Expanding Beyond a Cognitivist Framework: A Commentary on Martinez’s “Intentional Learning in an Intentional World”    

One of the looming challenges educators face today is understanding how student diversity and uniqueness impacts the complex process of learning. Affective and conative factors are increasingly examined as we seek to understand how to teach and support the whole learner. The goal is to build theory that informs practice so that we may, as Martinez argues, move beyond “fuzzy, one-size-fi tsall [instructional] solutions” to instruction that is designed to match individual learning needs. Factors such as motivation, self-effi cacy, learning styles, and emotional intelligence have become increasingly common terms in educational research as we seek to defi ne affective and conative variables that impact the learning process as well as design of instruction. However, as with much of educational research, there are a vast number of complex, interrelated variables to consider and no one easy solution.

Kirkley, Jamie and Thomas Duffy. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Education>TC>Cognitive Psychology