Motivation to learn and understand: On taking charge of one's own learning.

My comments on Susan Bobbitt Nolen's article (this issue) are not intended to serve as a critique, but rather to welcome research of this nature to the journal. Cognition and Instruction is still in its infancy, but it has already made a major impact in defining the field. It publishes high-quality research dedicated to important issues of educational significance. Unfortunately, due to the pattern of submissions, by far the majority of articles have focused on learning and teaching mathematics. This bias reflects the fact that many outstanding scientists are working on the cognitive science approach to learning mathematics and science, but it was never the editors' intention to limit coverage in this way. And, therefore, Nolen's article is a welcome addition. Motivational aspects of learning have by and large been ignored by many who see themselves as cognitive scientists, and this omission needs to be rectified. In 1983, my colleagues and I, reviewing the state of the art in developmental cognition, concluded a 228-page manuscript with the comment, "The emotional cannot be divorced from the cognitive, nor the individual from the social" (A. L. Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983, p. 149). Yet a scant 9 pages of that opus were devoted to research that went "beyond cold cognition," to use Zajonc's (1980) evocative phrase. In the decade since A. L. Brown et al. (1983) was written, we have seen an upsurge of research on the social settings of learning, and work that takes us beyond cold cognition is certainly welcome.

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