The justification of some of the practices of the reform, such as the emphasis on real world applications (with its corollary of de-emphasizing abstraction) and the slighting of technical skills, is sometimes laid at the doorstep of cognitive psychology, which purportedly shows that knowledge cannot be decomposed or decontextualized for the purpose of instruction. However, three cognitive psychologists, . Anderson, . Reder and . Simon, have recently challenged such applications of psychology to mathematics education ([AND1], summarized in [AND2]; see also [STO] for a historical perspective). They refute the thesis that “cognition cannot be analyzed into components” and argue instead that “component skills are required in learning”. .
