Learning & its theories!

What is learning?

Webster’s Dictionary defines learning as “the act or experience of one that learns; knowledge of skill acquired by instruction or study; modification of a behavioral tendency by experience."

Learning is often defined as a change in behavior , which is demonstrated by people implementing knowledge, skills, or practices derived from education.

Learning is also defined as ‘the cognitive and physical activity giving rise to a relatively permanent change in knowledge, skills or attitude.


A fairly standard consensual definition of learning is that "it is a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from practice. However, a few scholars believe that learning implies changes in "capability" or even simple "knowledge" or "understanding", even if it is not manifest in behaviour.

Broadly speaking Learning is:

complex
transformational
natural, and life-long
multi-level
fundamentally personal, yet also social
active and interactive
measurable
greatly influenced by organizational factors, including leadership, culture and structures.

Why is it important to understand learning process?

Theories of learning are important for a number of reasons. First, training designed with an awareness of how people learn is clearly more likely to be effective. Secondly, if learning theories can explain how people initially acquire competence they might also help explain what differentiates excellent from merely competent individuals. Finally, learning theories can also help when considering how work is described. Trainers need valid methods for describing what people at work do in order to identify what skills individuals need to do a job and what opportunities the job provides for development of skills in an individual.

Theories of Learning

Classical conditioningThis theory was propounded by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist in early 20th centuary. Classical conditioning is a process by which individuals learn to link the information from a neutral stimulus to a stimulus that causes a response. This response may not be under the control of an individual. In the classical conditioning process, an unconditioned stimulus (environmental event) brings out a natural response. Then a neutral environmental event, called a conditioned stimulus is paired with unconditioned stimulus that brings out the behaviour. Eventually the conditioned stimulus alone brings out the behaviour which is called a conditioned response.

Pavlov proved his point by his famous experiment with dog. He noticed that the dog salivated (unconditioned response) whenever meat powder (unconditioned stimulus) was present it. He then paired meat powder (unconditioned stimulus) with a bell (conditioned stimulus) and the dog salivated (unconditioned response). After repeating this exercise several times, the dog salivated (conditioned response) whenever the bell (conditioned stimulus) rang even without the meat powder (unconditioned stimulus).

Based on Stimulus-Response psychology, this theory suggests that learning/conditioning takes place when Stimulus-Response connection is established.
Unconditioned Stimulus—Unconditioned Response
Conditioned Stimulus—Conditioned Response
Classical conditioning is not widely used in work settings.

Operant ConditioningB F Skinner propounded the ‘Operant Conditioning’ theory. This refers to a process by which individuals learn voluntary behaviours from the consequences of their previous actions. Managers are interested in operant (voluntary) behaviour because they can influence the results of such behaviours. For example, frequency of a particular behaviour may be increased or decreased by changing the consequences.

Based on Response –Stimulus psychology, there is strong association between consequence and response to a particular stimulus. Learning takes place somewhat like the flow given below:

Stimulus—Response—Consequences—Future Response on the basis of consequence

Social Cognition:Propounded by Albert Bandura, this theory suggests that learning takes place through the metal processing of information. While individuals learn by being a part of the society, they use thought process to make decisions. People actively process information when they learn. By watching others perform a task, people develop mental pictures of how to perform the task. Observers often learn faster than those who do not observe the behaviour of others because they do not need to unlearn behaviour and can avoid needless and costly errors.

Social cognition has five tools:
Symbolizing: An individual associates a symbol to his future responses.Forethought: An individual anticipates the consequences and accordingly makes a choice of responses
Observational: An individual observes others before choosing his/her own responses.
Self-regulatory: an individual controls his/her action by setting internal standards (aspired levels of performance) and by evaluating discrepancy between the standard and the performance
Self-reflective: An individual reflects back on his/her actions and perceptually determine the causes of success or failure and possible measure to improve the quality of responses.