The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Learning Environment

“Each of our private lives may seem complete, in itself, just as a field like psychology can seem to explain everything once we are immersed in its methods and its facts. But this sense of completeness is an illusion produced by the limits of our perspective.” (Miller & Spellmeyer, 2003, p. xi). In order to address this problem of learners developing misconceptions by interpreting the world through a single perspective, Spiro and his colleagues developed the cognitive flexibility theory (CFT) (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1988). This theory recommends strategies for preserving the complexity of an ill-structured domain, such as providing multiple representations and case examples, highlighting the interconnections between related domains of knowledge, and giving students opportunities for knowledge construction (Jacobson & Spiro, 1995). Although CFT-based applications have been developed for a wide range of subjects, the majority of studies have found positive results. Studies have found that CFT-based applications significantly improved students ’ knowledge acquisition (Kraus, Reed