From seeing and hearing to remembering: A conception of the instructional process

This article presents a conceptual schema of the instructional process which is intended to make a number of relevant findings from research more readily understood and applied by designers of instruction and instructional materials. It is based on severll summary sources of research-based findings and principles from the perception, memory, and concept formation literature. The basic conception is that learning is the product of an ongoing interactive process between learner and environment, and that instruction is a temporary and purposeful intervention in that process, the aim of which is the optimization of the learner-environment interaction.The schema is organized around relevant characteristics of the learner, i.e., four basic learner requirements (stimulation, order, strategy, and meaning). These basic learner requirements are subdivided into twenty limitations, particularities and qualities of the human information processing systems. The resulting picture of the human learner provides the basis for describing what the other part of the interaction — the instructional environment — should be like in order to provide an optimum fit between learner and environment. The schema subsumes and interrelates many of the research-based principles found in the literature and hence may make them more memorable and usable.1 Because of the generality of research findings referred to in this schema, few specific references will be given. However, the principles on which the schema is based are all properly credited in the sources noted earlier, e.g. Fleming and Levie (1978).