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You
are here: Cognitive Enrichment of Culturally Different Students:
Feuerstein's Theory
Background
In 1965 Professor Reuven Feuerstein, at that time a chief psychologist of the Youth Aliyah, established a Research Unit for the purpose of developing assessment and intervention methods for integration of immigrant children and youth into Israeli society. In 1970 the Research Unit was transformed into the Hadassah- WIZO-Canada Research Institute (HWCRI). In 1993 the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP) was founded with an aim to expanding and diversifying the work done at the HWCRI.
The work of the ICELP is based on the theories of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and Mediated Learning Experience developed by Professor Feuerstein. These theories serve as a foundation for three applied systems: Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD), Instrumental Enrichment (IE) cognitive intervention program, and Shaping Modifying Environments.
Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD) offers a viable alternative to static methods of psychometric assessments of individuals with intellectual performance disabilities. The LPAD constitutes the first fully operationalized system of cognitive assessment that focuses on the individuals' learning potential rather than on their manifest level of performance. The application of LPAD allows for setting up higher educational, social and vocational goals for disabled individuals, and prevents their labeling as uneducable or unsuitable for intervention. Professor Feuerstein also created a system of cognitive intervention - Instrumental Enrichment - aimed at the development of cognitive prerequisites for learning in children, adolescents, and adults with disabled performance.
Basic Theory
Concern for the culturally different child lies at the very basis of Feuerstein's Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) theory and its applied systems. Practical experience of first working with children whose families and culture were destroyed in the Holocaust, and then attending to the psychological and educational needs of immigrant children from North Africa shaped Feuerstein's belief in human modifiability. This modifiability may however be significantly reduced if the child is deprived of the mediated learning experience associated with his or her native culture.
While observing difficulties experienced by new immigrant students in coping with unfamiliar learning environment, Feuerstein proposed distinguishing between two phenomena: cultural difference and cultural deprivation. Culturally different children are children who received an adequate amount and type of MLE in their native culture and who face the challenge of adapting to a new culture. Such children are expected to have good learning potential; the major challenge for them is to use this potential in mastering new language, internalizing new rules of formal education, and acquiring new knowledge. On the contrary, culturally deprived are those children who for one reason or another (war, famine, social dislocation, etc.) were deprived of MLE in their native culture. Such children show a reduced learning potential, and for them the challenge of adapting to a new culture is twice as difficult due to the absence of the prerequisite learning skills.
Because all new immigrant children experience certain difficulties, sometimes it is not easy to distinguish between the cases of cultural difference from those of cultural deprivation. Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD) helps to identify culturally different children whose true learning potential is obscured by the lack of familiarity with a new culture. Those children positively respond to mediation provided during the assessment, the difference between their pre- and post-mediation scores is substantial, and they are the first to benefit from the cognitive intervention provided through the Instrumental Enrichment (IE) program.
Feuerstein's Programs around the World
Originally designed for new immigrant students in Israel, Feuerstein's theory of Mediated Learning Experience and its applied systems of Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD) and Instrumental Enrichment (IE) proved to be beneficial for a wide spectrum of children and youth in different countries. The major criteria of Mediated Learning Experience, such as Intentionality/ reciprocity, Transcendence and Mediation of Meaning are universal and are transmitted in every culture. The Instrumental Enrichment materials have been translated into a great number of languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech, Flemish, Finnish, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
The dissemination of the MLE, LPAD and IE programs is achieved through the network of Authorized Training Centers. These centers currently function in 40 countries. See: http://www.icelp.org/Pages/WorldMapATCs.html.
Below are some of the current programs:
Bahia, Brazil
So far the largest Instrumental Enrichment (IE) implementation program for public school students has been undertaken in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The program started in 1999 in eighteen schools for 15,580 students. According to the program projections by the year 2003 more than 300,000 students in 270 schools are slated to receive IE lessons from more than 6,000 teachers trained for this purpose. The student population of public schools in Bahia is characterized by a low socioeconomic status and a high percentage of students of African-Brazilian ancestry. For more information about the Bahia project see the web site: http://www.flem.org.br.Conference in Bahia, Brazil
Cleveland, Ohio
In 2001 the Cleveland Municipal School district decided to use the combination of Instrumental Enrichment (IE) and Math Advantage programs for improving 9th grade students' performance in mathematics as measured by the Ohio Proficiency Test. Teacher training in IE and Math concepts was supervised by Dr. Meir Ben-Hur (Virtual Learning Systems). By the end of the 2002-2003 school year the Cleveland district will have 35 teachers trained in all the IE instruments and approximately 3,000 students will be exposed to the IE program. The results of the pilot study in one of the schools demonstrate a statistically significant advantage of IE-Math Advantage students after six months of intervention. See: http://www.virls.com.Guatemala
In November 2002 ICELP was asked to conduct an Instrumental Enrichment workshop for teachers in Guatemala City. Apart from its own population of city children, each of the participating schools "adopted" one of the schools in the rural areas of Guatemala that serve Native Indian population. Currently plans are underway to use IE for the enhancement of the learning potential of adult workers who will participate in the national project for building a rail link between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of Guatemala.India
The 4th National Conference on Enhancing Learning Potential organized by the Alpha to Omega Authorized Training Center in Chennai, took place on December 1-4, 2002. The conference was attended by about 350 teachers and other professionals from different Indian states. The participants discussed models for applying the dynamic cognitive assessment and Instrumental Enrichment program with various segments of Indian population taking account the economic, educational and cultural realities of this region. For the work of Alpha to Omega ATC, see: http://www.alphatoomega.org.Italy
Students of the junior high school "A.Manzoni" in San Cesario di Lecce in the south of Italy produced an annual journal dedicated to their study of the Instrumental Enrichment program. The colorful journal includes students' reflections regarding the IE program, their understanding of the underlying theory, and the relevance of the program for other studies.Students in San Cesario di Lecce
Israel
In 2002 ICELP initiated a new program for young adults - new immigrants from Ethiopia in Israel. The program is aimed at helping the young adults, many of whom have never attended school, to speedily acquire the prerequisite cognitive and basic literacy and math skills essential for further studies and professional training. During their first year in Israel new immigrants will receive an MLE-based intervention that includes the IE program, intensive Hebrew language training and preparation for college or vocational training courses. Dynamic cognitive assessments conducted by the ICELP at the start of the program have revealed the rich learning potential of the participants, many of whom were illiterate. Out of 38 students who graduated from the program in January 2003, thirty were accepted for pre-academic program in one of the Israeli colleges.New immigrant students in Israel
Research
Dynamic Cognitive Assessment
Many of the difficulties facing culturally different students stem from the lack of congruence between their previous learning experience and the demands of the formal educational system. Because of this the application of static IQ tests with culturally different students produces particularly inadequate results. Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD) helps to overcome this problem, by radically changing the character of assessment. Already in the foundational LPAD studies (Feuerstein et al, 1979; 2003) with cultural minority students in Israel it was shown that their performance changes dramatically under conditions of mediated learning. These original findings were replicated in a number of more recent studies.In a study of three hundred immigrant adolescents from Ethiopia in Israel it was demonstrated that while in a static pre-test using Raven Matrices the immigrants scored more than two standard deviations below the Israeli norm, their post-mediation scores were within one standard deviation of the norm. Significant pre- to post-mediation changes were also observed in numerical progressions, complex figure drawing test, combinatorial reasoning ("Organizer"), and organization of dots (Kaniel et al, 1991).
Similar results were obtained in a course of the assessment of younger new immigrant students from Ethiopia in Israel that was carried out by the ICELP in 1998 (see Final Report, 1999). About seven hundred new immigrant children from the two temporary housing locations participated in the project. About two hundred of them received individual dynamic cognitive assessment and more than four hundred children received the same type of assessment in a group format. Fifteen groups of new immigrant students received a cognitive enrichment program - Instrumental Enrichment - in the summer day camps. Teachers and counselors received instruction and guidance regarding the optimal forms of interaction with new immigrant children.
Assessment results were presented to teachers and the school administration and served as a basis for creating individual learning plans for the students. The results of the assessments indicate that the majority of new immigrant students have a sufficiently high learning potential that would allow them to become integrated into regular classes if they receive intensive cognitive training during the first year of their schooling.
Detailed analysis of the problem solving of new immigrant students demonstrated that their performance on the Raven Matrices test differed not only quantitatively but also qualitatively from that of the Israeli students (Kozulin, Lurie, Kaufman, 1997; Kozulin, 1998b). One educational implication of this finding is that the students' performance with simpler tasks should not be used as a predictor of their performance with more complex tasks and vice versa. It was also shown that LPAD intervention not only improves the students' performance quantitatively but also affects the profile of students' answers.
The principles of dynamic assessment can be used also for evaluating learning potential of children in the Third World countries. Sternberg and Grigorenko (2002) reported that children from the rural areas of Tanzania made a very significant progress from the pre- to post-test in the dynamically administered Syllogisms, Sorting, and Questioning tasks. Moreover correlation between children's pre- to post-test scores were weak, which means that not only the absolute performance level and but also the rank order of children's performances has changed significantly as a result of the learning intervention included in the assessment procedure. These findings further emphasize the inadequacy of static IQ scores as a measure of intelligence of children in non-industrial societies.
Cognitive Enrichment
The Instrumental Enrichment (IE) program (Feuerstein et al 1980; see also Kozulin, 2000) focuses on the acquisition of general learning strategies which are the core prerequisite for any formal learning. Such emphasis is particularly important for culturally different students whose native culture (or sub-culture) does not foster formal learning mechanisms. Another aspect of the IE program which has particular importance for culturally different students is its saturation with various graphic-symbolic devices (schemas, tables, graphs, plans and maps). These graphic-symbolic devices provide the basis for psychological tools that children from the more socially privileged groups usually acquire in the course of their "natural" learning experiences, and which are often missing in culturally different students (Kozulin, 1998a).
A number of IE studies were conducted in South Africa, a country where the ethnic majority, black and "colored" students, for a long time had a minority or even immigrant status. These conditions were characterized by substandard education, multi-lingualism which received no appropriate support, and general social disadvantage under conditions of racial separation system.
Skuy et al (1994) conducted a study with 200 seventh to eleventh grade students in the black suburb of Johannesburg. Students were randomly divided into three groups. One group received a combination of IE conventional educational enrichment program; a second group received a combination of IE (2 hours/week), academic enrichment and a program specially designed for this project which focused on the development of creativity and a socioemotional sphere of students (CASE); a third, control group received only the academic enrichment. The experiment was conducted over two years in 52 sessions, 6 hours per session. Students in the IE groups also received special "bridging" from IE to academic subjects.
The results obtained demonstrated the trend toward post- intervention superiority of the IE, and IE/CASE groups over the control group in cognitive, creativity and socioemotional measures. In the cognitive sphere the authors reported a statistically significant advantage of IE/CASE and IE groups over the control group in the Similarities sub-test of the WISC-R. This finding is important because it is exactly the sphere of verbal conceptualization that constitutes the major problem for the disadvantaged minority students.
Another South African study (Skuy et al, 1995) explored the effects of the IE program on four different groups of primary school students in one and the same mining town: black, "colored", white-English and white-Afrikaans. The participating students studied in segregated classes. The IE program included three components:
1. Teaching the IE program for 30 min. every week for a duration of a school year;
2) A series of seminars for teachers on the theory and practice of mediated learning experience (MLE);
3) Packages of lesson materials which helped teachers to "bridge" thinking skills developed during IE lessons into the academic curriculum. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured by cognitive, creativity, self-concept, and academic (English reading) measures. On the pre-test the black group showed significantly lower results than the other groups. On the post-test all four groups of students demonstrated significant improvement in cognitive measures; black and "colored" students also demonstrated improvement in the area of creativity and English reading skillsA number of studies were conducted in Israel with new immigrant students from Ethiopia. In one of them (Kozulin 1998a) adolescent girls started receiving the IE program three years after their arrival to Israel. At the time of IE intervention all of them were placed in a special "immigrants" class in one of Jerusalem's boarding schools. The IE program was taught for two academic years, four hours per week for a total of approximately 220 hours. IE teaching was augmented by "bridging" exercises which linked the principles acquired in the course of IE lessons to the tasks of content lessons and everyday life experiences. The pre- to post-intervention cognitive change was assessed by the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices. The change from pre-test to post-test was statistically significant. Moreover, while the IE group reached the normative level of Israeli students on the post-test, the matching non-IE group stayed at the much lower level.
Several groups of new immigrant students from Ethiopia studying in grades 8 through 10 in four Israeli boarding schools participated in a study conducted by Kozulin, Kaufman and Lurie (1997). IE intervention included 4-5 hours of IE lessons per week for a period of one school year. The IE principles were then "bridged" to specially designed curriculum in reading and math. Both cognitive performance and academic achievement of students were measured. The authors concluded that the success of the program depended on the combination of several factors including initial cognitive and school skills level of the students, teachers' mediational ability, and school commitment to the implementation of the program. It was shown that the initial low level of students can be overcome and considerable progress achieved when the IE teacher is competent and the school supportive. At the same time even high learning potential demonstrated by students during the pre-program dynamic assessment does not guarantee success if the teacher and the school show poor commitment to the program.
Currently the ICELP is exploring the effectiveness of the CoReL (Concentrated Reinforcement Lessons) model with younger immigrant students from Ethiopia. The CoReL intervention model includes five hours of IE, five hours of intensive Hebrew lessons and five hours of math per week for a period of five to nine months. The program was implemented with young immigrant students who started their schooling in Israel but after three or four years still lagged considerably behind in reading and math. The most recent report (Kozulin, 2002) shows that in some schools the implementation of CoReL has led to a truly dramatic change both in cognitive performance and school skills.
CoReL results
Rambam School, Haifa: 3rd and 4th Grade
N=15
Pre-test Oct. 2001
Post-test June 2002
References
Feuerstein, R., Rand, Y., & Hoffman, M. (1979). The Dynamic Assessment of Retarded Performers: The Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD). Baltimore, MD: University Park Press. [New revised edition: Feuerstein, R. et al (2003). The Dynamic Assessment of Cognitive Modifiability. Jerusalem: ICELP Press.]
Feuerstein, R, Rand, Y., & Hoffman, M., & Miller, R. (1980). Instrumental Enrichment: An Intervention Program for Cognitive Modifiability. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.
Final report on educational intervention with new immigrant students from Ethiopia at the caravan parks "Hatzrot Yassaf" and "Givat Ha Matos". Jerusalem: ICELP, 1999.
Kaniel, S., Tzuriel, D., Feuerstein, R., Ben-Schachar, N., & Eitan, T. (1991). "Dynamic assessment: Learning and Transfer Abilities of Ethiopian Immigrants to Israel." In Feuerstein, R., Klein, P., & Tannenbaum, A. (Eds.)(1991). Mediated Learning Experience: Theoretical, Psychosocial, and Learning Implications. Tel Aviv and London: Freund.
Kozulin, A. (1998a). Psychological Tools: A Sociocultural Approach to Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kozulin, A. (1998b). "Profiles of Immigrant Students' Cognitive Performance on Raven's Progressive Matrices." Perceptual and Motor Skills, 87: 1311-1314.
Kozulin, A. (2000)." Diversity of Instrumental Enrichment Applications." In A. Kozulin & Y. Rand (Eds.), Experience of Mediated Learning: An Impact of Feuerstein's Theory in Education and Psychology. Oxford: Pergamon.
Kozulin, A. (2002). "Concentrated Reinforcement Lessons (CoReL) in 2001-2002." Final Report. Jerusalem: ICELP.
Kozulin, A., Kaufman, R., and Lurie, L. (1997). "Evaluation of the Cognitive Intervention with Immigrant Students from Ethiopia." In A. Kozulin (Ed.), The Ontogeny of Cognitive Modifiability, pp.89-130. Jerusalem: ICELP Press.
Skuy, M., Mentis, M., Nkwe, I. & Arnott, A. (1994) "Combining Instrumental Enrichment and Creativity/Socioemotional Development for Disadvantaged Gifted Adolescents in Soweto." In M. Ben-Hur (Ed.), On Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment, pp. 161-190. Palatine, IL: IRI/Skylight.
Skuy, M., Mentis, M., Durbach, F., Cockcroft, K., Fridjhon, P. & Mentis, M. (1995). "Crosscultural Comparison of Effects of FIE on Children in a South African Mining Town." School Psychology International, 16(3): 265-282.
Sternberg, R. and Grogorenko, Y. (2002). Dynamic Testing. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Report prepared by the Department of Research and Development of the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential under the direction of Alex Kozulin, Ph.D.
Alex Kozulin is the Director of Research at the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential in Jerusalem. Born in Moscow, Russia he earned his Ph.D. in Psychology at the Psychological Institute. In 1979 he immigrated to the US. For the following ten years he was conducting research and teaching at Boston University. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a visiting professor at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He also taught at Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, and Hebrew University in Israel. The area of his interests include cognition, learning, and cross-cultural studies. Dr. Kozulin is one of the major specialists in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and the theory of mediated learning experience.
He is the author of Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of Ideas (Harvard University Press, 1990), Psychological Tools: A Sociocultural Approach to Education (Harvard University Press, 1998), a co-author (with Erica Garb) of I Think, Therefore…I Read: Cognitive Approach to Teaching English as a Foreign Language (Jerusalem: Academon, 2002), and a co-editor (with Y.Rand) of Experience of Mediated Learning (Pergamon Press, 2000).
Contact information:
ICELP, Box 7755, Jerusalem 91077, Israel
Phone: 972-2-5693344
e-mail: icelp@actcom.co.il
Contacts:
Prof. Reuven Feuerstein, Chairman - reuvenf@actcom.co.il
Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein, Deputy Chairman - rafifeur@netvision.net.il
Shmuel Rosen, Authorized Training Centers - rosen_s@netvision.net.il
Ruth Boussidan, International Workshops - reuvenf@actcom.co.il
Prof. Alex Kozulin, Research Director - icelp@actcom.co.il
Web site: http://www.icelp.org.
© February 2003 New Horizons for Learning
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