[quoting Quinn, 4 Apr 96] ...but I'd reserve mental models specifically for cognitive (qualitative) models of dynamic systems, and use "conceptual frameworks" as higher-level representations that organize disparate bits of knowledge, including mental models.
[quoting Reeves, 3 Apr 96] A typical taxonomy of internal learning states as defined by contemporary cognitive psychologists includes constructs such as "simple propositions, schema, rules, general rules, skills, general skills, automatic skills, and mental models" (Kyllonen & Shute, 1989). The authors of these taxonomies imply that mental models are the richest constructs of learning states that have been conceptualized to date.
In respect to Tom's [Reeves] comment: As a simple taxonomy, this one works as well as any. But we need to remember that mental models theory is a coherent theory that seeks to explain thinking. In this respect, it is different from other cognitive theories, and is not consistent with theories that explain cognition by reference to rule-based formalisms (and Tom, I feel, appears to package both, indiscriminately, in his taxonomy). Let me expand on this.
Certainly there is much confusion arising over the idea of mental models, simply because accounts differ from one theorist to another. But basing our understanding on Johnson-Laird's considerable and most recent work in this area, mental models are essentially cognitive tools that have predictive and other cognitive properties. A mental model is a mediating intervention between perception and action--it provides a representation (of, for example, functions, systems, and processes) which, in turn, provides the means to interpret, to remember, to communicate information, and to control performance (Gentner & Stevens, 1983; Montague, 1988) . Johnson-Laird explains mental models by providing the following context:
Understanding certainly depends on knowledge and belief. If you know what causes a phenomenon, what results from it, how to influence, control, initiate, or prevent it, how it relates to other states of affairs or how it resembles them, how to predict its onset and course, what its internal or underlying "structure" is, then to some extent you understand it. The psychological core of understanding, I shall assume, consists in your having a "working model" of the phenomenon in your mind. If you understand inflation, a mathematical proof, the way a computer works, DNA or a divorce, then you have a mental representation that serves as a model of an entity in much the same way as, say, a clock functions as a model of the earth's rotation. (Johnson-Laird, 1983, p. 2)
But the theory of mental models and their role in thinking is somewhat incompatible with the belief in the central role of formalisms (e.g., rules of logic) in the process of thinking (the latter being heavily represented in earlier cognitive theories of learning, beginning with Piaget's work). The structure of a mental model corresponds to the structure of reality, as we perceive it, and represents that reality rather than representing the linguistic structure of discourse (which is characteristic of formalist approaches). In this sense, mental models theory offers an alternative explanation of the way in which people think, and in particular, of the way in which they reason by the processes of both deduction and induction (Johnson-Laird, 1983; Johnson-Laird, 1993) . So whereas, Piaget and others of his tradition, for example, consider that formal reasoning is achieved by using rules of logic, Johnson-Laird suggests that reasoning is rather a process of building mental models. [However, there is some similarity between Piaget's account of concrete operational reasoning, where children at this cognitive stage think in terms of concrete representations (objects and events), and Johnson-Laird's mental representations--and both, of course, are concerned to describe tools for thinking (Bliss, 1994)... but I now digress].
So, whilst I would agree with Clark to some extent (regarding his categorization of mental models and conceptual frames), I think we have to be careful about accepting Tom's views, based on Kyllonen & Shute, in so much as mental models provides an alternative theory of cognitive processing to other, rule based, approaches. Thus, mental models and rule-based formalisms, as explanations of thinking, simply cannot sit easily in the same theoretical framework.
[quoting Quinn, 4 Apr 96] We're traipsing all over the landscape here (which is what makes this such a great mailing list). We're addressing the realities of the learning environments (hey, I still lecture), the underlying components of learning, the changing context in which this is happening, and how technology can be adapted to the pedagogical goals. I'd argue that the bottom line, however, is to design good learning activities, and then see if technology can make them happen.
An alternative and perhaps somewhat controversial if more realistic bottom line, is to design instruction, involving or based on information technologies, and then explain why it works (or doesn't work) by reference to learning theories.