Learning

Unit 4

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 Learning
Concept
 Learning is any permanent change in behavior of a person that
occurs as result of experience.
 Learning helps to develop knowledge, skills, attitudes, values,
personality, and loyalty of employees.
“Learning is the process by which behavior changed through
practice or training”. - Kingsley and Garry
“Learning can be defined as relatively permanent change in
behavior potentiality that results from reinforced practice or
experience”. – Steers and Porter

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 Significance of Learning
1. Change Behavior
2. Human Resource Development
3. Understanding Human Behavior
4. Manage Workforce Diversity
5. Technological Adaptation
6. Reduce Resistance to Change
7. Increase Employee Performance
8. Total Quality Management

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1. Change Behavior
 Learning is concerned with a permanent change in behavior
due to experience and practices.
2. Human Resource Development
 Learning helps to develop skills and potential of employees.
3. Understand Human Behavior
 Learning helps to understand and predict human behavior at
work.
4. Manage Workforce Diversity
 In today’s workplaces, people from diversified backgrounds,
groups, cultures and countries work.
 Learning helps managers to work and manage workforce
diversity.
5. Technological Adaptation
 The use of technology requires learning. Employees can adapt
to changing technology
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through learning.
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6. Reduce Resistance to Change
 Employees resist the change due to lack of knowledge about
outcome of change.
 Learning reduces resistance to change because employee able
to know about the outcome of change.
7. Increase Employee Performance
 Learning helps to develop knowledge, skills, attitudes, values,
personality, and loyalty of employees.
8. Total Quality Management
 Learning helps to maintain total quality management in every
functional department of the organization.

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 Factors Influencing Learning
1. Individual Motive
2. Physiological Factors
3. Social Factors
4. Environmental Factors
5. Nature of Learning Materials
6. Process of Learning
7. Psychological Factors
8. Reinforcement Factors

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1. Motives
 Motives represent mental feelings of human beings. They
determine the direction of individual behavior. Learning
cannot occur without motives.
2. Physiological Factors
 These factors involve both physical condition and mental
ability of the persons. These factors provide impact on
learning of individuals.
3. Social Factors
 These factors involve social needs, incentives, reward and
punishment, competition, suggestion, cooperation etc.
 Social factors also involve parents, family, peers, teachers,
managers, and reference groups.
 These factors impact learning for individuals.

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4. Environmental Factors
 These factors include light, temperature, noise, cold etc.
 These factors affect in learning.
5. Nature of Learning Materials
 The area of learning may be management, humanities,
education or science.
6. Process Learning
 The learning process includes full time or part time learning,
continuous learning or break at the mid.
7. Psychological Factors
 These factors include interest, mood, level of perception, need
to learn, ability and so on.

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8. Reinforcement Factors
 It is concerned with encouraging repetition of learning
behavior that give positive outcomes.
 Both positive and negative reinforcement result in learning.

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 Principles of Learning
The principles of learning are the guidelines in the learning process.
1. Principle of Reinforcement
2. Principle of Punishment
3. Principle of Generalization
4. Principle of Discrimination
5. Principle of Motivation
6. Principle of Repetition
7. Principle of Active Involvement
8. Principle of Learning Curve

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1. Principle of Reinforcement
 It is concerned with encouraging repetition of learning
behavior that gives positive outcome.
 When a response is followed by a desirable consequence, it
is positive reinforcement.
 When a response is followed by the withdrawal of
undesirable consequence, it is negative reinforcement.
2. Principle of punishment
 People can learn by considering reward an punishment
principles.

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3. Principle of generalization
 It is concerned with publication of new knowledge and
experience innovated in newspapers and magazines for the
knowledge of public.
4. Principle of discrimination
 When managers make differences between learning employees
and idle employees.
5. Principle of motivation
 Management can motivate the employees in learning by
providing both extrinsic and intrinsic reward.
6. Principle of repetition
 Practice through repetition helps the people to generate new
knowledge and skills in the concerned area of function.

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7. Principle of active involvement
 Active involvement in subject matter of learning affects in
learning trend.
8. Principle of learning curve
 At the beginning of
learning, people learn at a
faster rate and, as the time
passes, speed increases at

Speed of Learning
a diminishing rate until a
plateau is reached.

1st 2nd 3rd 4th

Weeks

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 Learning Theories
1. Classical Conditioning
2. Operant Conditioning
3. Cognitive Theory
4. Social Learning Theory

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1. Classical conditioning
 Ivan Pavlov was the Russian Psychologist
 Learning theory of classical conditioning was developed by Ivan
Pavlov in his famous experiments with dogs.
 It is a process by which individuals learn reflex behavior. A reflex
is an involuntary, or an automatic, response that is not under an
individual’s conscious control.
 Classical conditioning is a simple form of learning that links a
conditional response with an unconditional stimulus.

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If the teacher is consistent and repetitive with these stimuli,
eventually the students will come to learn to behave properly
through classical conditioning.

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 2. Operant Conditioning
 Operant conditioning is developed by American psychologists
B. F. Skinner.
 It is also known as instrumental conditioning.
 This theory assumes that people learn to behave in certain
ways as a result of its consequence.
 This consequence may be either positive or negative.
 Behavior with positive consequences are repeated, behavior
with negative consequences are avoided.
 Operant conditioning deals with Response—Stimulus (R-S)
connection.
 Skinner made this experiment on hungry rat and pigeon.

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3. Cognitive theory
 Cognition refers to an individual’s thoughts, knowledge
interpretations, understanding or ideas his environment.
 Cognitive theory assumes that learning is purely an outcomes of
the thinking process. Such processes involve perceiving, imaging,
thinking, reasoning, and decision making.
 This theory is developed by pioneer cognitive theorists Edward
Tolman, who did experiment on rats and found relation between
cognitive environmental indications and goals.
 Wolfgang Kohler also contributed for recognition of cognitive
theory of learning. He did experiment on chimpanzee where he
found that learning is the process of thinking and analyzing.

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4. Social Learning Theory
 The social learning theory was proposed by Albert Bandura.
 Social learning theory emphasizes that people can learn through
observation of others behavior and direct practical experience.
 It states that people can learn through watching models such as
parents, seniors, peers, teachers, managers, celebrities and other
reference group.

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There are three core concepts of the social learning theory
 People can learn through observation
 Internal mental state is essential in the learning process
 Learning does not necessarily lead to change in behavior

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 Process of Social Learning
The following steps are involved in the observational
learning and modeling process.
1. Attention process
2. Retention process
3. Reproduction process
4. Reinforcement process

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1. Attention process
 In this stage, individuals need to give care while observing
others.
 Mental focus or concentration
Examples: when supervisor is demonstrating procedures of
accomplishment of task, subordinates need to observe process
full of attention.

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2. Retention process
 In this stage, individuals able to know the basic concept of
subject matter presented.
 To encode the behavior in the memory
 Ability to store information
Example: when supervisor is demonstrated procedures of
accomplishment of task, subordinates get knowledge of all the
procedures.

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 3. Reproduction process
 This stage is concerned with self practicing the new
knowledge gained through observing others.
 To actually perform the behavior observed
Example: subordinates able to know the procedures for
completion of task from supervisor.

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4. Reinforcement process
 This stage is concerned with encouraging repetition of learning
behavior that gives positive outcome.
 Force that drives one to act

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 Behavior modification
 Behavior modification is a treatment approach which is
focused on changing behavior.
 Behavior modification is a means of changing behavior
through various techniques used to replace undesirable
behaviors with desirable ones.
 It is based on the principles of operant conditioning.

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 Techniques of behavior modification
1. Positive reinforcement
2. Negative reinforcement
3. Punishment
4. Extinction (stops existing situation)

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 Thank You

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