ABSTRACT
Traditionally we have attributed academic success to innate intelligence and hard work. From this perspective teachers have two responsibilities: to motivate students to work, and to present material clearly so that it can be grasped by some of the less clever students. Although there can be little doubt that the foregoing factors influence student performance, careful studies of the differences between good and poor problem solvers suggest that a third factor may be critical: that of the students’ learning strategy. This, in turn, depends on the students’ own theory of knowledge (i.e., their epistemology). Their actions are guided by their views on how they learn, their ideas on what is involved in thinking, and finally their concepts of the nature of knowledge. When these views are at odds with the natural functioning of the mind, as they often are, students persist in ineffective strategies (Papert, 1971a, 1971b, 1980). Probably the most common example is the copy theory, according to which students believe they can understand a subject simply by memorizing (copying into memory) the definitions and rules as given in a textbook.
