1. CONCEPT ATTAINMENT MODEL
Delivered by
Mrs. Babita
Assistant Professor

2. Jerome S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and the late George A
Jerome S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and the late George A. Austin developed the idea of concept attainment in their book A Study of Thinking (1956). 
Dr. Bruner, a psychologist and educator at the New York University Law School, was a pioneer in the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology as well as a prime mover in the educational reform movement in the 1960s

3. He uses a multidisciplinary approach,
combining anthropology, psychology, linguistics,
and literary theory, to explore how enculturation affects
the formation of institutions – particularly education
and more recently law.
 Bruner’s primary contribution to education fall within
the arena of the information processing models
– the models designed to help students acquire
and operate on data. 
His primary advance in this area pertains to the
development and use of Concept Attainment in
curriculum development.

4. Concept Attainment, a close relative to inductive thinking (Joyce and Weil 1967:15), focuses on the decision-making and categorization processes leading up to the creation and understanding of a concept.
  A concept is “the network of inferences that are or may be set into play by an act of categorization” (Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin :244). 

5. The concept will be attained after minimum number of encounters with relevant instances;
A concept will be attained with certainty, regardless of the number of instances one must test en route to attainment;
Minimize the amount of strain on guessing and memorization while guaranteeing a concept will be attained;
To minimize the number of wrong categorizations prior to attaining a concept (Bruner et al 1956).

6. Concept Attainment is an indirect instructional strategy that uses a structured inquiry process
to clarify ideas and to introduce aspects of content
well suited to classroom use because all thinking abilities can be challenged throughout the activity.
Concept attainment involves not only the decision-making processes involved with categorization but it also incorporates a personalized historical experience of each student or individual.

7. The pattern of decisions leading to concept attainment
involve the following five general factors:
1) the definition of task; 2) the nature of the examples encountered; 3) the nature of validation procedures; 4) the consequences of specific categorizations; and 5) the nature of imposed restrictions.

8. Steps of Concept Attainment:
Select and define a concept
Select the attributes
Develop positive and negative examples
Introduce the process to the students
Present the examples and list the attributes
Develop a concept definition
Give additional examples
Discuss the process with the class
Evaluate

9. Advantages:
helps make connections between what students know and what they will be learning
learn how to examine a concept from a number of perspectives
learn how to sort out relevant information
extends their knowledge of a concept by classifying more than one example of that concept
students go beyond merely associating a key term with a definition 
concept is learned more thoroughly and retention is improved 

10. DISADVANTAGE:
Miscommunications in concept attainment could be a drawback to the educational process

11. Thanks