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Nature of Learning

Learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience. It involves a change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. There are several factors that affect learning, including motivation, practice, environment, and mental group. Learning theories like classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning, and cognitive learning help explain how learning occurs. Learning plays an important role in organizational behavior, as employee skills and attitudes are learned over time through training programs and by experiencing the consequences of their behaviors.

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MONIKA SHARMA
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98 views

Nature of Learning

Learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience. It involves a change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. There are several factors that affect learning, including motivation, practice, environment, and mental group. Learning theories like classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning, and cognitive learning help explain how learning occurs. Learning plays an important role in organizational behavior, as employee skills and attitudes are learned over time through training programs and by experiencing the consequences of their behaviors.

Uploaded by

MONIKA SHARMA
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LEARNING

Learning can be defined as the permanent change in behavior due to direct and
indirect experience. It means change in behavior, attitude due to education and
training, practice and experience. It is completed by acquisition of knowledge and
skills, which are relatively permanent.

Nature of Learning
Nature of learning means the characteristic features of learning.
Learning involves change; it may or may not guarantee improvement.
It should be permanent in nature, that is learning is for lifelong.
The change in behavior is the result of experience, practice and training. Learning
is reflected through behavior.

Factors Affecting Learning


Learning is based upon some key factors that decide what changes will be caused
by this experience. The key elements or the major factors that affect learning are
motivation, practice, environment, and mental group.
Coming back to these factors let us have a look on these factors −
 Motivation − The encouragement, the support one gets to complete a task,
to achieve a goal is known as motivation. It is a very important aspect of
learning as it acts gives us a positive energy to complete a task. Example −
The coach motivated the players to win the match.
 Practice − We all know that ”Practice makes us perfect”. In order to be a
perfectionist or at least complete the task, it is very important to practice
what we have learnt. Example − We can be a programmer only when we
execute the codes we have written.
 Environment − We learn from our surroundings, we learn from the people
around us. They are of two types of environment – internal and
external. Example − A child when at home learns from the family which is
an internal environment, but when sent to school it is an external
environment.
 Mental group − It describes our thinking by the group of people we chose
to hang out with. In simple words, we make a group of those people with
whom we connect. It can be for a social cause where people with the same
mentality work in the same direction. Example − A group of readers,
travelers, etc.
These are the main factors that influence what a person learns, these are the root
level for our behavior and everything we do is connected to what we learn.

How Learning Occurs?


Learning can be understood clearly with the help of some theories that will
explain our behavior. Some of the remarkable theories are −

 Classical Conditioning Theory


 Operant Conditioning Theory
 Social Learning Theory
 Cognitive Learning Theory

Classical Conditioning Theory


The classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus is coupled with an
unconditioned stimulus. Usually, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is an impartial
stimulus like the sound of a tuning fork, the unconditioned stimulus (US) is
biologically effective like the taste of food and the unconditioned response (UR)
to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response like salivation or
sweating.
After this coupling process is repeated (for example, some learning may already
occur after a single coupling), an individual shows a conditioned response (CR) to
the conditioned stimulus, when the conditioned stimulus is presented alone. The
conditioned response is mostly similar to the unconditioned response, but unlike
the unconditioned response, it must be acquired through experience and is nearly
impermanent.
Operant Conditioning Theory
Operant conditioning theory is also known as instrumental conditioning. This
theory is a learning process in which behavior is sensitive to, or controlled by its
outcomes.
Let’s take an example of a child. A child may learn to open a box to get the candy
inside, or learn to avoid touching a hot stove. In comparison, the classical
conditioning develops a relationship between a stimulus and a behavior. The
example can be further elaborated as the child may learn to salivate at the sight of
candy, or to tremble at the sight of an angry parent.
In the 20th century, the study of animal learning was commanded by the analysis
of these two sorts of learning, and they are still at the core of behavior analysis.
Social Learning Theory
The key assumptions of social learning theory are as follows −
 Learning is not exactly behavioral, instead it is a cognitive process that
takes place in a social context.
 Learning can occur by observing a behavior and by observing the outcomes
of the behavior (known as vicarious reinforcement).
 Learning includes observation, extraction of information from those
observations, and making decisions regarding the performance of the
behavior (known as observational learning or modeling). Thus, learning can
occur beyond an observable change in behavior.
 Reinforcement plays an important role in learning but is not completely
responsible for learning.
 The learner is not a passive receiver of information. Understanding,
environment, and behavior all mutually influence each other.

Cognitive Learning Theory


Cognition defines a person’s ideas, thoughts, knowledge, interpretation,
understanding about himself and environment.
This theory considers learning as the outcome of deliberate thinking on a problem
or situation based upon known facts and responding in an objective and more
oriented manner. It perceives that a person learns the meaning of various objects
and events and also learns the response depending upon the meaning assigned to
the stimuli.
This theory debates that the learner forms a cognitive structure in memory which
stores organized information about the various events that occurs.
Learning & Organizational Behavior
An individual’s behavior in an organization is directly or indirectly affected by
learning.
Example − Employee skill, manager’s attitude are all learned.
Behavior can be improved by following the listed tips −
 Reducing absenteeism by rewarding employees for their fair attendance.
 Improving employee discipline by dealing with employee’s undesirable
behavior, drinking at workplace, stealing, coming late, etc. by taking
appropriate actions like oral reprimands, written warnings and suspension.
 Developing training programs more often so as to grab the trainees’
attention, provide required motivational properties etc.

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