1. Higher-Level Cognitive Processes
Chapter Eight
Educational Psychology: Developing Learners
6th edition
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod

2. Cognitive Processes
The ideal classroom regularly encourages both lower-level and higher-level cognitive processes.
Lower-level cognitive processes include using basic facts and skills.
Higher-level cognitive processes are those in which people do something fairly complex with what they are learning.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

3. Metacognition
The knowledge and beliefs about one’s own cognitive processes and one’s resulting attempts to regulate those cognitive processes to maximize learning and memory
The greater metacognitive awareness students have, the more likely they are to use effective strategies and have high achievement.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

4. Metacognition
Metacognition includes planning, monitoring, and evaluating.
Reflecting on the nature of thinking and learning
Knowing limits of one’s own skills
Monitoring one’s own knowledge and comprehension to monitor whether information has been successfully learned
Using effective learning strategies
Planning a reasonable approach
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

5. Developing Metacognitive Skills
Metacognitive skills can be taught separately from school.
Stand-alone programs such as note-taking workshops and time management workshops
Metacognitive skills can be taught within a subject.
Teaching students how to take notes
Helping them identify important aspects of topic/concepts
Teaching students how to quiz themselves
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

6. Effective Learning Strategies
First, identify important information
Second, retrieve relevant prior knowledge
Third, take notes
Fourth, organize information
Fifth, elaborate on information
Sixth, summarize information
Seventh, monitor comprehension
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

7. Factors Affecting Strategy Use
The nature of the task
Lower-level thinking tasks don’t require elaborate strategies.
Our knowledge base
Not having relevant prior knowledge negatively impacts the effectiveness of strategies.
Previous comprehension monitoring
If we don’t know what didn’t work for us before, we are likely to continue to use ineffective strategies.
Our epistemological beliefs
Understanding the nature of knowledge and learning positively impacts the effectiveness of strategies.
Our motivation
Previous instruction in effective study strategies
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

8. Knowledge Transfer
Transfer occurs when something a student has learned at one time affects how the student learns or performs in a later situation.
Positive transfer vs. negative transfer
Positive: When something we’ve learned before helps us learn something new
Negative: When something we’ve learned before actually makes it harder for us to learn something new
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

9. Knowledge Transfer Specific transfer vs. general transfer
Specific: What we learned before overlaps with what we’re learning now
General: What we learned before is different in content but still helpful
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

10. Factors Affecting Transfer
Amount of instructional time given to transfer
Whether the original learning was meaningful
Learning of general principles
The more general principles we know, the better
Amount and type of examples given
Opportunities for practice
Similarity in what we’re learning to what we’ve learned before
Time between instruction and application
Being able to see the interrelatedness of subjects
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

11. Problem Solving
Problems that are well-defined are easier to solve than those that are ill-defined.
Well-defined problems are characterized by:
Clearly stated goals
All information needed to solve the problem
Only one correct answer
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

12. Problem Solving
Problems that are ill-defined occur more often in the real world than well-defined problems.
Ill-defined problems are characterized by:
Unclear goals
Missing information
Several possible solutions
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

13. Problem-Solving Strategies
There are two types of problem-solving strategies
Algorithm: Solving problems by following a prescribed sequence of steps
Heuristic: A general strategy that facilitates problem solving
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

14. Effective Problem Solving
Cognitive factors that impact problem solving:
Capacity of working memory
Problem encoding
Depth and integration of relevant knowledge
Long-term memory retrieval
Metacognitive processes
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

15. Promoting Problem-Solving Skills
Teach important topics in depth
Tie class material to what students already know
Give students practice in dealing with ill-defined problems and show them how to better define such problems
Help students automatize basic skills
Provide opportunities for application
Make school tasks relevant to students’ lives
Ask students to apply what they know in tests and other assessments
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

16. Creativity What is creativity? Intelligence vs. creativity
Ability to produce work that is original but appropriate, productive, and useful
Intelligence vs. creativity
They are two separate abilities:
Tasks on intelligence tests involve convergent thinking.
Creativity involves divergent thinking.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

17. Strategies for Fostering Creativity
Show students that creativity is valued by reserving judgment and encouraging play
Focus on internal rather than external rewards
Promote mastery of subject area
Ask thought-provoking questions
Provide the time that creativity requires
Give students the freedom and security they need to take risks
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

18. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the process of evaluating the accuracy and worth of information and lines of reasoning.
It involves:
Verbal reasoning: Understanding and evaluating persuasive techniques found in oral and written language
Argument analysis: Discriminating between reasons that do not support a conclusion
Probabilistic reasoning: Determining the likelihood and uncertainties associated with various events
Hypothesis testing: Judging the value of data and research results in terms of the methods used to obtain them and their potential relevance to certain conclusions
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

19. Strategies That Foster Critical Thinking
Teach elements of critical thinking
Encourage intellectual skepticism
Model critical thinking
Give students opportunities to practice
Ask questions that encourage critical thinking
Have students debate controversial issues
Embed critical thinking skills within the context of authentic activities
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition