Cognitivism is an approach to psychology that views cognition as an intellectual process of gaining knowledge through perception and ideas. Three major theorists of cognitivism discussed are Robert Gagné, David Ausubel, and Jerome Bruner. Gagné developed the nine events of instruction, Ausubel researched advance organizers, and Bruner viewed learning as an active process where students construct new ideas based on prior knowledge. Cognitivism and its learning theories should reflect the underlying social environments that learning takes place within.