Chapter Three: Learning and Theories of Learning

 Learning is a relatively enduring change in behaviour which is a function

of prior experience or practice
• The above definition emphasizes four attributes of learning as a process.
1. Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour.
 Here it is important to note that the change may be for better or worse. It does
not include change due to illness, fatigue, maturation and use of intoxication
2. Learning results in some change of enduring nature, i.e. Learned changes
should stay a fairly long period of time, transient effects of drug, alcohol etc
will not be considered as part of learning.
3. Learning depends on practice and experience, i.e. learning primarily due to
maturation (biological programming) is not learning. Example swallowing,
sucking breast, stand and walking, voice change at puberty etc. And
4. Learning is not directly observable but manifests in the activities of the
individual,
 Characteristics of Learning
• The following are some important characteristics of learning
1. Learning is continuous modification of behavior throughout life
2. Learning is pervasive, it reaches into all aspects of human life.
3. Learning involves the whole person, socially, emotionally &
intellectually.
4. Learning is often a change in the organization of experiences.
5. Learning is responsive to incentives
6. Learning is an active process
7. Learning is purposeful
8. Learning depends on maturation, motivation and practice.
9. Learning is multifaceted
 3.1.3. Principles of learning
• Some of the most important principles of learning are :
1. Individuals learn best when they are physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to
learn.
2. Students learn best and retain information longer when they have meaningful
practice and exercise
3. Learning is strengthened when accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying feeling, and
that learning is weakened when associated with an unpleasant feeling.
4. Things learned first create a strong impression in the mind that is difficult to erase.
5. Things most recently learned are best remembered.
6. students will learn more from the real thing than from a substitute.
7. Individuals must have some abilities and skills that may help them to learn.
8. Things freely learned are best learned –
 the greater the freedom enjoyed by individuals, the higher the intellectual and
moral advancement.
3.2. Factors Influencing Learning
• Some of the factors that affect learning are the following.
1. Motivation: The stronger and clearer the motives for learning, the
greater are the effort to learn. When the motives of learning are
high, the learner becomes enthusiastic.
2. Maturation: Neuro-muscular coordination is important for learning
a given task. Example, The child has to be mature before she/he is
able to learn.
3. Health condition of the learner: The learner should be in a good
health status to learn.
4. Psychological wellbeing of the learner: individual‘s psychological
states like worries, fears, feelings of loneliness and inferiority
hinders learning.
5. Good working conditions – absence or presence of fresh air, light,
comfortable surroundings, moderate temperature, absence of
distractions like noise and learning aids determine learning
effectiveness.
6. Background experiences: having background experiences affect
effectiveness of learning. All related facts and understandings from a
previously learned course should be brought to new learning.
7. Length of the working period: Learning periods should neither be
too short nor too long.
 Long learning time sets fatigue and reduces effectiveness in learning.
 Short learning time doesn‘t allow adequate practice needed to master
a learning task.
8. Massed and distributed learning: Learning that spreads across time
with reasonable time gaps brings better results compared with
crammed learning that occurs at once or within short span of time.
 3.3. Theories of Learning and their Applications

• Theories of learning attempt to explain the mechanism of behavior

involved in the learning process.
• In general, learning theories broadly categorized into:
1. Behavioral Theory of Learning
 Behavioral theory of learning believes that learning occurs as a result of
stimulus-response associations.
 Behavioral theories emphasize observable behaviors, seek laws to
govern all organisms, and provide explanations which focus on
consequences.
 Behaviorists also differ among themselves with respect to their views
about the role of reinforcement in learning.
 There are two major behavioral theories of learning.
1. Classical, and
2. operant Conditioning.
 1. classical conditioning
• focuses on the learning of involuntary
emotional or physiological responses such as
fear, increased heart beat, salivation or
sweating
• The theory of classical conditioning represents
a process in which a neutral stimulus, by
pairing with a natural stimulus, acquires all the
characteristics of natural stimulus
 Elements of classical conditioning
 classical condition has the following five basic elements
1. Neutral stimulus: a stimulus that does not initially elicit any part of
the unconditioned response.
2. Unconditioned Stimulus: is a stimulus that can elicit or produce a
natural response, or a reflex or Unconditioned response (UR).
3. Conditioned stimulus (CS): is a stimulus which was originally a
neutral stimulus that could not have a natural power to elicit a
response but after several pairing with the UCS start to illicit a
response like a natural response which is called Conditioned
response (CR).
4. Unconditioned response (UCR)—a reaction that occurs naturally
and automatically when the unconditioned stimulus is presented, in
other words, a reflex.
5. Conditioned response (CR): the learned reaction to a conditioned
stimulus.
• How was classical conditioning discovered?
PAVLOV AND CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• Ivan P. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist had won a Nobel Prize in
physiology in 1904 for his research on digestion.
• As Pavlov continued his digestion research, he noticed that a dog would
salivate or secrete stomach juices as soon as it saw the lab worker who
customarily fed the dogs.
• Because this secretion undoubtedly depended on the dog’s previous
experiences,
Requirements of Pavlov’s experment
1. Hungry dog
2. Sound(Bell)
3. Food(meat)
4. Measure of saliva
• Pavlov’s Experiment Procedures
Procedure of the experiment cont…
 Principle of Classical Conditioning

1. Acquisition: is the process by which a previously neutral stimulus

(NS) comes to produce a conditioned response (CR).
 Example:
• An item + famous person →liking the item
• An item in a market + seeing bought by beloved publicly famous
person → liking the item
• Music + some event → remembering the event when hearing the
music
2. Extinction: implies when ‘a learned behaviour become unlearned’.
 After acquisition if the CS alone is presented several time without
pairing or without being followed with the UCS/US, the strength of
the response (CR) decline/diminish gradually.
 This process of extinguishing the strength of CR or a learned behaviour by
presenting the CS alone repeatedly is called Extinction.
• But, extinction does not necessarily mean erasing or cancelling what is already
learned or conditioned.
3. Spontaneous recovery: this is a sudden return of an extinguished
response with the presentation of UCS.
4. Stimulus generalization: is when a conditioned response (CR)
appears with stimulus that resembles the conditioned stimulus.
 For example if the dog salivates when it hears the sound like a bell
or sounds that resembles a bell ring such as a bell in a house’s door.
5. Stimulus discrimination: it is learning to distinguish among similar
stimulus and to respond only to the appropriate one.
 It is the opposite of stimulus generalization.
• Application of Classical Conditioning
1. Educational implications of Pavlov’s theory of classical
conditioning
• the principles can be used in various areas of learning in the
classroom. E.g
-A child who fears a particular object,
-The use of audio- visual aids in the teaching-learning process
involves the theory of conditioning.
2. In business area
• advertisement
 2. Operant/ Instrumental Conditioning
• Operant conditioning is learning in which a voluntary response is
strengthened or weakened, depending on its favorable or
unfavorable consequences.
• When we say that a response has been strengthened or weakened;
 we mean that it has been made more or less likely to recur regularly.
 An emphasis on environmental consequences is at the heart of
Operant Conditioning
 In operant conditioning, the organism's response operates or
produces effects on the environment.
 These effects, in turn, influence, whether the response will occur
again.
 Unlike classical conditioning, in which the original behaviors are the natural,
biological responses to the presence of a stimulus such as food, water, or pain,
operant conditioning applies to voluntary responses, which an organism performs
deliberately to produce a desirable outcome.
• The term operant emphasizes this point:
 The organism operates on its environment to produce a desirable
result.
 Operant conditioning is at work when we learn that toiling
industriously can bring about praise or that studying hard results
in good grades.
• Besides, B.F Skinner, the very renowned proponent of operant
conditioning, argued that to understand behavior we should focus
on the external causes of an action and the action‘s consequences.
 To explain behavior, he said, we should look outside the
individual, not inside.
• In Skinner‘s analysis, a response (―operant‖) can lead to three
types of consequences: such as
a) A neutral consequence
b) A reinforcement :
c) punishment.
i. A neutral Consequence : are Consequence that does not alter the response.
ii. reinforcement : are pleasant stimulus that strengthens the response or makes
it more likely to recur.
 A reinforcer is any event that increases the probability that the behavior that
precedes it will be repeated.
Types of reinforcement
 There are two basic types of reinforcers or reinforcing stimuli:
1. Primary reinforcement: are those that have natural power to reinforce or
encourage behaviour. Or those that are related with bodily need. E.g. Food,
affection, or pain reduction
2. Secondary reinforcement: refers to other stimuli associated with the primary
reinforcement. E.g. money, grade.
• Both primary and secondary reinforcement can also be positive or negative.
i. Positive reinforcement ii. Negative reinforcement
A) Positive reinforcement: - It occurs when presenting positive value stimulus
strengthens the probability of the occurrence of a response (e.g. Water, food,
praise).
 The most common types of positive reinforcement or praise and rewards, and
most of us have experienced this as both the giver and receiver.
Factor that affect positive reinforcements
1. Size of the reinforcement: when the size of reinforcement
increases, the response also increases and the opposite too
2. Delay of reinforcement: the sooner the reinforcement following a
good response, the stronger the response will be.
 Delaying the reinforcement make the response weaker.
• Schedule of reinforcement: reinforcement should be scheduled;
otherwise, they will lead to undesirable behaviour.
3. Schedules of Reinforcement
• In real life situations, reinforcement does not occur every time a
response makes a correct response to a given stimulus.
• Reinforcement occurs according to a certain schedules.
• The schedules of reinforcement may be made on the basis of
number, time and rate of response between reinforcement or a
combination of all these.
 1. Continuous reinforcement schedule:
 it is a kind of reinforcement in which every single desirable response
will be reinforced.
2. Partial or intermittent reinforcement schedule:
 refers to reinforcing some of the response.
There are also two kinds of Partial or intermittent reinforcement schedule.

i. Interval schedule: It is an arrangement of giving reinforcement after an

interval of time. it can be also two type.
A) Fixed interval (FI) schedule reinforcement:
 is presented after prescribed fixed time interval.
 Example: application of fixed – interval schedule are many
(a) Students attend classes at certain fixed hours of the day.
(b) We eat at regular periods in the day.
(c) Payment of salary on 1st of every month.
NB: A major problem with this schedule is that people tend to improve their
performance right before the time period expires so as to "look good" when
the review comes around.
• B) Variable Interval (VI) schedule: in this schedule reinforcement is after various
length of time. Example, after 3’, 6’, 10’, 2’, 20’, etc. Reinforcing someone after a
variable amount of time is the other schedule.
ii). Ratio schedule: reinforcement is administered based on the number of correct
responses given between reinforces.
 it can be two type.
A). Fixed ratio (FR) schedule reinforcement: refers to applying the reinforcement after a
fixed number of correct responses.
The problem is that the behavior does not tend to change until right before the preset
number.
 In this schedule
• higher rate of response is recorded
• start with a low ratio and gradually increase the ratio
Example of FR
(a) A man is paid after completing certain amount of work
(b) Commission agents receive commission after selling a certain amount of commodity
(c) Student learns 25 lines and gets a coffee
B).Variable ratio (VR) schedule. This refers to applying reinforces after a variable
number of responses.
 Variable ratio schedules have been found to work best under many circumstances and
knowing an example will explain why
 ii) Negative reinforcement
• is the process whereby termination of an aversive stimulus makes
behavior more likely to occur.
• The basic principle of negative reinforcement is that eliminating
something aversive can itself be a reinforcer or a reward.
• For example, if someone nags you all the time to study, but stops
nagging when you comply, your studying is likely to increase-
because you will then avoid the nagging.
 This can be an example of what is called escape learning.
 In escape learning animals learn to make a response that
terminates/stops a noxious, painful or unpleasant stimulus.
 Another kind of learning, is Avoidance Learning, which refers
to learning to avoid a painful, noxious stimulus prior to
exposure.
 iii. Punishment
• Punishment is an unpleasant consequence that leads to a
decrease in behavior.
• Unlike negative reinforcement, which produces an increase
in behavior, punishment reduces the likelihood of a prior
response.
 There are two types of punishment:
1. Positive punishment weakens a response through the
application of an unpleasant stimulus.
 For instance, spanking a child for misbehaving or
spending ten years in jail for committing a crime is
positive punishment.
2. Negative punishment (response coast): it consists of the
removal of something pleasant.
 However, when punishment fails:
1. People often administer punishment inappropriately or
mindlessly. They swing in a blind rag or shout things they do
not mean applying. Punishment is so broad that it covers all
sorts of irrelevant behaviors.
2. The recipient of punishment often responds with anxiety,
fear or rage.
3. The effectiveness of punishment is often temporary,
depending heavily on the presence of the punishing person
or circumstances
4. Most behavior is hard to punish immediately.
5. Punishment conveys little information.
-An action intended to punish may instead be reinforcing
because it brings attention.
 Shaping

• For a response to be reinforced, it must first

occur. But, suppose you to train a child to use
a knife and a fork properly. Such behaviors,
and most others in everyday life, have almost
no probability of appearing spontaneously.
Limitations of Operant Conditioning
• ignored the structural and hereditary factors
• does not adequately take into account the
elements of creativity, curiosity and spontaneity
in the human beings
• all human behaviors are acquired during the life
time
• dehumanizes the learning process
• does not deal with the depth of mind& thus it is
artificial in nature
 Application of the theory of operant conditioning:
1. Conditioning study behavior:
• Teaching is the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement, which
expedite learning. For effective teaching, teachers should arrange effective
contingencies of reinforcement. Example:
• For Self-learning of a student teacher should reinforce student behavior
through variety of incentives such as prize, medal, smile, praise, affectionate
patting on the back or by giving higher marks.
2. Conditioning and classroom behavior:
 During a learning process, children can acquire unpleasant experiences.
 This unpleasantness becomes conditioned to the teacher, subject and the
classroom and learners begin to dislike the subject and the teacher.
3. Managing Problem Behavior: Operant conditioning is a behavior therapy
technique that shape students behavior. To do this, teachers should admit
positive contingencies like praise, encouragement etc. for learning.
 One should not admit negative contingencies. Example punishment (student
will run away from the dull and dreary classes – escape stimulation.
4. Dealing with anxieties through conditioning: Through conditioning,
fear, anxieties, prejudices, attitudes, and perceptual meaning
develops.
5. Conditioning group behavior: Conditioning can make an entire group
learn and complete change in behavior with reinforcement.
6. Conditioning and Cognitive Processes: Reinforcement is given in
different form, for the progress of knowledge and in the feedback
form. When response is correct, positive reinforcement is given
7. Shaping Complex Behavior: Complex behavior exists in the form of
a chain of small behavior. Control is required for such kind of
behavior. This extended form of learning is shaping technique.
 2. Cognitive theory of Learning
• Cognition can be defined as "the act or process of knowing in the
broadest sense; specifically, an intellectual process by which
knowledge is gained from perception or ideas".
 Cognitive theorists believe that learning is the result of our
attempt to make sense of the world using our all mental tools.
 Cognitive theorists explain that, the way we think, our
knowledge, expectations, feelings and interaction with others
influence how and what we learn.
 They emphasize on it internal process.
 Cognitive learning may take two forms:
1. Latent learning
2. Insight learning (gestalt learning or perceptual learning)
i)Latent Learning:
 ‘Latent’ means hidden and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not
evident in behavior until later, when conditions for its appearance are favorable.
 Latent learning (sometimes called incidental learning) is learning without
reinforcement and is not immediately demonstrated when it occurs.
 For example, if a student wants a coffee break, wonders where to go, and
suddenly remembers a new coffee shop near campus, the student is demonstrating
latent learning.
• It is said to occur without reinforcement of particular responses and seems to
involve changes in the way information is processed.
ii) Insight Learning
• It is cognitive process whereby we reorganize our perception of a problem.
• It doesn’t depend on conditioning of particular behaviours for its occurrence.
• Sometimes, for example, people even wake from sleep with the solution to a
problem that they had not been able to solve during the day.
• Insight learning is a form of problem solving in which the organism develops a
sudden insight or understanding of a problem’s solution.
• An insight is a new way to organize stimuli or a new approach to solving a
problem
 3. Social Learning Theory (observational learning) theory
• According to psychologist Albert Bandura, a major part of human
learning consists of observational learning,
• which is learning by watching the behavior of another person, or model.
• Because of its reliance on observation of others—a social phenomenon—
the perspective taken by Bandura is often referred to as a social cognitive
approach to learning
• Bandura identifies three forms of reinforcement that can encourage
observational learning.
 First, of course, the observer may reproduce the behaviors of the model
and receive direct reinforcement. The reinforcement need not be direct -
it may be vicarious reinforcement as well.
 As mentioned earlier, the observer may simply see others reinforced for
a particular behavior and then increase his or her production of that
behavior.
 The final form of reinforcement is self-reinforcement, or controlling your
reinforcers.
The model shows something the observer wants to
learn.
Bandura has proposed that learning of behaviour takes
place in the following four stages:
• Attention; we watch others behave in a certain way.
• Retention; we commit what we have watched to
memory.
• Reproduction; we try out the behaviour ourselves.
• Reinforcement; we consider the consequences of the
behaviour and decide whether or not to repeat it.