Adopting the Role of the Learner, Provide a Critical Comparison, Overview and Justification of How Social and/or Cognitive Learning Theory Both Informed and Was Applied Within Two Teaching/Learning Episodes You’ve

Cognitive learning is based on how students process new information in a way that makes it meaningful to them. Fitts and Posner (1967) describe this as a three stage theory to cognitive learning. These three stages include cognitive, associative and autonomous. The cognitive stage is when the student is given verbal instruction on the task in hand which includes the student to use personal perception and decision making how to perform the skill correctly. The second stage, associative being when the skill is repetitively performed to correctly perform the task. And the final stage when the performance can be altered due to both positive and negative influences. This includes stress, distraction, advice or motivation.

Social learning theory is based on how students perceive others when relating to performance skills. James et.al (2003) describes social learning as observing and copying their actions. An example of this is a coach demonstrating a skill move in a session and the class having to copy that movement as they perceived it. However, James et.al (2003) continues by explaining that not only is this related to coaching. An example of this theory outside of coaching could be that a child may see a professional football player on the television argue with a referee and they would see this as the right thing to do being a role model.

It is also possible to combine the two theories creating the Social Cognitive Theory. This theory includes that the amount of attention, retention, reproduction and motivation can affect learning. (Bandura, 1977) he states that if not enough attention is put in, learning will not take place or not be as efficient due to not enough information taken in. the amount of practice will also play a role due to if the students did not have enough time to practice the skill, they would not be able to perfect the skill and have a lower performance level. And the level of motivation also plays a part in this theory. If the student is not

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