Download INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES OF LEARNING WHAT IS

INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES OF LEARNING
WHAT IS LEARNING?
 It refers to the relatively permanent change in behavior or behavior potentiality as a result of reinforced
practice or experience (Kimble, 1961).
(“relatively” here means that behavior can be changed or modified whenever there is a need).
 It was brought about by experience provided that the change cannot be explained on the basis of a
simpler cause (ex: native response tendencies, maturation or temporary state such as fatigue and
drugs).
 Learning is a result of experience or practice.
LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE
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Learning refers to the change in behavior potentiality.
Performance refers to the translation of this potentiality into behavior.
TYPES OF LEARNING
1. Rote learning – is learning without understanding. This type of learning is not effective in behavior
because things learned through rote cannot be put into performance.
2. Rational learning – opposite of rote learning; it is learning with understanding.
3. Motor learning – the adaptation of movement to stimuli relating to speed and precision of
performance.
4. Associational learning – is learning through establishing relationships. This type of learning involves the
development of Associate Pattern (ex: EDSA Revolution and People Power).
5. Appreciational learning – is the process of acquiring attitudes, ideas, satisfaction and judgment
concerning values as well as the recognition of worth and importance which learners gain from
activities. This type of learning is a product of appreciation.
“When you appreciate, you imitate.”
THE LEARNING CURVE
The learning curve is the manifestation of the direction of learning. It is defined as the graphical
representation of learning and it gauges how much or how little learning has taken place.
* A PLATEAU in the learning curve signifies no change in the rate of learning or the learner has reached his or
her physiological or psychological limit.
DIRECTIONS OF LEARNING
1. Positive – increased in the rate of change or growth.
2. Negative – decreased in the rate of change or growth.
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Adaptation
It is the structured functional change that enhances the organism’s survival values. Adaptation also
involves the elimination of emotional and other behaviors during the early stages of learning.
FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS OF LEARNING
 indexed change in behavior
 behavior change is relatively permanent
 the change in behavior need not occur immediately
PROCEDURE IN MODIFYING BEHAVIOR
Conditioning – involves forming association between the stimulus and a response.
Classical Conditioning – is the process by which a previously neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to elicit a
response through association with a stimulus that already elicits a similar or related response.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING
1. Recency – the most recent impression or association is more likely to be recalled.
2. Frequency – knowledge encountered most often is most likely to be recalled.
3. Vividness – learning is proportional to vividness or clearness of the process.
4. Exercise – using what has learned will help its likelihood to be recalled.
5. Readiness – readiness to learn is proportional to the efficiency of learning.
FUNDAMENTAL EQUIPMENT OF A LEARNER
1. Intelligence
2. Sensation
3. Perception – process where sensations are interpreted.
4. Imagination – an unconscious retention of images that supplies the basis for memorial activity. It is a
powerful internal activity that involves representing in the mind an absent stimulus or object. The
product of this process is the image.
*Imagination can be voluntary (with desire to imagine) or spontaneous (without desire to imagine).
THE TRANSFER OF LEARNING
The application of methods, skills, thinking, values and habits learned in one situation can be used to
another situation or life events.
KINDS OF TRANSFER
Ψ Positive Transfer – learning in one subject, task or situation improves or facilitates performance in the
second subject or situation.
Ψ Negative Transfer – learning interferes or retards, or is detrimental to another situation when
transferred.
Ψ Zero Transfer – learning that produces no observable influence or change in the efficiency of the second
subject or situation.
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EXPERIMENTAL BASES ON TRANSFER OF LEARNING
o Garrison, Kingston & Macdonald (1964)
 The amount and quality of transfer will depend upon:
 similarity of concept
 appropriateness of the methods of instruction or guidance
 ability of the learner to generalize
 learner’s intelligence
 attitude or mental set up of the learner towards learning a task
 desirable learning procedures
o Ulmer (1939)
 Geometry taught by emphasizing the application of principles to non-geometric situations
marked a gain on general reasoning tests.
o Katona (1940)
 Emphasized a generalization on rote learning:
 Advantage of learning with understanding does not necessarily appear in the original
learning because it may take a longer time than rote learning.
 Retention after a meaningful learning tends to be greater.
 Transfer of learning to new tasks is greater for a meaningful learning as compared to
rote learning.
o Hilgard et al. (1953)
 Experiment with 60 high school students to test Katona’s generalization.
 Students who learn by understanding would retain more than those who learn by rote.
 Thus understanding is superior to rote memorization in learning for transfer.
o Skinner (1958)
 Attitude may reinforce incidental learning initially occurring without intent on the part of the
person to consciously master the task.
THEORIES ON TRANSFER OF LEARNING
Ψ Theory of Identical Elements
 Factors of resemblance or similarity between situations have considerable effect upon the
amount of kind of carryover that can be expected from one situation to another.
 Edward Lee Thorndike: Transfer depends upon the presence in both situations certain identical
elements of content, attitude, method or aim.
Ψ Theory of Generalization
 Skills, facts and habits must be systematized and related to other situation in which they can be
utilized.
 Charles Judd: Transfer as synonymous with ability to understand and to apply broad principles
to specific situation.
Ψ Hartshorne & May (1928)
 Abstract concepts like ‘justice’ & ‘honesty’ are more readily transferred if they are learned
meaningfully.
 Thus, the transfer of conceptual learning is enhanced by ways of learning which make a
meaningful and significant to the students.
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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES (I.Ds.)
PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
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No two (2) human beings are exactly alike.
Understanding and appreciation of complexity and uniqueness of the human personality is different in
each individual.
CAUSATIONS OF I.Ds.
 Physiological factors
Ψ Heredity (genes and the nature of man)
Ψ Maturation
 Cultural Influences
Ψ Environment (nurture)
Ψ Training (all life areas)
Ψ Effort of will (capacity to direct and restrain thought, action and emotion)
THEORIES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
 Theory of Correlation
 study of the presence and degree of relationship between variables
 establishes the degree of ID
 Theory of Compensation
 when a person utilizes extra energy to alleviate the tensions caused by a real or imagined defect
it forms positive (develops potential strength & covering up weaknesses) and negative (boasting
& attempting to become over-humorous/ a clown) compensation
 can be direct (overcome weaknesses) or indirect (excel in other field) compensation
ATTRIBUTES OF I.Ds.
1. Variability – the characteristics of being subjected to change. Organisms within specie vary their pattern
of adaptive behavior.
2. Different rates of growth and development
3. Heredity and environmental influence
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INTELLIGENCE
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
 It is the sum total of all cognitive processes and skills of an individual.
 It is the ability to understand abstract concepts, see relationships among objects and ideas, and use
knowledge in a meaningful way.
 Intelligence is also the flexibility or versatility of an individual to adjust to new situations.
THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE
 Francis Galton’s Theory of Intelligence
 Intelligence provides basis for specific ability that every individual possesses.
 Galton believed that intellectual ability is inherited.
 The person who is intelligent is likely to develop mechanical, artistic, musical, linguistic and
mathematical abilities.
 Albert Binet’s Theory of Intelligence
 Intelligence is the general ability to solve problems in different situations.
 He based his assumptions that good students have the tendency to perform all the tasks
included in the Binet-Simon Scale, while poor students tend to do poorly on all tasks.
 Spearman’s Theory of Intelligence (1904)
 He found that scores on a given tasks correlates highly with one another.
 Positive Manifold – leads to a large 1st factor derived from factor analysis, dubbed
general intelligence, or “g”.
 The Principle of Indifference of the Indicator – it is unimportant indicator which
particular test are used to asses general intelligence – they all intercorrelate highly
anyway.
 Thurston’s Theory
 He is best noted for his pioneering work in the area of intelligence.
 He identified 7 factors of intelligence; The Primary Mental Abilities:
 reasoning
 word fluency
 perceptual speed
 verbal comprehension
 associative memory
 spatial visualization
 numerical calculation
 The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
 Developed by Robert Sternberg in 1984.
 3 types of abilities in intelligence:
 Componential intelligence – verbal reasoning and abilities
 Experiential intelligence – ability to combine experiences through insight to solve
problems.
 Contextual intelligence – the ability to adjust & function other than school and daily
social situations.
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 In 1985, Sternberg has developed a theory of intelligence with 3 components:
Analytic/Academic, Creative, & Practical intelligences wherein only the analytic can be
measured by Psychometrics.
 Theory of Multiple Intelligences
 In 1983, William Gardner proposed 7 forms of intelligences, namely:
 Linguistic
 Spatial
 Bodily-Kinesthetic
 Musical
 Interpersonal
 Intrapersonal
 Logical-Mathematical
 Gardner defines an intelligence as consisting of 3 components:
1. The ability to create an effective product/offer a service that is valuable in one’s
culture
2. A set of skills that enables an individual to solve problems encountered in life
 I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) – is the capacity to solve problems and make
things.
3. The potential for finding or creating solutions for problems which enables a person
to acquire new knowledge
 Moral Intelligence – it is the ability to decide and to distinguish what is right and wrong when one
makes a decision. Every child is born with the potential of being genius but only 4-10% of it is being
utilized.
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MEMORY
WHAT IS MEMORY?
Ψ The process of bringing back to mind or consciousness the images of past sensory experiences.
Ψ Storage of mental images or information
Ψ It does not project images (but is capable of doing so).
Ψ “Retained information”.
TYPES OF MEMORY (Reber et. al, 2009)
 Associative memory – label for any memory system that is hypothesized to rest on the notion of an
association.
 Declarative memory – conscious memory that one can communicate or declare to others.
 Echoic memory – residual sensory memory which lasts for about 2-3 seconds after a brief auditory
stimulus.
 Episodic memory – a form of memory in which information is stored with ‘mental tags’ about when,
where, and how it was picked up.
 Explicit memory – conscious memory for material of which one is aware.
 Fact memory – memory for specific facts, events or other information carried in a message.
 False memory – memory for events that did not happen.
 Flashbulb memory – very clear and poignant memories consisting of the exact details of an event,
where one was, what one was doing, who was there, etc. as the event occurred or as stimuli are
present; high level of emotional arousal must be present in order for such sharp memories to be
formed.
 Implicit memory – unconscious memory for a material of which one is unaware but still affects the
person’s functioning.
 Inaccessible memory – term used for any memory that is not actually lost but cannot, for any number of
reasons, be retrieved.
 Lexical memory – memory for words per se, not their meanings.
 Long-term memory – memory for information that has been well processed and integrated into one’s
general knowledge
 Motor memory – memory for motor actions and skills.
 Noetic memory – Endel Tulving’s term for memory of general facts.
 Procedural memory – memory for procedures or complex activities that have become highly
automatized and are acted out without conscious thought about their processes.
 Semantic memory – memory for meanings.
 Sensory memory – memory for a specific stimulus input, the material as it was sensed.
 Short-term memory – memory for information that has received minimal processing or interpretation.
FUNCTIONS/ ACTIVITIES DURING MEMORY PROCESS
1. conservation/ retention – the process of holding into or retaining a thing.
2. recall – process of retrieving information from memory
3. recognition – awareness that an object or event is one that has been previously seen, experienced or
learned.
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TYPES OF RECOGNITION
 Perfect or definite recognition – one is able to identify every detail of an information
 Imperfect or indefinite recognition – one is unable to identify everything; but this can be converted to
definite recognition through recall.
KINDS OF MEMORY
 Reintegrative memory
o forming whole and complex form of specific knowledge and experience
o repressed experiences may be produced to form a non – threatening memory without it
(traumatic experiences are unconsciously forgotten).
 Recall
o bringing back to consciousness what has been learned
 Relearning
o formation of new cognitive structures from the past learning
REASONS FOR FORGETTING
Ψ Passive decay through disuse – lack of practice may lead to one forgetting what has been learned.
Ψ Systematic Distortion of Memory Trace – occurs when no deep learning has been established. Learned
things may be changed or made incongruent with the original concept as caused by intrapersonal and
environmental factors. Also, it is the abolition of memory trace.
Ψ Interference effects – forgetting may occur when other factors come in to affect learning.
o Kinds of interferences:
 Retroactive Inhibition – past learning forgotten.
 Proactive Inhibition – present learning forgotten.
Ψ Selective or motivated forgetting – unconscious or involuntary repression of learning that is perceived
as traumatic or painful.
THEORIES OF MEMORY AND FORGETTING
1. Information – Processing Model
- The use of stimulation for the study of individual behavior
2. Theory of Fading
- Forgetting takes place through the passage of time.
-Memory trace
-Physical change in brain; metabolic processes cause fading
3. Interference Theory
-Forgetting increases with time solely because of increasing interference between connecting memories
as stored information expands.
-Difficulty in converting short-term memory to long-term memory
- causes memory confusion (old memories blend with new ones)
4. Ziegarnik Effect
- tendency to remember non-completed tasks better than the complete ones
- Explanation: Tension system builds up within the individual until the task is finished.
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