Learning Theories PDF

## Learning Theories ### What are Learning Theories? - Learning theories are theories developed to explain how individuals acquire, organize, and deploy skills and knowledge. - Learning Theories describe how individuals (students) acquire, process, and retain knowledge during learning. - They comb...

## Learning Theories ### What are Learning Theories? - Learning theories are theories developed to explain how individuals acquire, organize, and deploy skills and knowledge. - Learning Theories describe how individuals (students) acquire, process, and retain knowledge during learning. - They combine principles of human memory, behavior, and learning in order to explain and predict human thought and action. - Over the past centuries, educational psychologists and researchers have posited many theories to explain how individuals acquire and process knowledge. - Learning is relatively permanent change in behaviour resulting from experience in the environment. - Learning occurs throughout life cycle. - Learning differs from maturation. - Maturation occurs without any practice or experience; learning depends on growth and maturation. ### Categories of Learning Theories - Learning theories are grouped into three basic categories: - Behaviorist learning theories - Cognitive learning theories - Cognitive-constructivist learning theories ### 1. Behaviorist learning theories - Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. - In defining behavior, behaviorist learning theories emphasize changes in behavior that result from stimulus-response associations made by the learner. - Behaviorists assert that the only behaviors worthy of study are those that can be directly observed; thus, it is actions, rather than thoughts or emotions, which are the legitimate object of study. - Behaviorist theory does not explain abnormal behavior in terms of the brain or its inner workings. - Rather, it posits that all behavior is learned habits, and attempts to account for how these habits are formed. - Behaviourist assume that human behavior is learned - They hold that all behaviors can also be unlearned, and replaced by new behaviors; that is, when a behavior becomes unacceptable, it can be replaced by an acceptable one. - Behaviorism was dominated by several scientists, including Edward Thorndike (1874-1949), Ivan Pavlov (1849-1939), John Watson (1878-1958), and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). ### 2. Cognitive learning theories - Cognitive learning theories may be classified as cognitive-information processing learning theories. - According to the cognitive information processing (CIP) view, the human learner is conceived to be a processor of information, in much the same way a computer is. - When learning occurs, information is input from the environment, processed and stored in memory, and output in the form of a learned capability. - Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), Jean Piaget (1896-1980) ### 3. Cognitive-constructivist Learning Theories - Constructivism, is the belief that learners construct their own knowledge from their experience. - Thus, constructivism emphasizes the active role played by the individual learner in the construction of knowledge, the importance of social and individual experience in the process of learning, and the realization that the knowledge attained by the learner may vary in its accuracy as a representation of reality. ### Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov, 1849-1936) - A diagram showing a series of four images of a dog responding to a food bowl, bell, and food bowl with bell. - Pavlov began developing his behavioural theory while studying digestion in dogs. - While measuring how much saliva the dogs produced in response to food, he discovered that they began to salivate even before they could smell, or see the food. - In his well-known experiments, Pavlov rang a bell just before feeding a dog. Eventually, the dog salivated whenever it heard the bell, even if it did not then receive any food. - Pavlov called the process by which the dog learned to respond in this way, classical conditioning. - When the experiments began, the sound of the bell was a neutral stimulus because it really did not affect the dog's response to food. - But once its sound had been paired with food a number of times, it lost its neutrality, in Pavlov's terms it became a learned or conditioned stimulus, because it now had the power to bring about salivation. - **Process** - First the *unconditioned stimulus* (*food*) was presented to the dog which was followed by an *unconditioned response* (*salivation*). - Pavlov then noted that, learning is based on forming a connection between stimuli and response. - So he added a *neutral stimulus* (*bell*). - At the beginning the bell had no effect on salivation. - After the dog associated the bell with the food, the *bell* became a *conditioned stimulus* and the *salivation* became the *conditioned response*. - Classical conditioning can be defined as learning resulting from pairing any artificial or neutral stimulus with a natural or unconditioned stimulus over a number of trials until the artificial stimulus begins to produce responses similar to the response, which follows the natural stimulus. - It is also called respondent conditioning because the individual will not respond until after the stimulus has been presented. - Pavlov's experiment was in three phases and illustrated as below: - **Phase 1 (Unconditioned Phase)** - *UCS* (*food*) (*Salivation*) *UCR* - **Phase 2 (Conditioning or paring Phase)** - *NS* + *UCS* (*Sound of bell + food*) (*Salivation*) *UCR* - **Phase 3 (Conditioned Phase)** - *CS* (*Sound of bell*)(*Salivation*) *CR* - This could be mathematically represented as: - **US -> UR** - **NS + US -> UR** - **CS -> CR** ### Terminology - **Unconditioned stimulus (US):** This is a stimulus that naturally evokes (draw forth) a response without training. Eg: food, flash of light, yawning, eating lemon etc. - **Unconditioned response (UR):** The natural response to an unconditioned stimulus. Eg: salivation, blinking, frowning the face. - **Neutral stimulus (NS):** A stimulus that does not elicit the expected unconditioned response. Eg: bell, music, perfume, tone, clapping etc. - **Conditioned stimulus (CS):** This is a neutral stimulus (bell) that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food) and eventually evokes or elicits the same response as the unconditioned response (salivation). - **Conditioned response (CR):** It is the learned response to a conditioned stimulus; it is similar to the unconditioned response. - A diagram showing four images of a dog with arrows and text labels showing the four phases of classical conditioning: (1) Before Conditioning: **Food (Unconditioned Stimulus) -> Salivation (Unconditioned Response)** (2) Before Conditioning: **Bell (Neutral Stimulus) -> No Salivation (No Conditioned Response)** (3) During Conditioning: **Bell + Food -> Salivation (Unconditioned Response)** (4) After Conditioning: **Bell (Conditioned Stimulus) -> Salivation (Conditioned Response)** ### Implications of the Theory - Pavlov believed that humans learn as a result of conditioning. - Association or pairing is very vital to learning. - Learning takes place when a person is conditioned to associate a conditioned response to a conditioned stimulus. - Learning occurs when the US and CS occur together, and a response is made. - We find classical conditioning in our everyday lives: - How did the dog or cat come to know its name? - Advertising of alcoholic beverages with attractive women. - Your boyfriend or girlfriend's perfume or phone ringing tone. - As a nurse, you can associate pleasant emotions with drugs and injections to encourage patients to recover. - There are some applications of Classical Conditioning in health and medical care. Example: Cue Exposure Therapy and Aversion Therapy. - **Cue Exposure Therapy** an application of classical conditioning, assists in the treatment of addiction. - **In Aversion Therapy** an unwanted behavior is intentionally paired with an unpleasant experience; for example, pairing drugs that naturally elicit vomiting with alcohol to stop someone from drinking alcohol. ### Stimulus Generalization - Stimulus generalization is when an organism responds to a stimulus that is similar to the conditioned stimulus, even though it has never been directly associated with the unconditioned stimulus. - For example: suppose a dog has been trained to salivate to the sound of a bell. If the dog also salivates to the sound of a chime, this is stimulus generalization. ### Stimulus Discrimination - Stimulus discrimination occurs an organism learns to respond only to a specific stimulus, and not to similar stimuli. - For example: a dog might learn to salivate to a bell but not to a chime. ### Extinction - Extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus. This causes the learned response to weaken and eventually disappear. - For example, if Pavlov repeatedly rang the bell without presenting food, the dog's salivation response to the bell would eventually disappear. ### Spontaneous Recovery - Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a learned response after extinction. - For example, after the dog's salivation response to the bell had been extinguished, Pavlov might find that the dog salivated again the next day when he rang the bell. ### Operant Conditioning (By B.F Skinner) - Skinner established that, through operant conditioning, an association is made between behaviour and a consequence for that behaviour. - The term "operant" is used because, the behaviour actively operates on or has an effect on the environment for learning to occur. - Skinner demonstrated the effect of operant conditioning by teaching animals to dance and play ping-pong by systematically rewarding them for putting up desired behaviours. - This procedure is based on reinforcement principle, whereby the consequence of a response determines whether that response will persist or not. - Response in operant conditioning is voluntary (emitted or send forth) rather than elicited as in classical conditioning. - Operant conditioning describes learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened depending on its consequence. - The consequence could be positive or negative. - We experience operant conditioning in our everyday life. - For example: a child completing homework to earn a reward from parents or teachers or an employee finishing projects to receive praise or promotion. - Here the possibility of rewards causes an increase in behaviour. - However, operant can be used to decrease behaviour - For example, a patient who is not patient at the OPD is instructed by the nurse to calm down if not he or she would not be allowed to see the doctor. - Or think of a patient refusing medication. - Or the inappropriate use of hospital facilities by patients ### Processes and Procedures in Operant Conditioning - **Shaping:** - Shaping is a process of operant conditioning in which a new form of behavior is promoted by reinforcing successive approximations to the ultimately desired form of behaviour known as *target behaviour*. - Shaping can also be described as a method for conditioning an organism to perform a new behaviour by reinforcing through small gradual steps towards achieving the target behaviour. - **Extinction:** - Extinction occurs when reinforcement or punishment no longer occur as a consequence for a given behaviour. - It is the gradual weakening and disappearance of a response tendency reinforced. - It begins when previous reinforcement is stopped. - For example, a patient who can visit the private room but messes himself is always reinforced by the attention of the nurse. The nurse could extinguish this undesired behaviour by ignoring the patient. Typically, the patient would increase the bad behaviour for a few days, and then gradually allow it to stop. ### Forms of Reinforcement - Primary reinforcer and secondary reinforcer are the two major forms of reinforcement. - **Primary reinforcer:** This reinforcer is one that satisfies a biological need. Example: food, water, safety, and sex. - **Secondary reinforcer:** They are the conditioned reinforcers. Example: praise, grades, money, feeling of success, attention, flattery, and applause. ### Types of Reinforcement - Reinforcement could be positive or negative. - **Positive reinforcement:** This involves the presentation of the stimulus after the response. Think of adding something to increase a response. PR has the effect of increasing the response. The most common types of PR are praise, rewards, good grades, tasty meals, scholarship - **Negative reinforcement:** NR increases a response through the removal of the stimulus, usually an adverse or unpleasant one. Think of NR as taking something negative away in order to increase a response. Example: much complains at the OPD. Or punctuality at work. Or you compromise to end an argument.. - There are other kinds of reinforcing stimuli such as material reinforcer, social reinforcer, and activity reinforcer (perform a task). ### Punishment - Punishment is likely to decrease responses. - Punishment presents an aversive stimulus or terminates a pleasant one resulting in the decrease of the immediate preceding response. - It refers to a consequence that decreases the likelihood of a behaviour occurring. - Punishment could be negative or positive. - **Positive punishment:** This decreases the strength of a response when it is presented after the response. Usually, it involves the presentation of an aversive stimulus. - **Negative punishment:** NP is the removal of a pleasant stimulus which decreases or eliminates an undesired behaviour. For example, a patient at the OPD is skipped over for being impatient.