Can we make sense of learning theory?

This article discusses a range of theoretical models of the learning process that have been published in recent years, and examines whether it is possible to relate them systematically to one another. Problems in such an enterprise include those of terminology; globe trotting; the development of separate schools of research that have proceeded largely independently, each with their own central concerns, perspectives, and methodology; and the problem of whether the various different activities popularly described by the word learning do in fact have anything much in common. Despite these difficulties, however, the article argues that the various major models each contain certain key concepts, not necessarily identical in each model, from which it is possible to produce a meta-model - a framework or cognitive map within which the individual models can be located and therefore better understood. The article ends by proposing one such meta-model, and suggesting some ways in which it might be used.