An examination of the work of JJ Gibson, as previously documented on this blog, shows that people perceive affordances in any object. He argued that what we see is directly perceived, and that we extract meaning from the shape and design of the object we are looking at. Its design suggests to us how we might use the object, based on its appearance, and previous experience with similar objects or contexts. Norman took this idea and argued that knowledge not only resides in our heads, but also in the world around us. That is, not all knowledge for skilled actions needs to be inside your head. It can also be present in the design of the objects you use to perform the skill. Skilled typists if tested, are often unable to correctly label unlabeled keys on a keyboard, but can type very fast without looking at the keyboard.

How it can be applied in education

As Norman suggests, when information to perform a task is present within the design of an object, the need to learn it is reduced. How many readers could say (without looking) whether the Queen's head on a £10 note faces left or right?* It takes several hours to learn a systems such as typing on a keyboard, and several more months to become competent to the point of expertise. The payoff for all the practice, says Norman, is not only increased typing speed and accuracy, but also a reduction in mental effort, freeing up the mind to process other things.

Teachers can harness this principle in the design of just about anything from the layout of the classroom to the design of a learning resource. If a design is expected, students will spend little time figuring out how to use the object. The user interface on most VLE/LMS technologies is often too complex for students, who spend much more time trying to navigate and discover content than they do actually learning that content. An example of transparent design is where the technology interface is so familiar or simple that students need to expend no mental effort using it. Conversely, presenting a problem to students places them in an unfamiliar context where they are compelled to expend mental energy to solve it. This can be a desirable effect if the student is required to learn something deeply and reason about its significance. In such a case, using a great deal of mental effort can result in learning the structure and space of the problem. In the future when students encounter similar problem spaces, they are then able to use analogical reasoning to solve those problems more quickly.

Clearly, presenting problems is a more effective pedagogical approach than giving answers, especially if the aim is to encourage independent learning. The manner in which a problem is presented can be various, from well structured, to ill-defined. Ill-defined problems offer less parameters/information and have less information in their design. This often provokes the learner to work harder to discover the solution to the problem and to delve deeper into the problem space. Sudoku puzzles with fewer spaces completed are harder to solve that those with more spaces completed.

* The answer is neither left nor right - the Queen faces forward on the note.

Further Reading

Norman, D. A. (1990) The Design of Everyday Things. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Previous posts in this series:

1.  Anderson ACT-R Cognitive Architecture
2.  Argyris Double Loop Learning
3.  Bandura Social Learning Theory
4.  Bruner Scaffolding Theory
5.  Craik and Lockhart Levels of Processing
6.  Csíkszentmihályi Flow Theory
7.  Dewey Experiential Learning
8.  Engeström Activity Theory
9.  Ebbinghaus Learning and Forgetting Curves
10. Festinger Social Comparison Theory
11. Festinger Cognitive Dissonance Theory
12. Gardner Multiple Intelligences Theory
13. Gibson Affordances Theory
14. Gregory Visual Perception Hypothesis
15. Hase and Kenyon Heutagogy
16. Hull Drive Reduction Theory
17. Inhelder and Piaget Formal Operations Stage
18. Jung Archetypes and Synchronicity
19. Jahoda Ideal Mental Health
20. Koffka Gestalt theory
21. Köhler Insight learning
22. Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle
23. Knowles Andragogy
24. Lave Situated Learning
25. Lave and Wenger Communities of Practice
26. Maslow Hierarchy of Human Needs
27. Merizow Transformative Learning
28. Milgram Six Degrees of Separation
29. Milgram Obedience to Authority

Photo by Cyrano82 on Deviant Art



Design for Life by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.