integrity; all of which support a

democratic way of life

Feuerstein’s theory of mediated learning through

Instrumental Enrichment

Description and intended use

In his studies of the mediated learning experience (MLE) the Israeli psychologist and educator Reuven Feuerstein identified specific

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parameters of mediation in human learning situations. Feuerstein and his associates argue that the presence of MLE is a crucial factor in helping individuals become independent learners, because it creates the conditions necessary for the acquisition of the ‘psychological tools’ needed for higher-order thinking (Kozulin, 1998, p. 4).

Instrumental Enrichment (IE) is an intervention programme developed from Feuerstein’s early theory and research on cognitive modifiability (Richelle and Feuerstein, 1957). It was originally designed to be used with underachieving adolescents, but has since been implemented in a wide range of settings: for example, with gifted students; dyslexic students; and adult learners.

‘Instrumental Enrichment is most simply described as a strategy for learning to learn. It uses abstract, content free, organisational, spatial, temporal and perceptual exercises that involve a wide range of mental operations and thought processes’ (Begab, 1980, p. xv). According to Feuerstein, human beings are capable of altering the way they think, through the radical restructuring of the cognitive system. In his work with individuals facing genetic, developmental or socio-cultural challenges, Feuerstein has translated this belief into a number of educational strategies.

Mediated learning experience (MLE) depends on the quality of one- to-one interaction between the learner and the stimuli in the learner’s environment, where this interaction is mediated by the presence of a more advanced individual who selects, emphasises, changes and interprets the stimuli for the learner. Feuerstein (1980) argues that an insufficient amount or inadequate type of parental or school-based teaching is responsible for the reduced learning potential of some individuals, and that the infusion of MLE into educational intervention is capable of significantly enhancing learning potential. Instrumental Enrichment emphasises the transfer (‘bridging’) of the principles discovered through MLE into other areas of learning and mediation of meaning.

Feuerstein’s IE cognitive intervention programme targets those cognitive prerequisites of effective learning which, for whatever reason, have remained underdeveloped in an individual. These are addressed through a range of materials including 14 booklets of paper-and-pencil tasks with the following titles:

•Organisation of dots

•Analytic perception

•Categorisation

•Temporal relations

•Transitive relations

•Illustrations

•Comparisons

•Instructions

•Numerical progressions

•Representational stencil design

•Orientation in space 1

•Family relationships

•Orientation in space 2

•Syllogisms.

A list of the cognitive functions said to be tapped and developed through mediated learning with each instrument is provided by Feuerstein, Falik and Feuerstein (1998). There are more than 60 of these (including much duplication) and it is possible to classify them under the following eight headings:

•control of perception and attention

•comparison

•categorisation

•understanding relationships

•defining problems

•thinking hypothetically

•planning

•solving problems.

Feuerstein’s theory of learning, instruction and cognitive modifiability has five interlinked aspects, but here we focus on the areas of thinking and problem-solving addressed in the Learning Propensity Assessment Device (LPAD) (Feuerstein, Falik and Feuerstein 1998). The LPAD (first produced by Feuerstein, Rand and Hoffmann in 1979) is designed to assess an individual’s capacity to learn through ‘dynamic assessment’. Individuals are not only given tasks, but also receive instruction based on the principles of MLE. The assessment takes

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into account the individual’s response to mediation as well as the nature of the help provided.

There are thirteen instruments in the LPAD: four of these are said to assess perceptual–motor functions organised by cognitive components; four assess memory, with a learning component; and five assess higher-order cognitive processes and mental operations. What is striking is the heavy reliance on visual presentation, with only one orally-presented test making explicit demands on verbal reasoning. The types of task in the LPAD correspond very closely with those used in the IE teaching programme.

Skuy et al. (1991) provide a cognitive map (table 3.2) to guide the teacher to assess where difficulties in effective thinking may lie. The teacher can then plan the right combination of mediated learning experiences and interactions at the input, elaboration or output phases of the learning process.

A key strategy in overcoming learning failure for Feuerstein and his associates is the need to help learners to avoid impulsivity ‘like the game of guessing what’s in the teacher’s head’ and to take the time to consider options and alternatives more carefully’ (Fisher, 1998, p. 16). The main intention here is for an adult or more competent peer to mediate the learner’s experience of the learning environment, through the use of a system of specifically developed stimulating psychological tools, in such a way as to create a set of enabling sociocultural conditions designed to improve an individual’s capacity to learn.

Evaluation

The cognitive tasks in the LPAD are derived from tasks in conventional tests of intelligence and visual perception, but with a greater emphasis on fluid than on crystallised abilities. No justification is offered for the inclusion of some tasks and the exclusion of others, but it is clear from the list of IE cognitive functions, which we have grouped into eight categories, that a broad range of thinking skills is covered. Planning skills are very strongly represented, with a greater emphasis on convergent than on divergent thinking. Memory is not emphasised, but understanding is.

The emphasis on non-verbal test formats reflects the fact that Feuerstein wanted Instrumental Enrichment to be accessible to learners with limited firstor second-language skills. However, this

the development of learner autonomy. Little is known about the efficacy of different approaches to bridging, but to date the empirical evidence for transfer as a result of IE is not strong (Romney and Samuels, 2001). Kozulin (2002) argues that greater attention needs to be paid to the pedagogy of content teaching that is supposed to be coordinated with the IE intervention.

Influenced by Vygotsky’s (1962, 1978) sociocultural theory, Feuerstein believes that learning takes place where there is a very special relationship between teacher and learner in which both intellectual and emotional growth are encouraged and supported. One of the problems with Feuerstein’s approach is his claim that the quality of mediated learning experiences can only be assessed subjectively.

Despite the fact that the key concept of a mediated learning experience is ill-defined, many psychologists and teachers have been trained in dynamic assessment and Instrumental Enrichment, seeing the idea of cognitive modifiability as offering more hope for learners than views of intelligence which emphasise its genetically determined nature. Other thinking skills packages have drawn on Feuerstein’s theoretical framework, for example the Thinking Skills at Work modules, developed and described by Blagg et al. (1993). Kozulin (2002) reviews applications of Feuerstein’s IE programme in different countries and with different populations of students. He also raises questions about how far the different goals of IE may require different pedagogical approaches.

Summary: Feuerstein