Ready, fluent, accurate and automatic performance of certain set tasks has traditionally been regarded as important in educational outcomes, though in recent decades the critics of an emphasis upon such outcomes have been very influential. To some extent the discussion has focussed upon the role of repetition as a method and the role of reproduction as an outcome (Symonds and Chase, 1929; Lawrence, 1970).

It is not clear that we have defined the right questions when talking about organised practice on the one hand and instruction for meaningful learning on the other, and so my current inclination is to use a broad cognitive science framework to improve our map of this landscape. Some of the recent interest in this matter has come from the study of educational practice in Asia (Watkins and Biggs, 1996). Bernard Mageean has been fortunate to be working recently with Chunhua who has an interest in this area also. Chunhua will contribute a specific perspective on memorisation and meaning after the general remarks by Bernard below on automaticity in relation to theory of instruction.

The purpose of this discussion is to bring together in an initial way 'automaticity' as a key concept in cognitive science and 'working for automaticity' as an element in instructional practice. The idea at this stage is to survey key questions that may be identified at different levels and assess how it might help if these were clarified further and used in a developing inquiry.

There is a general contextual question regarding the value of routine and repetition. In the world around us the routine aspect is certainly evident in public life, religious practice, artistic performance and in mechanical or bureaucratic systems. But does this point to anything particularly valuable in promoting automaticity in educational operations? It might be possible to distinguish routine social practices from knowledge or skill routines, but, amid the vast and variedly maintained range of habits of societies, we risk trying to judge what we do not understand.

This should lead to questions regarding the intentional and active establishing of routines and the planning and maintaining of practice. It may be asked whether routine and planning of practice in general should simply be encouraged as reducing cognitive load in any area of performance development or complexification - which is the general 'cognitive science' position on automaticity (Anderson, 1995), or whether particular routines would have specific call upon the attention of educators. Examples of such might be particular linguistic routines.

Again, while the active construction of ordering frameworks may be accepted as a cognitive necessity, there could be a distortion of the general cognitive dynamic of response to problem pressure if precise, exact and predictable routines dominated perofrmance. It may be suggested that the issue might be one of clearly defining the task to be performed, which is connected to the question of feedback - of knowing when the task has been appropriately completed.

A range of questions about task planning, analysis and definition arise at this point, and they would probe the matter of how tasks are identified at different levels, how global or exact a task definition might be, and how limited or standard a model of any task might be produced without performance goals at various levels being obscured. A large question awaits attention. If there are to be certain set tasks or learning routines to be automatised in educational operations, could we easily decide or agree on what they are?

The more the line of questioning is pursued, the more the issue becomes one of a tension between useful limiting pressures and free opportunity. If performance is rigidly channeled, or a single model is imposed for a particular performance, then we might fear loss of adaptability in the face of varied circumstances. On the other hand, common frameworks or standard models make for cognitive economy.

It is not unusual at the moment to be left pondering the question of the relation between the predictable and the chance - between the parade-ground and the battlefield as it were. Social science in general has backed away from seeing situations of human action only in terms of predictable patterns. People trying to grasp the realities of practice may talk of the inadequacy of scientism (Schon, 1987), speak of the simultaneous 'loose-tight' properties of successful practice (Peters and Waterman, 1982), or find 'chaos' a constructive concept (Peters, 1988).

But this may be a further level of questioning. We do need to ask just what it is that influential educational critics have been rejecting. It would not be a rejection of the automatic as such but rather of certain prescribed routines and their imposition. Routines of course come with clear traditional and cultural overtones. Their place in the scheme of things cannot be reduced to simple criteria of effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Supporting or rejecting particular routines, rituals even, of educational practice is a matter of some complexity, and the facts of a cognitive science can only take their place as one element among many in the landscape of the debate.

Cognitive science's strong support for automatising practice in performance development could be seen, not in relation to limitation, but to a freeing of cognitive capacity for further elaboration and problem defining. Educational science may be argued to have swung in the direction of prizing variety rather than familiarity and of associating this with a reduction of the automatic in performance. Cognitive scientists, be they psychologists, linguists or information and communication system theorists, have therefore to phrase their questions carefully when asking about the value in the educational operation of routines promoting automaticity.

In this subtle exercise, I would suggest we take very seriously what we might call the performer's self-awareness system - awareness of what we are doing (self-rapport), telling outselves what is happening (self-communication0 and showing ourselves what we are doing ('embodied knowing'). There are two questions in this area: one concerning awareness in general and the other the experience of insight in particular.

As performance develops, the performer may be said to gain capacity for awareness, so as to question more closely the nature of what is happening. It might be argued that this is capacity released by the automatising of lower level performance elements (perhaps for their better regulation). Of course the initial awareness may not be particularly great - just enough to set the bearings for the larger purposes of the task that incorporates the automatised elements. However, the activity of talking about, or demonstrating, the task could be argued to require much more awareness, and more automaticity therefore. It is important to ask whether this larger kind of awareness is what is demanded of the instructor. In this way theory of instruction may be linked to the self-awareness system: The instructor requires greater awareness of performance, and the pupils should be gaining this as their performance develops. Automaticity is clearly thus able to be a key part of such theorising.

The question concerning the nature of insight concerns both automaticity and time. Firstly it might be asked whether having an insight is an automatic event. Insight may be a key experience for the understanding of automaticity, because it happens without thinking in some sense. We need to match our experience of the automaticity of insight with our experience of practised routine. One cannot plan to have an insight, or think one's way logically to illumination, or education would be a matter of following logically ordered steps to foolproof understanding. The insight may be automatic in the sense that the system produces insight when it is ready. It is from this latter aspect that time has importance. What, it might be asked, should one be doing until the penny drops and insight occurs. This may be the place of routine. A prepared mind obviously establishes its frameworks, assembles elements and attempts various strategies to move a problem towards solution. The further question then concerns how much automaticity of what kinds must be envisaged for such preparation and such use of mental power. Our experience of highly practised performance may be that of being able to guide performance and still have capacity to be aware of many 'improving' decisions we can make both about details and larger matters.

In this sense highly practised performance can be a window upon rather than a barrier to the manifold variety of events that can engage our attention. A general awareness of the role of automaticity may support the view of the world as varied and unpredictable rather than the reverse. Where awareness is the key to a theory of instruction the instructor may be better primed to view highly practised performance in terms of an effort to increase the pupil's awareness. If such awareness is an awareness not merely of task but of context it can be asked whether in that case there may be much less danger of highly practised performance becoming an end in itself.

Speaking of awareness and variety it is appropriate to note that a part of the world's variety we have recently become more aware of is the traditional teaching and learning practice of Asian societies. It might be supposed from a general knowledge of the emphasis upon memorisation in Chinese education that the discussion about automaticity would gain from including questions from a comparison of cultural practices. In the following section Chunhua will do that and summarise her own view on memorising and meaning. One could say that where this section has dealt in general with the cognitive system, what follows considers more the intention and plan of the performer in context.

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The writer of this part has no intention to argue about whether memorisation is a valuable and effective strategy in learning approach. Neither does the writer intend to debate whether Asian learners or Western learners are more rote approachers or deep approachers. However, we can ask why most Chinese learners can outperform their western peers when (1) they are found using the same amount of deep learning strategies (2) they do seem to emphasize memorisation, which in the eyes of western contemporary educators is obviously a surface learning approach? The writer here aims to discuss if there are two types of memorisation - rote memorisation for/in surface learning approach and deep memorisation for/in a deep learning approach. The writer makes analysis of a particularly typical Chinese memorisation type - deep memorisation with intentions both to understand and to memorise.  

In 1976, Marton and Saljo discovered two categories of approaches to learning - deep-level and surface level processing. The two categories result from experiments on some students who were asked to read selected passages and questions about their understanding of the passages. The deep-approach students, according to Marton and Saljo, directed their attention to the meaning of the passages by reading widely and integrating related knowledge, while surface-approach students only fixed their attention on the text itself.

In 1987, based on Marton and Saljo's two categories, Biggs developed a three-category learning approach scheme, which, still very active or popular, consists of surface approach, deep approach and strategic approach. In the same year, Entwistle (1987, p16) provided a useful summary of the main features of the three approaches - deep approach, surface approach and strategic approach. The contents in Table 1 are described as the main features of the surface and deep approach categories:

Table 1 Main features of Deep approach and Surface approach

Source: adapted from Entwistle (1987, p16)

Marton & Salijo's deep/meaning and surface/reproducing theory and its extension - Entwistle's summary" - have consistently demonstrated its robustness in Western educational context" (Sadler-Smith and Tsang 1998). It is obviously that, memorisation, as a rote learning method, seems to have been firmly accepting itself as a characteristic member in the surface-approach family. Memorising information here is described as a pure rote or mechanical process with and leading to no understanding.

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Rote is originally a Latin word, which refers to a circle running round and round again. "Rote" is borrowed here in the sense of rote learning or learning by rote to criticize those learners when they study through memorisation without any understanding of the memorised materials. Mechanically, this idea of memorisation is manipulated and taken out of the Western cultures into a global educational setting including eastern educational environments with the result that some research were done in Hong Kong, Australia and other Asian countries (Ballard and Clanchy 1984, Bradley 1984, Samuelowicz 1987, etc.).

(Quoted in Samuelowicz 1987)

Are Asian learners typically rote-learners? Is rote-learning a "private savings" by Asian learners? (In some Eastern cultures, one may have to keep some money secretly from their family "head" for their free and private use because some people still retain the tradition that all earnings should be collected and arranged by a financial authority. The money kept unknown to other family members is joked about as "private savings") Later researching results seem to have put the early assumptions (which hold that Asian learners are typical rote-learners) in a doubt. And the root of the doubt appears more and more clear at whose belongings memorisation should be - surface or deep approach.

Table 2 Internal consistency reliability coefficients alpha of Biggs' questionnaires for Form4 secondary school (LPQ) and the university (SPQ) students from Australia and different Asian countries

Source: adapted from Watkins (1996 p. 11)

As shown in Table 2, Watkins made an "internal consistency reliability coefficients alpha of Biggs' questionnaires for Form4 secondary school (LPQ) and university (SPQ) students from Australia and different Asian countries. The results indicate that Australian students and Hong Kong students are almost in no difference in using deep strategies. The data in question are .56 and .67 in Australian school setting and .65 and .75 in the Australian University context. The data in Hong Kong are .56 and .67 in schools and .60 and .75 in universities respectively. Asian learners, just as Australian learners, tend to rely on using deep approach to the same degree. There is little evidence to prove that Asian learners are more rote than Australians are.

In 1996, Purdie et al. did research on 242 Australian students and 194 Japanese students and found the Australian students' conception of learning appeared to be more focused on memorisation and reproduction (59.92%) while only 26.29% of Japanese students conceived learning as memorisation and reproduction. This is not a unique finding. Further research has been done by Sadler-Smith and Tsang (1998 p.81) both in Hong Kong and in the United Kingdom with regard to "a comparative study of approaches to studying" as Table 3 displays. They have come to conclusions as follows:

(i) "The conception of "Asian learners as rote learners" is not supported."

(ii) "Approaches to studying should not be seen in isolation from contextual factors, particularly the demands of assessment regimes."

(iii) "Conceptualization of memorisation requires further theoretical and empirical elaboration."

Table 3 Factor analysis of RASI subscales

 * UK: F I = DA F II = SA F III = Strategic A + relying on memorisation

HK: F I = Strategic A F II = SA F III = DA + looking for meaning + using memorisation

DA = deep approach SA = Surface approach Strategic A = strategic approach

Source: Sadler-Smith and Tsang (1998, P. 87

I find that Sadler-Smith and Tsang 's research might have three indications. First, Table 3 by Sadler-Smith and Tsang (1998, p. 87), to the surprise of us, seems to imply that UK students load more (.60 on surface approach) memorisation than Hong Kong students (.34 on surface approach) do. Secondly, contextual study inclusive of what is called "rote learning" may be a valuable alternative strategy when dealing with assessment. Thirdly, what should we conceptualise memorisation and what process may be involved in memorisation? Is it too narrow to sweep memorisation into rote learning thus surface approach? Is there any difference between the conceptualisation of memorisation in English and in eastern educational setting, such as in China, which is worth special attention and discussion?

What seems more, my experience as a teacher of learners in China raises other questions as follows, focus are the focus of the following discussion:

• Are there 2 types of memorisation for human learning, say rote memorisation for/in surface-learning approach and deep memorisation for/in deep-learning approach?
• Do different intentions or awareness cause different memorisation types?
• Under certain circumstances, is there an intentional deep memorisation type with intentions both to understand and memorise?
• Is there a point somewhere unaware where understanding and memorising to join?  

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Putting aside whether memorisation should link to surface or deep approaches, we might first direct our attention to how people "do" their memorisation. It was only in the 1960s (Broadbent 1958, Atkinson and Norman 1965) that there developed a theory of short-term memory, and later in 1968 Atkinson and Shiffrin gave the theory its most systematic development. There has been no argument since then that memorisation serves as an important approach in knowledge acquisition. Here in this part, what I am concerned is the long-term memory and if the long-term memorisation should be further split into parts.

According to Broadbent's memory model, after perception, people develop a short-term memorisation that lasts perhaps a few seconds. People then select what they want or need to store in long-term memory, in which critical differences may grow. People may do elaboration on the to-be-memorised material or task. But how they elaborate may cause different result - rote memory and deep memory.

The elaboration made by the learners can be non-meaningful such as repetition and such exercises thus causing purely rote memory. Perception, repeating and then remembering lead to purely rote memory since no meaningful elaboration is involved. But our memory still accepts it as input and this type of memory sometimes can be even retained for comparatively long period of time. This phenomenon is not strange. As we all accept, memory is consolidated during and after sufficient practice.

Even in rote memorisation, however, we can see signs of meaningful interpretations. That is to say, rote memorisation may not be purely rote. Learners may process limited interpretations of the to-be-remembered materials. When trying to encode a date, a year, into memory, learners may translate into other meaningful message so that a long-term memory can be embedded. Learners create connections or stories between the task materials and a deep-in-mind message. I can still remember very clearly a typical case of such kind. When I was preparing history lessons for the university entrance examination, our history teacher described the two co-operations between the Communist Party (under the leadership of Mao Ze Dong) and the Kuomingtang (leaded by Changkaishek) as two lovers. As both co-operations ended with failure due to Kuomingtang's refusing to carry out those contracts sooner or later, the teacher was kidding about that those co-operations were unrequited love thus the relationships would naturally breakdown. His description is an effective elaboration and the memorisation through this elaboration was very satisfactory to most of us and has lasted to date. As the love relationships were after all fabrication, the elaboration was not at all focused on the meaning of the material (the co-operations).

In the case of learning a foreign language, translation is also within this scope. Due to limited English culture background and language background, non-English speaking learners may try to receive a hand from their national language. The equivalent in their national language may offer the surface meaning of the English content. Because the learners have stored sufficient knowledge in mother tongue, elaboration in one's national language may be done instead. This elaboration may not be meaningful to the English task but certainly meaningful to the translation. These two examples well respond to the cognitive theory that more elaboration processing will result in better memory even if that processing is not focused on the meaning of the to-be-memorised material (Anderson 1995, p.192). But Kember ( Kember 1996) is reasonable to exclude this memorisation from deep memory. This memorisation relying on mnemonic as an aid to memorise does not necessarily entail any attempt to understand.

After all, in rote learning, learners only memorise information itself or at most its surface meaning involving little or no integration to related experience and application activity. It may not be that valuable concerning real learning but it is a functional memorisation to deal with emergency cases, particularly contextual based assessment, such as examinations. There need be no argument about this.

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 II. Deep memory with meaningful elaboration

Elaboration made by the learners may be meaningful. Here learners incorporate new information into old knowledge schemas thus meaningful memory is located as integral to the old schemas rather than an independent element in memory.

That is to say besides rote memorisation, there may be another type of memorisation - deep memorisation - suggested by Tang (1991 in Kember 1996 p.345). Deep memory, as it is described above, comes from most of the features classified in the deep/meaning approach by Entwistle: intention to understand, vigorous interaction with contents, relating new ideas with old knowledge, and relating concepts to everyday life. These strategies involve meaningful elaboration of the to-be-memorised material, thus should be more properly filed into deep learning approach.

This indicates that it may not be right to always separate memorisation and understanding as if they exist in unconnected worlds. Storing related knowledge in our memory can be of great help to our later need to mix new ideas vigorously with learning content and relate new ideas to previous knowledge. Memory and understanding may exist at the same time making contributions to each other. The rest of part two is inclined to discuss how deep memorisation is possible and how understanding and memorising come together as parallel intentions by learners.

Both the Oxford Concise Australian Dictionary and the Macquarie Concise Dictionary explain "memorisation" as the act of a collection or remembrance. The memory task performers sounds accordingly like mechanical container of facts. In Chinese, the memory task performers seem to be given more freedom. "Ji Yi ", the words for memorisation in Chinese take the meaning of remembering and recalling. The difference may lie in the writing or structure of the words. The two characters for memorisation are both formed by a radical and another component. "Ji", the first character includes its radical meaning speech and the other part referring to "self" and may imply a person's ability to speak by himself or herself about a past fact. This character alone may carry out the meaning of remembrance as indicated in the English word "memorisation". The second character "Yi" comprises a radical that serves as a typical radical for those emotional words such as feelings like hatred and fear, and the right half obviously refers to "meaning". The second character suggests that memorisation, for the Chinese conception of learning, indicates the recalling of the meaning not the facts. Understanding is hidden somewhere herein.

The Chinese words for memorisation expose the nature of memorisation perhaps as well as the process of memorisation. I had an interesting interview with my 10-year-old son recently asking about his conceptions of memorisation and understanding. He seems very sure that memorisation means "you know what the teacher means and then keep it in mind". I challenged him by saying he may not be able to understand all. He agreed and cited an example how he may choose to behaviou when not understanding. "I tried to remember the word 'finish' (on the first several days of his going to Australian primary school here) when hearing teachers and classmates repeated it. I couldn't understand it, that's why I 'brought' it home for you (mum) to give me an explanation." "Why did you need to understand it since you had already remembered it?" I continued to ask him. "Otherwise, I wouldn't know how to use it", he answered. So, most cases, memorisation is not a purely easy job of reading/listening and then remembering. The first step of his memorisation belongs to rote learning while the second step involves understanding. Memorisation asks for understanding!

The fact that memorisation requires understanding raises a question consequently of why memorisation needs the participation of understanding. Memorisation may be rote as a surface learning approach but may be through understanding as a deep learning approach.

Understanding, both in English and in Chinese means seeing or knowing the meaning, the ways, the workings and the explanation. In order to give an explanation, people need to get to know the meaning first. There seems no difference in this regard between English and Chinese.

 -- "How do you know you have understood something?"

-- "I know the meaning and then I found I can use it!"

The above is the close of my interview with my son. It may appear that the little boy confused the two conceptions of memorisation and understanding. But the fact is "no". Memorisation is hard when people do not understand the meaning inside.

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 IV. Different intentions and different memory types

Understand + memorisation Þ Meaning/deep memorisation (intentional)

Figure 4 the relationship between intention and memory type

Intention may be the critical point if different types of memorisation exist. Different intentions of the learners produce different outcomes of memorisation. As indicated in Figure 4, for the purpose of dealing with the upcoming examination, learners feel heavily loaded with unbearable memorisation tasks (there should be no argument that examination in some Asian countries like China focused most on contextual assessment) and have to employ rote memorisation. But there may be two other categories of memorisation in regard to everyday academic learning. By everyday I refer to the learning time beyond the examination period. When learners are interested in a certain message they make effort to understand it. In the meantime memorisation may result incidentally, which I would rather define as memorisation with intention to understand. Another case of deep memorisation occurs at the time when learners intend both to understand and memorise. This second case of deep memorisation may raise opposition especially from the non-Asian educational system.

Chinese learners, unlike their Western counterparts, are undertaking dual academic tasks - one is learning for valuable knowledge and the other is learning for context-based examination. Most of them prefer to accept the two at the same time. On one hand, "it is never too late to learn". Chinese people highly value learning not only because of their conception of learning to become "knowledge sage" but also due to their need for knowledge, as they need water in daily life. Knowledge is tempting to people who enjoy learning regardless of people's skin color. On the other hand, Chinese learners, unlike their Western counterparts, are always well aware that the examination will come at the end of every term. Even the primary students start to be fed by their teachers and parents with the concept that they are to take part in a future battle - the university entrance examination.

With the idea that learning makes one a "knowledge sage", Chinese learners are interested in understanding so as to achieve the result of real learning. With the idea that the examination is set as one destination of learning, Chinese learners, in the meantime, always bear in mind that memorisation is necessary. Thus, understanding is what they want and memorising is needed. Under this special circumstance, a special baby comes to the memorisation world. It is memorisation with intention to understand as well as memorising.

When I started a learning task during non-examination period at my college time, I first intended to make sense of the materials. I tried to relate them to previous experience like relating the materials to other relevant knowledge and exploring if some other relevant information may have been encountered or could be further discovered. Besides, understanding did not end in itself because I needed to memorise for examinations.

As a teacher (teacher is a learner), I had the same experience. I needed to consult as many references as possible even in some bookstores or consult experienced persons (English speakers for English course or business practitioners for business correspondence). I needed to memorise some of the materials for the later lectures because, in China, teachers are supposed to give students explicit explanations and answer questions in class. We usually have no overhead projector or such instruments to assist our teaching reminding us of the major points or specific message to be reported.

Understanding contributes to memorisation and, in return, deep memorisation serves as schema knowledge to facilitate or lead to other understanding. Neither of the results - understanding and memorisation is a by-product to me. Rather, understanding is intentional, as memorising is intentional. The memorisation resulting from them may be a final result of understanding and intentional memorising.

Therefore, different intentions may produce two categories of memorisation. Rote memorisation results when learners only aim to remember materials and this category occurs in the surface learning approach. Deep memorisation takes place in the deep-learning approach under two cases. One, an incidental deep memmorisation can be formed when learners only focus their attention on understanding. Two, an intentional memorisation may be established when learners are aware they need to understand for knowledge and to memorise for the examination.

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 V. Combination of memorisation and understanding

  Figure 5 the hypothesis of the combination of memorising and understanding

If there is intentional deep memorisation, how is it formed since memorisation is one thing and understanding is another? Or how does the combination of memorising and understanding take place? Memorisation and understanding may overlap at some point. In other words, there may be a bridge somewhere carrying out the responsibility of joining memorising and understanding?

Figure 5 displays my hypothesis in this regard. Both memorisation (deep memorisation) and understanding demand "figuring out the meaning". When undertaking a memorisation task with intention to keep it long retained, to figure out the meaning stands on the way right after perception of the task. The understanding task involves the same process of figuring out the meaning. It may be right here that memorisation and understanding face to face with each other and join as one. It is learners' experience that only after the finding of the meaning can understanding become reality. And with this understanding remembering shows up more or less consciously. This analysis may also suggest that memorisation borrows understanding during its deep type of process. This whole process of deep memorisation seems to fit well in the features exposed in the conception of the Chinese words "Ji Yi" for memorisation. Figure 5 is only a hypothesis and obviously corresponding research are called for to support it.

As intentions differ, memorisation types may differ. The intention to remember may bring about rote memory; the intention to understand may result in incidental deep memory; and the intention both to understand and memorise may produce intentional deep memory. Deep memorisation with intentions to understand and memorise may be formed under the special circumstances of a knowledge-first tradition and examination-oriented reality. "Figuring out the meaning" might serve as the cross point for understanding and memorisation to unite thus delivering meaning/deep memorisation soaked with understanding as well as memorisation? If my analysis in this respect is proved, the fog around why Chinese learners focus on memorisation but make better achievement may be cleared.

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There is a possible conclusion that brings together aspects of the two parts of the paper. The interesting suggestion immediately above is that Chinese learners may respond to the particular context created by exam pressure through seeking understanding while using memorisation. There might be a form of deep memorisation in which meaning plays a key part. The earlier part of the paper suggested that automaticity in performance can be associated with increased awareness, as a key goal of learning and teaching, and that routines have a part to play in giving insights opportunity to emerge. A final speculation would be that in Chinese learning and teaching tradition individuals are using very productively particular kinds of increased awareness made possible or promoted by extensive memorisation, are systematically seizing upon the opportunities for insight that arise, and thus able to intend to understand and to memorise. The whole of learning in the procedure remains to be discussed, as does the question of whether the meanings and understandings gained different from those achieved in other kinds of procedures for teaching and learning.

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Copyright: Bernard Mageean and Chunhua Hai 1998

School of Education, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide