What are the Four Major Aspects of Bruner’s Theory?

Back to: Learning and Teaching – Unit 3

Jerome Bruner was an American psychologist who has contributed greatly to the field of educational psychology with his theory. Bruner came up with his learning theory in 1961. According to Bruner’s theory, learning is an active process where information is gathered and new ideas are formed concerning past knowledge and current knowledge. He felt that the focus of education should be intellectual development, rather than rote learning of facts.

The Four Major Aspects of Bruner’s Theory

Jerome Bruner’s theory comes under constructivist learning theory which believes that learning is active. Bruner addressed four major aspects in his theory, which are:

1. A predisposition towards learning.
2. The ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner.
3. The most effective sequences in which to present material, and
4. The nature and pacing of rewards and punishments.

Bruner’s theory puts importance on understanding the structure of information taken in, why active learning is essential for true understanding, and the need for reasoning in learning. He believes a relationship must be there between new information and new information in the learning process. His theory emphasizes the learning process by discovery and recommends reviewing the concepts and materials frequently in the learning process for memorization.

Bruner suggests the idea of connecting one’s prior knowledge with the current knowledge to make the learning process effective. He believed that learning new knowledge depends on the knowledge already known. Bruner felt people should connect their new knowledge with the concepts they are already aware of for proper learning. Hence, Bruner’s theory encouraged to relate the new information with the old information.