PSYCHOLOGY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ::LEARNING & THEORIES OF LEARNING

Learning is a continuous process. In recent times, researchers have explored that we start learning from the day we are conceived as a life form in our mother’s womb.  Man has been learning from nature; by watching the world outside and inside him, from what others say or do. We also learn by doing. This is also accumulated as knowledge. Every subject that we learn has an internal discipline. So learning of each subject demands application and order.

In my April blog, we have discussed about learning and factors influencing learning and transfer of learning. Today through this blog I am trying to throw light on the principles of learning and social learning.

Learning is the desired change or modification of behaviour attained through experience and environment.

Principles of learning:

Learning may be formal or informal in the school or out of the school. General principles include:

1. Learning is universal. All living beings learn.

2. Learning is a continuous process. It goes from womb to tomb. We keep learning from the day we are in the womb of our mother to the day we die.

3. Learning is directly proportional to development. Without learning development does not take place in the individual.

4. Learning makes an individual dynamic and flexible in all life situations than static or rigid. Learning opens the closed walls of our brains and help in finding path in any situation.

5. Most of the learning is purposive. We learn to attain fewer goals on daily basis, finally for our all round development. It is to get specific result and fulfil the goals.

6. Learning takes place both at conscious and unconscious level.

7. Learning is possible at adequate level of physical and mental maturity.

8. It prepares an individual to face new challenges and use the experience of one situation for other complexities of life. Learning is transferable. Learning modifies one’s behaviour cognitively, affectively and in psychomotor aspect. Its scope is very wide.

9. Learning is influenced by intelligence of the individual and the kind of teaching or training given to him/her.

Factors of learning:

Understanding and managing the different influencing conditions both personally and environmentally is the crucial aspect in the classroom management. 

Operant conditioning theory:

Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behaviour and a consequence of that behaviour.



For example, when a lab rat presses a green button, he receives a food pellet as a reward, but when he presses the red button he receives a mild electric shock. As a result, he learns to press the green button but avoid the red button.

His theory was heavily influenced by the work of psychologist Edward Thorndike, who had proposed what he called the law of effect. According to this principle, actions that are followed by desirable outcomes are more likely to be repeated while those followed by undesirable outcomes are less likely to be repeated.

Let’s deal this with two scenarios:

Scene 1- When a student is praised for her handwriting, the student would try to make it better and beautiful. Operant conditioning relies on a fairly simple premise - actions that are followed by reinforcement will be strengthened and more likely to occur again in the future.

Scene 2- After the teacher asked a question, the students reply all together in a group. The teacher does not like this behaviour and asks the children to raise their hands, if they know the answer.

Conversely, actions that result in punishment or undesirable consequences will be weakened and less likely to occur again in the future.

Types of Behaviour by Skinner:

Components of Operant Conditioning Theory:

 Let’s learn about the concepts.

Reinforcement in Operant conditioning theory can be positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement: They are favourable events or outcomes that are presented after the behaviour. Strengthening the behaviour by the addition of something, could be praise or a direct reward. For example: Teacher giving a star sticker to a student in the class.

Negative reinforcement: It involves the removal of an unfavourable event or outcome after the display of a behaviour. For example: Students are screaming in the class and the teacher announces that she will give the star sticker to the students who are disciplined.

In both of these cases of reinforcement, the behaviour increases.

Punishment in operant conditioning theory can be positive punishment or negative punishment.

Positive punishment: It is referred to as punishment by application. It presents an unfavourable event or outcome in order to weaken the response it follows. For example: Spanking for misbehaviour is an example of punishment by application.

Negative punishment: It is known as punishment by removal, occurs when a favourable event or outcome is removed after a behaviour occurs. For example: Taking away a child's sticker following misbehaviour is an example of negative punishment.

In both of these cases of punishment, the behaviour decreases.

Operant conditioning is something we recognize in our own life on a daily basis, whether as a parent or a teacher or as an individual.

Social Learning Theory:

Social learning theory is also known as imitation learning theory or the observational theory. It is a bridge between behaviourist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory and motivation. It was developed by educational psychologist Albert Bandura. It is considered as a highly influential learning theory.

Bandura’s social learning theory points that the people learn from one another, via observation, imitation and modelling. According to him, human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling from observing others, an individual understand the new forms of behaviour; on the later occasions the learnt code and information serves as a guide for action.

Social learning theory explains human behaviour in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural and environmental influences. The theory identified several factors that determine whether observing a model will affect behavioural or cognitive change.

 These factors include:

1. Learner’s developmental status,

2. The perceived prestige,

3. Competence of the model,

4. The consequences received by the model,

5. The relevance of the model’s behaviours,

6. Consequences to the learner’s goals,

7. The learner’s self efficacy:  Self efficacy is the learner’s belief in his or her ability to perform like the modelled behaviour. It played an important role in later developments of the theory. 

Observational learning explains the nature of children to learn behaviours by watching the behaviour of the people around them, and eventually, imitating them. With the "Bobo Doll" experiment, Bandura included an adult who is tasked to act aggressively toward a Bobo Doll while the children observe him. Later, Bandura let the children play inside a room with the Bobo Doll. He affirmed that these children imitated the aggressive behaviour toward the doll, which they had observed earlier. After his studies, Bandura was able to determine 3 basic models of observational learning which included a live model, a verbal instruction model and a symbolic model. A Live Model, which includes an actual person performing a behaviour. A Verbal Instruction Model, which involves telling of details and descriptions of a behaviour. A Symbolic Model, which includes either a real or fictional character demonstrating the behaviour via movies, books, television, radio, online media and other media sources.

Bandura believed that learning doesn’t bring change in the behaviour of an individual. The state of mind is crucial to learning. In this concept, Bandura stated that not only external reinforcement or factors can affect learning and behaviour. There is also what he called intrinsic reinforcement, which is in a form of internal reward or a better feeling after performing the behaviour (e.g. sense of completion, confidence, satisfaction, etc.)

Conditions of effective modelling:

The Modelling Process developed by Bandura helps us understand that not all observed behaviours could be learned effectively, nor learning can necessarily result to behavioural changes. The following are the steps included in order for us to determine whether social learning is successful or not:

Attention: Attention to a particular behaviour is the first step. Various factors such as distinctiveness, affective valence, prevalence, complexity, functional value increase or decrease the amount of attention paid. Individual’s characteristics like sensory capacities, arousal level, perceptual set and past reinforcement affect attention.

Retention: Behaviours caught in the attention of the observer has to be retained in the memory for it to get absorbed into the system of the observer. Memory retention is facilitated by symbolic coding, mental images, cognitive organization, symbolic rehearsal and motor rehearsal. 

Reproduction: After attending the information and later retaining it, this step requires demonstration of the behaviour. Perfection in reproduction of the behaviour, mannerism can be attained by reproduction of the observed behaviour.

Motivation: Feeling a sense of motivation. Motivation to repeat the behaviour is what we need in order to keep on performing it. This is where reinforcement and punishment come in. For example: We can reward a student after observing his/her demonstration and proper behaviour, and can punish on displaying it inappropriately. Having a good reason to imitate includes promised, imagined and vicarious incentives.

Classical Conditioning Theory:

This theory is also known as Conditioned response theory, Respondent conditioning theory and Pavlovian conditioning. Conditioning means modification of a natural response. It is the acquisition of a new stimulus-response relationship. This theory was developed by a Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov in 1904. He got the Nobel Prize on his research ‘Digestive system of dogs’ in the same year. 

Pavlov’s Experiment:

Pavlov conducted a number of experiments on dogs to study how the stimuli and responses are associated.

Classical conditioning is a type of learning, where a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that elicits an emotional or physiological response. After repeated pairing, the previously neutral stimulus alone will elicit a similar response.   

Principles of Classical Conditioning: 

Let's take a closer look at five key principles of classical conditioning:

Acquisition: Acquisition is the initial stage of learning when a response is first established and gradually strengthened. During the acquisition phase of classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus. After an association is made, the subject will begin to emit a behaviour in response to the previously neutral stimulus, which is now known as a conditioned stimulus. It is at this point that we can say that the response has been acquired. If we take a look at the experiment, dog was conditioned to salivate in response to the sound of a bell. Pavlov repeatedly paired the presentation of food with the sound of the bell. We can observe that the response was acquired since the dog began to salivate in hearing the bell sound.

Extinction: It is when the occurrences of a conditioned response decreases or disappears. In classical conditioning, this happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus. The unconditioned stimulus (the smell of food) were no longer paired with the conditioned stimulus (the bell sound), eventually the conditioned response (salivation) would disappear. This is known as extinction.

Spontaneous recovery: Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period. For example: When the dog was brought back to the laboratory after some rest, salivation occurred after hearing the bell.

Generalisation: Stimulus generalization is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned. For example: The dog responded to almost any sound roughly similar to the ringing of the bell. 

Classical Conditioning of a Fear Response:

One of the most famous examples of classical conditioning was John B. Watson's experiment in which a fear response was conditioned in a boy known as Little Albert. The child initially showed no fear of a white rat, but after the rat was paired repeatedly with loud, scary sounds, the child would cry when the rat was present. The child's fear also generalized to other fuzzy white objects.

Differentiation: Discrimination or differentiation is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. For example: If two sounds are sufficiently distinguishable the dog responded only to one stimulus- the bell.

Educational Implications:

A. Bad habits can be broken by de-conditioning. Many fears, phobias and prejudices are a result of conditioning.

B. Principles of classical conditioning can be utilized to create good habits in children such as punctuality, discipline and respecting elders.

C. Repetition and habit formation is to be strengthened in the process of learning.

D. Establishing a connection between stimulus and response is an important objective of education. Classical conditioning theory established the theory that motivation is basic to learning.

E. Children should be awarded immediately, when they do well. The delay of awarding causes no effect.

F. Most of our learning is based upon conditioning, so teachers should develop the good reading habits through conditioning.

We live in a generation ahead than in what we have grown. Children are the future ‘Ambassadors of peace’ and ‘Leaders of the world’. We live in a world where the food we are eating is different from what we had as kids. Different conditions of existence are causing different issues in the growth, development and maturation of the child. Explosion of knowledge, made parents expect more from the children.

 To attend the needs of the child it’s important that the parents and teachers work as partners rather than leaving the education as the responsibility of the teachers. Teachers must be trained properly and must be aware of the strategies. Every child is unique and different and has different ways and procedures of learning. We need to be patient about it and use different ways to find out the processes that brings change in an individual. School management and the curriculum makers must understand that, it is very important for the child to settle and must understand that things need time and plan procedures as per the interest of each child on a multi planned set up. So that all things are covered and teacher gets time to plan strategies using the learning theories.

Teachers must apply classical conditioning in the class by creating a positive classroom environment to help students overcome anxiety or fear. Pairing an anxiety-provoking situation, such as performing in front of a group, with pleasant surroundings helps the student learn new associations. Instead of feeling anxious and tense in these situations, the child will learn to stay relaxed and calm. These theories help a teacher in managing the class as a whole. Children in general and we as individuals, learn things by observing models, parents, teachers, peers, motion pictures, TV artists, bosses, and others. Many patterns of behaviour are learned by watching the behaviours of others and observing its consequences for them. For effective teaching teacher should arrange effective contingencies of reinforcement.

Operant conditioning is a behaviour therapy technique that shape students behaviour. For this teacher should admit positive contingencies like praise, encouragement etc. for learning. One should not admit negative contingencies. Example: punishment leading to escape stimulation.

Complex behaviour exists in form of a chain of small behaviour. Control is required for such kind of behaviour. This extended form of learning is shaping technique. Teachers and parents should know how to motivate the children to learn.

As teachers we should be versatile with various strategies that can enhance effective participation of the students in the teaching-learning activities. The teachers should be familiar with these theories and apply it to teaching-learning activities where ever applicable. 

A teacher’s job is the most important of all as they play multiple roles at school and are the architects designing the future of the nation and world as whole. Parents of today’s world must understand this and appreciate the work of schools and must work parallelly with the teachers for the holistic development of a child.