CONCEPT ATTAINMENT MODEL Delivered by Mrs Babita Assistant

CONCEPT ATTAINMENT MODEL Delivered by Mrs. Babita Assistant Professor

Jerome S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and the late George A. Austin developed the idea of concept attainment in their book A Study of Thinking (1956). Dr. Bruner, a psychologist and educator at the New York University Law School, was a pioneer in the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology as well as a prime mover in the educational reform movement in the 1960 s

He uses a multidisciplinary approach, combining anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and literary theory, to explore how enculturation affects the formation of institutions – particularly education and more recently law. Bruner’s primary contribution to education fall within the arena of the information processing models – the models designed to help students acquire and operate on data. His primary advance in this area pertains to the development and use of Concept Attainment in curriculum development.

Concept Attainment, a close relative to inductive thinking (Joyce and Weil 1967: 15), focuses on the decision-making and categorization processes leading up to the creation and understanding of a concept. A concept is “the network of inferences that are or may be set into play by an act of categorization” (Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin 1956: 244).

q. The concept will be attained after minimum number of encounters with relevant instances; q. A concept will be attained with certainty, regardless of the number of instances one must test en route to attainment; q. Minimize the amount of strain on guessing and memorization while guaranteeing a concept will be attained; q. To minimize the number of wrong categorizations prior to attaining a concept (Bruner et al 1956).

ØConcept Attainment is an indirect instructional strategy that uses a structured inquiry process Øto clarify ideas and to introduce aspects of content Øwell suited to classroom use because all thinking abilities can be challenged throughout the activity. ØConcept attainment involves not only the decisionmaking processes involved with categorization but it also incorporates a personalized historical experience of each student or individual.

The pattern of decisions leading to concept attainment involve the following five general factors: 1) the definition of task; 2) the nature of the examples encountered; 3) the nature of validation procedures; 4) the consequences of specific categorizations; and 5) the nature of imposed restrictions.

Steps of Concept Attainment: • Select and define a concept • Select the attributes • Develop positive and negative examples • Introduce the process to the students • Present the examples and list the attributes • Develop a concept definition • Give additional examples • Discuss the process with the class • Evaluate

Advantages: • helps make connections between what students know and what they will be learning • learn how to examine a concept from a number of perspectives • learn how to sort out relevant information • extends their knowledge of a concept by classifying more than one example of that concept • students go beyond merely associating a key term with a definition • concept is learned more thoroughly and retention is improved

DISADVANTAGE: Miscommunications in concept attainment could be a drawback to the educational process

Thanks