Table of Contents

 Schema Theory
 General
 What is schema theory?
 What is the practical meaning of schema theory?
 Criticisms
 Keywords and most important names
 Bibliography
 Read more

Schema Theory
General
Concept of schema theory, one of the cognitivist learning
theories, was firstly introduced in 1932 through the work of
British psychologist Sir Frederic Bartlett1) (some suggest it
was first introduced in 1926 by Jean Piaget2)) and was
further developed mostly in 1970s by American
educational psychologist Richard Anderson3). Schema
theory describes how knowledge is acquired, processed
and organized. The starting assumption of this theory is
that “very act of comprehension involves one’s knowledge
of the world”4). According to this theory, knowledge is
a network of mental frames or cognitive constructs
called schema (pl. schemata). Schemata organize
knowledge stored in the long-term memory.

What is schema theory?

The term schema is nowadays often used even outside
cognitive psychology and refers to a mental
framework humans use to represent and organize
remembered information. Schemata (“the building
blocks of cognition”5)) present our personal simplified view
over reality derived from our experience and prior
knowledge, they enable us to recall, modify our
behavior, concentrate attention on key information6), or try
to predict most likely outcomes of events. According
to David Rumelhart7),

 “schemata can represent knowledge at all levels -

from ideologies and cultural truths to knowledge about
the meaning of a particular word, to knowledge about
what patterns of excitations are associated with what
letters of the alphabet. We have schemata to represent
 all levels of our experience, at all levels of abstraction.
Finally, our schemata are our knowledge. All of our
generic knowledge is embedded in schemata.”
Schemata also expand and change in time, due to
acquisition of new information, but deeply installed
schemata are inert and slow in changing. This could
provide an explanation to why some people live with
incorrect or inconsistent beliefs rather then changing them.
When new information is retrieved, if possible, it will
be assimilated into existing schema(ta) or related
schema(ta) will be changed(accommodated) in order to
integrate the new information. For example: during
schooling process a child learns about mammals and
develops corresponding schema. When a child hears that
a porpoise is a mammal as well, it first tries to fit it into the
mammals schema: it's warm-blooded, air-breathing, is
born with hair and gives live birth. Yet it lives in water
unlike most mammals and so the mammals schema has
to be accommodated to fit in the new information.

Schema theory was partly influenced by unsuccessful

attempts in the area of artificial intelligence. Teaching
a computer to read natural text or display other human-
like behavior was rather unsuccessful since it has shown
that it is impossible without quite an amount of information
that was not directly included, but was inherently present
in humans. Research has shown that this inherent
information stored in form of schemata, for example:

 content schema - prior knowledge about the topic of

the text
 formal schema - awareness of the structure of the
text, and
 language schema - knowledge of the vocabulary and
relationships of the words in text
can cause easier or more difficult text comprehension 8),
depending on how developed the mentioned schemata
are, and weather they are successfully activated.9).
According to Brown10), when reading a text, it alone does
not carry the meaning a reader attributes to it.
The meaning is formed by the information and cultural
and emotional context the reader brings through his
schemata more than by the text itself.
Text comprehension and
retention therefore depend mostly on the schemata the
reader possesses, among which the content schema
should be one of most important, as suggested by Al-
Issa11).

What is the practical meaning of

schema theory?
Schema theory emphasizes importance of general
knowledge and concepts that will help forming
schemata. In educational process the task
of teachers would be to help learners to develop new
schemata and establish connections between them.
Also, due to the importance of prior knowledge, teachers
should make sure that students have it.
“The schemata a person already possesses are a
principal determiner of what will be learned from a new
text.”12)

Schema theory has been applied in various areas like:

 motor learning - schema theory was extended

to schema theory of discrete motor learning in 1975 by
Richard Schmidt13). Wulf14) has shown that developing a
motor schema has resulted in better performance in
children when learning a motor task.
 reading comprehension - schema theory is often
used to assist second language learning since it often
contains reading a lot of texts in the target language.
Failure to activate adequate schema when reading a
text has shown to result in bad comprehension15).
Various methods have been proposed for dealing with
this issue16) including giving students texts in their first
language on certain topic about which they will later
read in target language.
 mathematical problem solving - Jitendra et
al.17) conducted a research showing that 3rd-graders
taught to using schemata to solve mathematical
problems formulated in words performed better than
their peers who were taught to solve them in four steps
(read and understand/plan to solve/solve/look back and
check).
Criticisms
Explanations of structures of knowledge have been
criticized for being rather unclear about what exactly can
count as a schema and what does a schema include. The
idea of schemata as more complex constructs of memory
has also been questioned. Some researchers18) suggest
schemata as such are just networks of interacting simple
(low-level) units activated at the same time. For example,
a classroom schema is formed by simultaneously
activated units of a blackboard, desks, chairs and a
teacher.

On the other hand, schema theory was the starting point

or a component for many other cognitivist theories and
theorists like Jean Mandler19), David Rumelhart (modes of
learning) or Marvin Minsky (frame theory) who have
further expanded it's concepts, and was also included in
works of many other theorists like Sweller's (cognitive load
theory) or Ausubell's (assimilation theory).

Keywords and most important names

 schema theory, schema, schemata, schema
theory of discrete motor learning
 Sir Frederic Bartlett, Richard Anderson, David
Rumelhart, Richard Schmidt, Roger Schank
Bibliography
Al-Issa, Ahmad. Schema Theory And L2 Reading
Comprehension: Implications For Teaching. Journal of
College Teaching & Learning, 3(7), p41-48. July 2006.

Schema theory of learning. LinguaLinks Library,

1999. Retrieved March 15, 2011.

Schema theory of learning. The Encyclopedia of

Educational Technology. Retrieved March 15, 2011.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and

Learning. Schema and script theory. Retrieved March 15,
2011.

Qualitative Research Methods. Schema Theory (drawn

from D’Andrade 1995). Retrieved March 15, 2011.

Wiki: Schema Theory. Retrieved March 15, 2011.

Read more
Sherwood, D. E, and T. D Lee. Schema theory: critical
review and implications for the role of cognition in a new
theory of motor learning.” Research quarterly for exercise
and sport 74, no. 4: 376–382. 2003.
D'Andrade, Roy G. The development of cognitive
anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Mandler, Jean Matter. Stories, Scripts, and Scenes:

Aspects of Schema Theory. Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc., Publishers, 365 Broadway, Hillsdale,
1984.

Mandler, J. M. The foundations of mind: The origins of

conceptual thought. New York: Oxford University Press.
2004.

Bartlett, F.C. Remembering: A Study in Experimental and

Social Psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press. 1932.
1)
 
Bartlett, Frederic (Sir). Remembering: A study in
experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University
Press, 1932.
2)
 
Erasmus, A. C, E. Bishoff, and G. G. Rousseau. The
potential of using script theory in consumer behaviour
research. Journal of Family Ecology and Consumer
Sciences, 2010.
3)
 
Kearsley, Greg. Script theory (R. Schank). The Theory
Into Practice Database.
4)
 
Anderson, R. C., R. E. Reynolds, D. L. Schallert, and E. T.
Goetz. Frameworks for Comprehending Discourse.
American Educational Research Journal 14, no. 4: 367-
381. January 1977.
5)
 
Rumelhart, D. E. Schemata: The building blocks of
cognition. In J. Guthrie (Ed.), Comprehension and
teaching: Research reviews (pp. 3-26). Newark, DE:
International Reading Association. 1982.
6)
 
Anderson, Richard C, Rand J. Spiro, and Mark C
Anderson. Schemata as Scaffolding for the
Representation of Information in Connected Discourse.
American Educational Research Journal 15, no. 3: 433-
440, June 20, 1978.
7)
 
Rumelhart, D. E. Schemata: The building blocks of
cognition. In J. Guthrie (Ed.), Comprehension and
teaching: Research reviews (pp. 3-26). Newark, DE:
International Reading Association. 1982.
8)
 
Schema Theory And L2 Reading Comprehension:
Implications For Teaching. Journal of College Teaching &
Learning, 3(7), p41-48. July 2006.
9)
 
Carrell, P.L. Interactive text processing; Implications for
ESL/second language reading. In P, L. Carrell, J. Devine
& D.E. Eskey (Eds.) Interactive Approaches to second
language reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 1988.
10)
 
Brown, H.D. Teaching by principles: An interactive
approach to language pedagogy. White Plains, NY:
Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2001.
11)
 
Al-Issa, Ahmad. Schema Theory And L2 Reading
Comprehension: Implications For Teaching. Journal of
College Teaching & Learning, 3(7), p41-48. July 2006.
12)
 
Anderson, Richard C., Rand J. Spiro, and Mark C.
Anderson. Schemata as Scaffolding for the
Representation of Information in Connected Discourse.
American Educational Research Journal 15, no. 3: 433-
440, June 20, 1978.
13)
 
Schmidt, Richard A. A schema theory of discrete motor
skill learning. Psychological Review 82, no. 4: 225-260.
July 1975.
14)
 
Wulf, Gabriele. The effect of type of practice on motor
learning in children. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5(2),
p123-134. March/April 1991.
15)
 
Bransford, John D., and Merieta K. Johnson.
Consideration of some problems of comprehension. In
Chase, W. G. (editor). Visual information processing. New
York: Academic. 1973.
16)
 
See: Al-Issa, Ahmad. Schema Theory And L2 Reading
Comprehension: Implications For Teaching. Journal of
College Teaching & Learning, 3(7), p41-48. July 2006.
17)
 
 Jitendra, Asha K., Cynthia C. Griffin, Priti Haria, Jayne
Leh, Aimee Adams, and Kaduvettoor, Anju. A Comparison
of Single and Multiple Strategy Instruction on Third-Grade
Students' Mathematical Problem Solving. Journal of
Educational Psychology 99, no. 1: 115-127. February
2007.
18)
 
McClelland, J.L., Rumelhart, D.E. and the PDP Research
Group. Parallel distributed processing: explorations in the
microstructure of cognition, vol. 2, Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1986.
19)
 
Mandler, Jean Matter. Stories, Scripts, and Scenes:
Aspects of Schema Theory. Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc., Publishers, 365 Broadway, Hillsdale,
1984.
learning_theories/schema_theory.txt · Last modified: 2013/12/10
16:32 by kmikulic

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What is schema
theory and how
might it be
applied in your
classroom?
Provide specific
examples.
What is schema
theory and how
might it be
applied in your
classroom?
Provide specific
examples.