ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores an investigation into and critique about a number of rigorous existing psychological and learning theories with particular relevance to his philosophical understanding of education. The feature of this comprehensive investigation is to view learning as a process and as a participative experience that is 'transformative, active, interactive, intrinsically motivating and lifelong'. A humanistic perspective has been developed when people involve learners as agents in learning. Humanism, originally identified by C. Rogers and A. H. Maslow, is regarded as an antidote to cognitive approaches and it has seen a rebirth in the 1990s in schools and communities of learners. Most research on learners' motivation has focused on social-cognitive models that parallel the general cognitive revolution in psychology. Perezhivanie indicates that the affective processes of language and human connection in social interaction are individually perceived, appropriated and represented by the learner. These interactions occur in the learner's zone of proximal development.
