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Learning and Knowledge
Acquisition
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
The Nature of Learning
• Learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in
behaviour or human capabilities resulting from processing new
knowledge, practice or experience
– Such capabilities relate to all types of skills: cognitive/motor skills,
attitudes and verbal information (Gagne & Medsker)
• Learning results in the assimilation of group ‘norms’
• Learning is a mode of adaptation to change, it can be formal, nonformal, informal or incidental
– Incidental learning results in tacit knowledge; the other processes result
in explicit knowledge
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Classical Learning Theories
• These include:
– The behavioural approach
– The cognitive approach
– The social-learning approach
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Learning: Using all we know
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Behavioral
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Cognitive (individual constructivist)
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attention, memory, knowledge, organization, elaboration, effort
Constructivist (social constructivist)
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consequences and practice
discourse, authenticity, community, identity
Understand, remember, apply (practice)
Behavioural Approach
• The behavioural approach perceives learning as little more
than a chain of conditioned (learned) reflexes encouraged
or inhibited by positive and negative reinforcement
• The two best-known behavioural theorists are Ivan Pavlov
and B.F.Skinner
– They explained learning as an interaction with the environment
– Pavlov (1849-1936) was famous for his experiment with dogs and his
studies of conditioning. He is described as the 'father of behaviourism'
– Skinner (1904-1990) devised the theory of ‘operant conditioning’, which
placed reliance on behavioural reinforcement stimuli (negative or
positive)
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Figure 8.1 - Classic or Pavlovian Conditioning
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Figure 8.2 - Examples of Positive and Negative Reinforcement
• Reinforcement is a means of inducing motivational states in organizations.
• Rewards are a form of positive reinforcement
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Cognitive Approach
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This approach concerns learning through feedback: cognitive
theorists believe that how individuals perceive, evaluate feedback,
represent, store and use information plays an important role in learning
The key theorists of this approach were Max Wertheimer (1890-1943),
Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) and Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)
– Wertheimer and Kohler were gestalt theorists looking to the overall shape of
pattern of consciousness
– Kohler developed a theory called insightful learning through his experiments on
chimpanzees; he argued stimulus response learning did not have to be gradual
and incremental
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Cognitive theorists concentrated on the ‘black box’ of the mind,
whereas behavioural theories thought the internal contents of the mind
were not measurable and so looked outwards, to the environment
Recent approaches have refined Kohler’s and have lent support to the
idea of a ‘trial and error’ component in learning (Bernstein)
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Table 8.1 - Approaches to Learning Theory
Comparing the behaviourist and cognitive approaches
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning
Social Learning Approach (1)
Social-learning (S-L) theorists believe that people
develop through observational learning
- The theory operates on the basis of symbolic representations;
individuals learn by observing others directly or indirectly...
- Bandura (1977) argued that learning involved four inter-related
processes:
- Attention
- Memory
- Motor skills
- Motivation.
- Close attention to a model leads to self-efficacy (confidence to learn
fresh skills)
Work and Organizational Behaviour - Lecture 8: Learning