Towards a Piagetian subconscious learning theory ...

... and an explanation of why traditional lectures work (and don't work)!

Some background on educational psychology. I teach courses that most students find either boring or highly abstract; often both. The prevailing view on pedagogy in higher education seems to be that it's a Good Thing to make ideas interesting and palatable tor students. Teaching is communication and if you speak to people in a way they don't like or understand, very little communication takes place; the receiver doesn't actually receive the communication. I agree ... in principle.

Consider, however, a statement made by John Grinder, a well-known psychologist: 

I once taught a mathematics course at the University of California to ... linguistic students who had a good understanding of how language systems work, but did not have an understanding of mathematical systems. ... I made my entire approach fit their model of the world rather that demanding they have the flexibility to come to mine. ... When you do that, you certainly do them a favor in the sense that you package the material so it's quite easy for them to learn it. You also do them a disservice in the sense that you are supporting rigid patterns of learning in them. [my emphasis]

Hmmm. Very interesting. So, even if we could develop courses and instructional styles that appealed directly to our addictions to reality game shows, and even if this made learning some idea ( ... in accounting and finance :) ) really easy, maybe we shouldn't.

Like all decisions in life, the decision is based on a value judgment. That is, what value or objective are we trying to maximize? Consider, what precisely is the objective of higher education in accounting and finance? Is it to learn how to use the finance functions in Microsoft Excel? Or is it to learn the fundamental concepts, principles, theories, and application methods underlying the spreadsheet functions? I've asked the question many times and here is the empirical result: Employers and, hence, students want to know how to use the finance functions ("on the job"). Professors believe it best for students and employers if students understand the underlying concepts, principles, theories, and methods. After all, just because we understand how to use Excel finance functions like =IRR to determine internal rate of return, doesn't even mean we understand what it is. Although there is no doubt some compromise, it seems clear--at least to me--that the professors have it about right since people only spend about 2-4 years studying accounting and finance to prepare them for the entire careers.
 
With that as background and the premise that the objective of accounting and finance education is to prepare people for their entire careers, we can proceed to the main topic.

A theory of subconscious learning.  Now a story: When I first began teaching I believed, as I had been instructed, that it was necessary to "engage" with (hopefully) all the students in the class. That is, I believed it was necessary to have their active attention as I lectured. Some would say that lecturing was a mistake in the first place: what's needed is a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-out-into-the-class, get-in-their-faces mode of interaction that Makes Them Engage.
 
Unfortunately, I happen to believe in free will: Why shouldn't students be free to choose to actively attend, inactively attend, or skip lecture altogether? Isn't it presumptuous and unreasonable to expect anywhere near the majority of a class of 50 students to pay rapt attention and interact throughout a lecture? After all, in the corporate world it's my experience that peoples' attention spans are generally less than 10 minutes. Most students spend about 15 hours a week in lectures. And, anyway, is it not even a little unfair to make students learn when there are essentially enforced grade distributions (i.e., is it fair to make all students learn at a high level--say an A- or A level--and then grade them in such a way suggesting half are below average?). After solving this philosophical problem to my satisfaction by allowing students to engage and learn the way they believed best, I moved on to focusing on other aspects of teaching ...
 
Over a period of about two or three years I noticed that students generally fell clearly into several groups, arranged in the order that I preferred teaching to:

Group 1  Students who always came to class but never really took notes, and generally alternated between paying close attention, spacing out, or intermittently dozing off. These students tended to ask the most meaningful questions.
Group 2  Students who always came to class, furiously took notes trying to write down every single word, symbol, or diagram I spoke about or wrote. These students generally did not ask any meaningful questions.
Group 3  Students who came to class but generally took no notes and just dozed-off most of the time. No questions here, needless to say.
Group 4  Students who rarely came to class. Plenty of questions here, but only about exams and exam dates and locations!

Now then, Esteemed Reader, what do you suppose the ranking of the groups was in terms of their average performance on examinations? As it turned out, and as it continues to turn out, the groups fall clearly into the following performance ranking:

Rank 1 ... is dominated by Group 1 students.
Rank 2 ... is dominated by Group 3 students.
Rank 3 ... is dominated by Group 2 students.
Rank 4 ... is dominated by Group 4 students.

Interesting, no? What possibly could explain this? By what we've all been led to believe, the Group 2 students should have clearly dominated all the other groups in terms of learning performance. They have done as instructed: They have become active learners by pay rapt attention, using diligent note-taking as a means of staying focused on what they are learning.
 
Also interesting is that Group 2 students are not only furious at note-taking, they are furious when they don't earn an A in the courses. In contrast, the Group 1 and Group 3 students are often amusedly surprised at how well they did in the courses (with actually relatively little effort). No wonder the Group 2 students are furious. Unfortunately, they always take their revenge on said instructor, but that's another story ... .

So, what is going on?! The careful reader will see just what I did after about two years: Both Group 1 and 3 students were (i) present in class, and (ii) not actively attending to what was going on in class; the were often half-asleep in fact. Not the kind of bug-eyed engagement necessary, right?  Well, consider the following subconscious learning hypothesis:

When presented with ideas students consider abstract, boring, and irrelevant, learning is maximized when students' conscious minds are not engaged in the learning process; rather, it is maximized when their conscious minds are substantially not present, thus allowing their subconscious minds to simply record, absorb, and assimilate the ideas into their existing mental models.

But wouldn't active learning be best? Well, yes, if students don't detest (1) the subject matter, (2) the way it is presented , or (3) the instructor! In my experience, getting past these three prerequisites for the efficacy of active learning are almost insurmountable in classes meeting only about 45 hours in a semester. Moreover, in many cases it's not even reasonably possible to adjust (1), (2), or (3).

So, why is it important that the conscious mind not be engaged in the learning process? I think the answer hinges on Piaget's learning theory:

Intellectual growth involves three fundamental processes: assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. Assimilation involves the incorporation of new events into preexisting cognitive structures. Accommodation means existing structures change to accommodate to the new information. This dual process, assimilation-accommodation, enables the child to form schema. Equilibration involves the person striking a balance between himself and the environment, between assimilation and accommodation. When a child experiences a new event, disequilibrium sets in until he is able to assimilate and accommodate the new information and thus attain equilibrium. There are many types of equilibrium between assimilation and accommodation that vary with the levels of development and the problems to be solved. For Piaget, equilibration is the major factor in explaining why some children advance more quickly in the development of logical intelligence than do others (Lavatelli, 40; see http://www.sk.com.br/sk-piage.html).

While Piaget vehemently endorsed active engagement and learning, he was implicitly assuming it was possible to adjust the prerequisites for active learning I discuss above.  In my experience and that of other colleagues I've had discussions with, these adjustments are very difficult in practice.

In the words of Piaget, the process of equilibration involves an active choice by a person about whether they should assimilate information into their existing mental models.  So, here's the key: Groups 1 and 3 are perhaps best at learning what they believe to be boring, abstract, irrelevant ideas because their conscious minds are not constantly telling them to disregard the ideas because they don't like the subject, presentation, or instructor. 

The efficacy of traditional lectures. A corollary on why traditional lectures have served humanity quite well over the last 2,000 years or so follows very naturally:

Traditional dry, boring lectures are optimal for teaching dry, boring material because it does not require distorting the subject matter, presentation, or instructor (ethos, pathos, logos, mannerisms or physical attractiveness) because it has the strong tendency to shut down students' conscious minds and all the ideas are presented directly to the subconscious mind, thus bypassing the (Piagetian) conscious equilibration process.

So, there it is. A basic applied theory of subconscious learning. I've run the idea by several educational psychologists and clinical psychiatrists and they are extremely skeptical. But I believe the theory is logically consistent with other accepted learning theories (e.g., Piaget) and I actually have a lot of empirical evidence that is strongly consistent with the theory!

And now the good news: Yes, if you're bored in class, just come to class  anyway and doze off. You'll be better off for it in several ways ...
 

MMc
São Paulo