many progress toward the advanced relativistic stage as they go through college. Some enter at higher levels and some will not progress, so one cannot assume homogeneity in a group of a given age. Nevertheless, a general guideline is that most seniors can perform cognitive tasks that most freshmen cannot and instructional expectations should be based on this general guideline.Widick, Knefelkamp, and Parker (1975) use the notions of challenge and support to draw implications for teaching based on Perry's theory. They argue that students at a given level need to be stretched or challenged to continue to reach higher levels but also need support to handle the challenge. They caution that one cannot expect students to skip over developmental stages; tasks must be at or only slightly above the student's level. Specific recommendations are summarized below.
Students in the Dualistic Stages
Teachers can challenge their students to move on to other levels by:- Employing content diversity in the curriculum by presenting two or three (but not more than three) points of view.
- Assigning different kinds of experiential learning activities and encountering content diversity through activities such as structured discussions, structured group experiences, role playing, and field trips with structured observation guides.
- Processing experiential encounters in prestructured ways (checklists, outlines, etc.) that emphasize differentiation and the use of evidence to support views.
- Using a variety of media (e.g., print, video, web) to convey information (equipment and advice can be obtained from Classroom Services, see Appendix).
- Incorporating opportunities for the ideas of others to be heard in class.
Teachers can support students who are at the dualistic stage as they work toward higher levels by:
- Responding to student needs for structure by prestructuring activities and by using a syllabus that itemizes such details as specific assignments, policies, and due dates; and using outlines of each class, textbook session, etc.
- Preparing handouts that help students fulfill course requirements (e.g., how to do a bibliography, laboratory report format).
- Personalizing interactions with student by providing opportunities for students to get to know each other and the instructor; using small group work in or out of class; using feedback techniques such as logs, journals, or response forms; and responding to written work as concretely as possible.
Students in the Relativistic Stages
Teachers can challenge their students to move to higher levels by:- Providing them with opportunities to choose positions and defend their choices.
- Asking them to narrow choices and weigh pros and cons of alternative arguments or choices.
- Drawing upon course material that stimulates thinking about personal philosophy and life choices.
- Setting learning tasks that call for students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate from personal perspectives and then progressively more abstract or experiential perspectives, and that call for students to apply learning from one context to problems in a different context.
- Posing activities that ask students to generate new questions or evaluate assumptions inherent in how points of view are constructed.
Teachers can support their students as they move to higher levels by:
- Providing choices of assignments and projects and minimizing the structure and guidance provided.
- Allowing for more flexibility and creativity in formats of written work.
- Continuing personalization through group work, opportunities for participation, peer teaching, and learning.
 previous page |
