learning theories are attempts to describe how people and animals learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning. Thru experiments to animals, training programs for human were developed. But what really is learning?according to Carl Rogers: I
want to talk about
learning. But not the lifeless,
sterile, futile, quickly forgotten stuff that is crammed in to the mind of the
poor helpless individual tied into his seat by ironclad bonds of
conformity! I am talking about LEARNING - the insatiable
curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear
or read about gasoline engines in order to improve the efficiency and speed of
his ''cruiser''. I am talking about the student who says, "I am discovering,
drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of
me." I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the
learner progresses along this line: "No, no, that''s not what I want"; "Wait!
This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now
I''m grasping and comprehending what I need and what I
want to know!"
For all the talk of learning amongst educational policymakers
and practitioners, there is a surprising lack of attention to what it entails.
In Britain and Northern Ireland, for example, theories of learning do not figure
strongly in professional education programmes for teachers and those within
different arenas of informal education. It is almost as if it is something is
unproblematic and that can be taken for granted. Get the instructional regime
right, the message seems to be, and learning (as measured by tests and
assessment regimes) will follow. This lack of attention to the nature of
learning inevitably leads to an impoverishment of education. It isn''t simply
that the process is less effective as a result, but what passes for education
can actually diminish well-being.
Here we begin by examining learning as a product and as a
process. The latter takes us into the arena of competing learning theories -
ideas about how learning may happen. We also look at Alan Roger''s (2003) helpful
discussion of task-conscious or acquisition learning, and learning-conscious or
formalized learning.
Learning as a product
Pick up a standard psychology textbook - especially from the
1960s and 1970s and you will probably find learning defined as a change in
behaviour. In other words, learning is approached as an outcome - the end
product of some process. It can be recognized or seen. This approach has
the virtue of highlighting a crucial aspect of learning - change. It''s apparent
clarity may also make some sense when conducting experiments. However, it is
rather a blunt instrument. For example:
Does a person need to perform in order for learning to have happened?
Are there other factors that may cause behaviour to change?
Can the change involved include the potential for change? (Merriam and
Caffarella 1991: 124)
Questions such as these have led to qualification. Some have looked to
identifying relatively permanent changes in behaviour (or potential for change)
as a result of experiences (see behaviourism below). However, not all changes in
behaviour resulting from experience involve learning. It would seem fair to
expect that if we are to say that learning has taken place, experience should
have been used in some way. Conditioning may result in a change in behaviour,
but the change may not involved drawing upon experience to generate new
knowledge. Not surprisingly, many theorists have, thus, been less concerned with
overt behaviour but with changes in the ways in which people ''understand, or
experience, or conceptualize the world around them'' (Ramsden 1992: 4) (see
cognitivism below). The focus for them, is gaining knowledge or ability through
the use of experience.re of the changes involved are likely to be different. Some
years ago Säljö (1979) carried out a simple, but very useful piece of research.
He asked a number of adult students what they understood by learning. Their
responses fell into five main categories:Learning as a quantitative increase in knowledge.
Learning is acquiring information or ‘knowing a lot’.
Learning as memorising. Learning is storing information that
can be reproduced.
Learning as acquiring facts, skills, and methods that can be
retained and used as necessary.
Learning as making sense or abstracting meaning. Learning
involves relating parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real
world.
Learning as interpreting and understanding reality in a
different way. Learning involves comprehending the world by reinterpreting
knowledge. (quoted in Ramsden 1992: 26)
As Paul Ramsden comments, we can see immediately that
conceptions 4 and 5 in are qualitatively different from the first three.
Conceptions 1 to 3 imply a less complex view of learning. Learning is something
external to the learner. It may even be something that just happens or is done
to you by teachers (as in conception 1). In a way learning becomes a bit like
shopping. People go out and buy knowledge - it becomes their possession. The
last two conceptions look to the ''internal'' or personal aspect of learning.
Learning is seen as something that you do in order to understand the real world.
''knowing that'' and ''knowing how''
A
man knowing little or nothing of medical science could not be a good surgeon,
but excellence at surgery is not the same thing as knowledge of medical science;
not is it a simple product of it. The surgeon must indeed have learned from
instruction, or by his own inductions and observations, a great number of
truths; but he must also have learned by practice a great number of aptitudes. (Ryle
1949: 48-49)
Learning how or improving an ability is not like learning that or acquiring
information. Truths can be imparted, procedures can only be inculcated, and
while inculcation is a gradual process, imparting is relatively sudden. It makes
sense to ask at what moment someone became apprised of a truth, but not to ask
at what moment someone acquired a skill. (Ryle 1949: 58)
In some ways the difference here involves what
Gilbert Ryle (1949) has termed ''knowing that'' and ''knowing how''.
The first two categories mostly involve ''knowing that''. As we move through the
third we see that alongside ''knowing that'' there is growing emphasis on ''knowing
how''. This system of categories is hierarchical - each higher conception
implies all the rest beneath it. ''In other words, students who conceive of
learning as understanding reality are also able to see it as increasing their
knowledge'' (Ramsden 1992: 27).
Learning as a process - task-conscious
or acquisition learning and learning-conscious or formalized learning
In the five categories that Säljö identified we can see learning appearing as
a process - there is a concern with what happens when the learning takes place.
In this way, learning could be thought of as ''a process by which behaviour
changes as a result of experience'' (Maples and Webster 1980 quoted in Merriam
and Caffarella 1991: 124). One of the significant questions that arises is the
extent to which people are conscious of what is going on. Are they aware that
they are engaged in learning - and what significance does it have if they are?
Such questions have appeared in various guises over the years - and have
surfaced, for example, in debates around the rather confusing notion of ''informal
learning''.
One particularly helpful way of approaching the area has been formulated by Alan
Rogers (2003). Drawing especially on the work of those who study the learning of
language (for example, Krashen 19
More summaries about the Learning Theory