Cognitive flexibility
Cognitive flexibility is defined as the ability to develop flexible and multiple knowledge representations, which can then be used in different situations (cf. Mandl et al., 2004, p. 22). At the beginning of the e-learning hype, learning with hypertext was seen as a way of achieving cognitive flexibility.
The theory of cognitive flexibility ( cognitive flexibility ) was supported by a research group of RJ Spiro at the Columbia University ( USA) developed. The focus is on the multiple perspectives of what has been learned and the multiple contexts. One way of implementing multi-perspectives is to confront learners with as many application situations as possible in which newly developed skills can come into play. Learning environments should illuminate content from as different perspectives as possible and in different contexts, so that later knowledge transfer is possible in unfamiliar situations. It is assumed that these learning scenarios are particularly suitable for highly complex content in less structured areas (e.g. medicine). In this way it is possible to network domain-specific knowledge in order to develop skills that can be used flexibly.
So far, there is a lack of comprehensive empirical results on this approach.
See also
Literature / sources
- Mandl, H., Kopp, B. & Dvorak, S. (2004): Current theoretical approaches and empirical findings in the field of teaching-learning research - focus on adult education (PDF; 536 kB).