Understanding learning through Mental Model Theory

The research in this book aimed to determine how a study of a teacher's and students' mental models can inform the educational community about effective pedagogy. The research questions included the identification of the participants' mental models before, during, and immediately after applied problem-solving in a robotics programme. A more in-depth investigation exposed the teacher's and four of her students' mental models of teaching, learning, and assessment. Once these mental models had been established, the matches, mismatches, and/or changes over time of such mental models and the effect, if any, on teaching, learning, and assessment were examined. This empirical qualitative study was centred within information processing theory and linked with the introspection mediating process tracing paradigm and involved close contact with the participants over an extended period of time. The methodology focussed on learner centredness and how the participants integrated new experiences with existing conceptual, declarative, and procedural knowledge in the areas of teaching, learning, and assessment.