LEARNING

THEORIES OF LEARNING

Learning is a relatively change in behaviour acquired through experience. It can also be defined
as the process of acquiring knowledge through experience that leads to an enduring change in
behaviour.

Basic principles of learning theory

 Our responses and behaviors are learned
 We learn to maximize pleasure (reward), avoid pain (punishment)
 Born with certain instinctual responses
 Learn through
 association (classical conditioning)
 consequences (operant/instrumental conditioning)
 observation

1. BEHAVIOURIST THEORIES

Carried out studies that were based on experiments with animals.Behaviourism is a worldview
that operates on a principle of “stimulus-response.” All behaviour caused by external stimuli
(operant conditioning). All behaviour can be explained without the need to consider internal
mental states or consciousness.

Behaviourism is a worldview that assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to

environmental stimuli. The learner starts off as a clean slate (i.e. tabula rasa) and behaviour is
shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Both positive reinforcement
and negative reinforcement increase the probability that the antecedent behaviour will happen
again. In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the
antecedent behaviour will happen again. Positive indicates the application of a stimulus;
Negative indicates the withholding of a stimulus. Learning is therefore defined as a change in
behaviour in the learner. Lots of (early) behaviourist work was done with animals (e.g. Pavlov’s
dogs) and generalized to humans.

Behaviourist theory emphasizes:

 Observable behavior
 Later included cognitive/social features
 situational variables
 the function of behaviours
 ways of altering behaviuor patterns
 testable hypotheses, experimentation
 relevance of animal models

Radical behaviourism
Developed by BF Skinner, Radical Behaviourism describes a particular school that emerged
during the reign of behaviourism. It is distinct from other schools of behaviourism, with major
differences in the acceptance of mediating structures, the role of emotions, etc.

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)

Classical conditioning is a reflexive or automatic type of learning in which a stimulus acquires

the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus.

Classical conditioning

 Originally described and researched by Pavlov with dogs.

 Involves existing Stimulus-Response association
 We learn to respond to previously neutral stimuli based on their association with
stimuli that already elicit responses

 these associations:
 generalize
 contribute to further learning
 are subject to extinction (or decrease at least) if the pairing doesn’t occur again
at least occasionally
 can be context-specific
 Watson and Raynor demonstrated classical conditioning principles with people in the case
of Little Albert.
 Generalization
 Generalization can be adaptive or maladaptive.
 Discrimination
 While generalization is responding to similarities, discrimination is responding to
differences.

Pavlov’s Dogs

While studying the role of saliva in dogs’ digestive processes, he stumbled upon a phenomenon
he labelled “psychic reflexes.” While an accidental discovery, he had the foresight to see the
importance of it. Pavlov’s dogs, restrained in an experimental chamber, were presented with
meat powder and they had their saliva collected via a surgically implanted tube in their saliva
glands. Over time, he noticed that his dogs who begin salivation before the meat powder was
even presented, whether it was by the presence of the handler or merely by a clicking noise
produced by the device that distributed the meat powder.

Fascinated by this finding, Pavlov paired the meat powder with various stimuli such as the
ringing of a bell. After the meat powder and bell (auditory stimulus) were presented together
several times, the bell was used alone. Pavlov’s dogs, as predicted, responded by salivating to
the sound of the bell (without the food). The bell began as a neutral stimulus (i.e. the bell itself
did not produce the dogs’ salivation). However, by pairing the bell with the stimulus that did
produce the salivation response, the bell was able to acquire the ability to trigger the salivation
response. Pavlov therefore demonstrated how stimulus-response bonds (which some consider
as the basic building blocks of learning) are formed. He dedicated much of the rest of his career
further exploring this finding.

In technical terms, the meat powder is considered an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the
dog’s salivation is the unconditioned response (UCR). The bell is a neutral stimulus until the dog
learns to associate the bell with food. Then the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) which
produces the conditioned response (CR) of salivation after repeated pairings between the bell
and food.

Operant conditioning focuses on voluntary responses that are influenced by consequences.

Praise, high test scores, and good grades are consequences that increase behavior and are
called reinforcers, whereas reprimands are consequences that decrease behavior and are
called punishers. The schedule of reinforcers influences both the rate of initial learning and the
persistence of the behavior

Operant conditioning – Skinner

 Thorndike’s Law of Effect;

 Behavior that results in satisfying consequences (rewards) will be repeated
 Behavior that is followed by unpleasant consequences will not be repeated.
 Skinner applied the law of effect to humans and called it reinforcement theory.
 Operant conditioning begins with behavior that is emitted spontaneously
 Then reinforced, ignored, or punished.

 Skinner argued that all behavior is determined by the reinforcers that are provided by
the social environment
 No free will
 Black box

 Reinforcement - increases frequent of behaviour.

 Positive – giving something good
 Negative – taking away something bad
 Punishment - decreases frequent of behaviour.
 Positive – giving something bad (e.g., spanking)
 Negative - removing something (e.g., time out)
 Extinction – decreases frequent of behaviour
 Ignoring behaviour/no consequences

Schedules of reinforcement
 Continuous - leads to quickest learning
 Fixed ratio
 Variable ratio
 Fixed interval – responding highest at end of interval
 Variable-interval reinforcement - most effective, resistant to extinction
APPLICATION - Decreasing unwanted behavior

 The best way to get rid of negative behaviors is to stop reinforcing them  according to
conditioning principles, they should extinguish.

 Problems with punishment

 Punishment is popular but relatively ineffective:
 Doesn’t teach alternative behaviors
 Only temporarily suppresses behaviors
 Child may learn undesirable behaviors through modeling (screaming, hitting)
 Child may learn that bigger, stronger people can do what they want
 May create negative emotions that inhibit appropriate behaviors
 Punishment is more effective when:
 intense
 immediate
 consistent

Criticisms of Skinnerian Theory

 Internal thoughts and feelings can’t be ignored.
 While measuring observable responses is scientific, it ignores the processes of
thinking and feeling that make us uniquely human.
 Principles of learning were discovered and studied using animal subjects.
 Applying principles of animal learning to humans is a big leap, since humans have
more complex systems of thought and action.
 Overly simplistic

2. COGNITIVE THEORIES

Gestalt’s views of Bode, Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka and Lewin later criticised the behaviorist
theory in 1929, through publications. These psychologists proposed “looking at the whole rather
than its parts, and at patterns instead of isolated events” (Ormrod, J. E., 1995).

Soon termed as the cognitive approach, it showed that such learners would gather all resources
necessary to solve a problem, and then put them together in different methods until the problem
is solved. Insight is gained upon completion, whereas it isn’t apparent if the problem remains
unsolved. Finally, evaluation is adopted in order to check correct processing methods.
Therefore, the individual is accounting for organized wholes, and not disconnected parts of the
individual stimuli under this theory.

The Cognitive theory views individuals as actively participating in the learning process.
Therefore the cognitive process mediates between the stimulus and the response. The focus is
on the structure, process and human competences i.e. the role played by memory, intuition,
information processing and perception. People develop social maps that they use to perceive
the world. It is argued that learning can be stored away and retrieved when required. The
process of storing and retrieving is called Latent Learning- shows the importance of past
experiences in facilitating learning.

Insight learning is based on the works of Kohler who studied apes that worked puzzle solutions
in their heads and then put them into practice. Insight learning involves:

i. The individual understands the situation and identifies a problem to be solved

ii. He thinks about the problem in the context within which it occurs
iii. The individual experiences a sudden flash of inspiration where a hidden solution
becomes evident.

Comparison Between The Behaviourists And Cognitive Theories

i. The view of the learning process for a behaviorist is change in behavior, while a
cognitivist views internal mental process (including insight, information
processing, memory and perception).
ii. The locus of learning for behaviorists is the stimuli in external environments,
whereas cognitivists have internal cognitive structuring.
iii. The purpose of education in terms of behaviorists is to produce behavioral
change in a desired direction, and cognitivists develop capacity and skills to
learn better.
iv. The teacher’s role through behaviorists is to arrange the environment to elicit
desired response, while a cognitivist may structure the content of a learning
activity.
v. And the manifestation in adult learning in relation to behaviorists include;
behavioral objectives; competency based education and skills development and
training. A cognitivist side would include; cognitive development; intelligence,
learning and memory as a function of age; and learning how to learn (Merriam
&Caffarella).
3. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY (BANDURA)

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via
observation, imitation, and modelling. The theory has often been called a bridge between
behaviourist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and
motivation.

People learn through observing others’ behaviour, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviours.
“Most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others,
one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded
information serves as a guide for action.” (Bandura). Social learning theory explains human
behaviour in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural, and
environmental influences.

Necessary conditions for effective modelling:

Attention — various factors increase or decrease the amount of attention paid. Includes
distinctiveness, affective valence, prevalence, complexity, functional value. One’s
characteristics (e.g. sensory capacities, arousal level, perceptual set, past reinforcement) affect
attention.

Retention — remembering what you paid attention to. Includes symbolic coding, mental
images, cognitive organization, symbolic rehearsal, motor rehearsal

Reproduction — reproducing the image.Including physical capabilities, and self-observation of

reproduction.

Motivation — having a good reason to imitate. Includes motives such as A past (i.e. traditional
behaviourism), promised (imagined incentives) and vicarious (seeing and recalling the
reinforced model)

Bandura believed in “reciprocal determinism”, that is, the world and a person’s behaviour cause
each other, while behaviourism essentially states that one’s environment causes one’s
behaviour, Bandura, who was studying adolescent aggression, found this too simplistic, and so
in addition he suggested that behaviour causes environment as well. Later, Bandura soon
considered personality as an interaction between three components: the environment,
behaviour, and one’s psychological processes (one’s ability to entertain images in minds and
language).

Social learning theory has sometimes been called a bridge between behaviourist and cognitive
learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation. The theory is
related to Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory and Lave’s Situated Learning, which also
emphasize the importance of social learning.

Summary of Social Learning Theory

Seeks to combine both the arguments of the behaviourist and Cognitive theories. People learn
through modeling or vicariously.
 Most of our behavior is learned through experiences with other people
 Focus on past only to extent that it helps us predict current behaviour
 Personality is both changing and stable
 Behavior is mostly goal-directed
 Motivated to maximize reward and minimize punishment
 Early goals learned in family setting
 Personality development is a function of the range, diversity, and quality of people’s
experiences with other people.
 We need to take perceptions, expectancies, and values into account when predicting
behaviour.
 Behavior potential – likelihood of behavior occurring in given situation
 Expectancy – likelihood that behavior will result in a certain reinforcer
 Value – how much we value that reinforcer above others (probability being equal)
 Efficacy – our beliefs about whether we are capable of producing the behavior in
question

How do we learn?
 For us to imitate a behavior, we must
 Attend to the behavior
 Remember the behavior
 Enact the behavior
 Expect the behavior to be rewarded

What determines what behaviours we will imitate?

 Expectations about consequences
 More likely to imitate behavior that’s presented as justified
 More likely to imitate a model who is
 Similar to observer in age, race, gender, looks
 Powerful
 Competent
 Warm and nurturing
 In control over future resources of the observer
 Justified in his/her behavior
 People low in self-esteem or competence are more likely to imitate behavior

Self-efficacy
 Belief that one has impact on environment
 Type of expectancy
 Outcome expectation – belief that an action will produce a certain outcome
 Efficacy expectation – belief that you are capable of performing that action
 Bandura thinks efficacy expectation is more important than outcome
expectations
 Physiological and affective states impact efficacy
 Efficacy impacts effort and persistence
  Low efficacy  avoid difficult situations  no opportunity to develop efficacy
 Self-efficacy and achievement

Criticisms of social learning

 Too narrow a description of human experience and personality
 Rejection of free will is troubling
 Minimizes heredity
 Certain behaviors are hard to condition

4. CONSTRUCTIVISM

(Vygotsky, Piaget, Dewey, Vico, Rorty, & Bruner)

Constructivism as a paradigm or worldview posits that learning is an active, constructive

process. The learner is an information constructor. People actively construct or create their own
subjective representations of objective reality. New information is linked to prior knowledge, thus
mental representations are subjective. A reaction to didactic approaches such as behaviourism
and programmed instruction, constructivism states that learning is an active, contextualized
process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it. Knowledge is constructed based on
personal experiences and hypotheses of the environment. Learners continuously test these
hypotheses through social negotiation. Each person has a different interpretation and
construction of knowledge process. The learner is not a blank slate (tabula rasa), but brings
past experiences and cultural factors to a situation.

*NB*: A common misunderstanding regarding constructivism is that instructors should never tell
students anything directly, but instead should always allow them to construct knowledge for
themselves. This is actually confusing a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing.
Constructivism assumes that all knowledge is constructed from the learner’s previous
knowledge regardless of how one is taught. Thus, even listening to a lecture involves active
attempts to construct new knowledge.
5. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (KOLB)

David A. Kolb believes “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the
transformation of experience” (1984, p. 38). The theory presents a cyclical model of learning,
consisting of four stages shown below. One may begin at any stage, but must follow each other
in the sequence:

• concrete experience (or “DO”)

• reflective observation (or “OBSERVE”)

• abstract conceptualization (or “THINK”)

• active experimentation (or “PLAN”)

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle.

Kolb’s four-stage learning cycle shows how experience is translated through reflection into
concepts, which in turn are used as guides for active experimentation and the choice of new
experiences. The first stage, concrete experience (CE), is where the learner actively
experiences an activity such as a lab session or field work. The second stage, reflective
observation (RO), is when the learner consciously reflects back on that experience. The third
stage, abstract conceptualization (AC), is where the learner attempts to conceptualize a theory
or model of what is observed. The fourth stage, active experimentation (AE), is where the
learner is trying to plan how to test a model or theory or plan for a forthcoming experience.

Kolb identified four learning styles which correspond to these stages. The styles highlight
conditions under which learners learn better. These styles are:

• assimilators, who learn better when presented with sound logical theories to consider
• convergers, who learn better when provided with practical applications of concepts and
theories

• accommodators, who learn better when provided with “hands-on” experiences

• divergers, who learn better when allowed to observe and collect a wide range of
information