Invariant tasks require memorizing factual information or routine procedures. They do
not require any understanding, nor do they require learning how to deal with variation.
They require what Ausubel (1968) referred to as "rote" learning.
There are several quite different kinds of memorization, each of which is learned a bit
differently:
A list is a number of items, mental and/or physical, which need to be memorized.
List learning is a rote form of learning, requiring no meaningful understanding of
the items in the list and no variation from one performance of the invariant task to
another.
A mental list requires only cognitive learning, such as the names of all the
products your company sells, or the mental actions involved in translating quarts into
gallons.
A physical list requires learning physical actions as well, such as learning to
change the oil in your car.
If a list needs to be "performed" (e.g., stated or acted out) in a certain
order, it is called an ordered list. For example, the "Pledge of
Allegiance" is an ordered mental list, sometimes called a "verbal chain".
And changing the oil in your car is an ordered physical list, sometimes called a
"rote procedure" (the used oil must be drained before the new oil is added).
Singing the scales, applying for travel funds in your company, and initializing a diskette
are also rote procedures. Keep in mind that in some rote procedures (mental or physical)
the order doesn't matter, as long as you do all the "steps."
An association is a one-to-one correspondence between two items, such as a
product and its price or a state and its capital. Items can include objects, pictures,
sounds, symbols, actions, and much more, but learning names for things is perhaps the most
common kind of association learning.
Of course it is possible for lists of associations to be learned, such as the
capitals of all the countries in South America or the prices of all the products your
company offers.
Which kind of memorization does your project entail?
