The IDC Theory: Habit and the Habit Loop

Abstract

Researchers, educators and parents have long acknowledged the importance of cultivating students’ good habit for learning. However, educators and parents continue to grapple with the challenges in helping students form new good habit and break old “not-so-good” habit. The research literature on learning habit formation is still limited in informing the teaching and learning practices in schools and beyond. This conceptual paper is written under the auspices of the Interest-Driven Creator (IDC) initiative, a theoretical synthesis effort carried out by a group of educational researchers in Asia. The intention is to co-construct a framework to guide the practitioners in fostering students’ learning interests, capabilities in creation, and learning habits – the three anchored concepts of IDC theory. This paper focuses on delineating a three-component “habit loop”: cueing environment, routine, and satisfaction. This paper will discuss the implications of the habit loop for student’s interest-driven creation. Cultivating students’ learning habit is fundamental to education but it is not a well-explored area. The paper raises some questions with the aim to stimulate further discussions among educators, researchers, parents and policy makers.