5.

2 Learning Process

Learning Activities:

1. State the characteristics of learning.

2. State the importance of learning.

3. State the principles of learning.

4. State the steps in the learning process.

5. Differentiate among classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning

process or Differentiate among the three types of behavioural learning.

5.2.1 Introduction

The process of learning is continuous which starts right from the time of birth of an individual
and continues till the death. We all are engaged in the learning endeavours in order to develop
our adaptive capabilities as per the requirements of the changing environment.

For a learning to occur, two things are important:

 The presence of a stimulus in the environment and

 The innate dispositions like emotional and instinctual dispositions.

A person keeps on learning across all the stages of life, by constructing or reconstructing
experiences under the influence of emotional and instinctual dispositions.

Psychologists in general define learning as relatively permanent behavioural modifications

which take place as a result of experience. This definition of learning stresses on three
important elements of learning:

 Learning involves a behavioural change which can be better or worse.

 This behavioural change should take place as a result of practice and experience
 This behavioural change must be relatively permanent and last for a relatively long time
enough.

5.2.2 The key characteristics of the learning process are:

 When described in the simplest possible manner, learning is described as an experience

acquisition process.
 In the complex form, learning can be described as process of acquisition, retention and
modification of experience.
 It re-establishes the relationship between a stimulus and response.

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  It is a method of problem solving and is concerned about making adjustments with the
environment.
 It involves all those gamut of activities which may have a relatively permanent effect on
the individual.
 The process of learning is concerned about experience acquisition, retention of experiences,
and experience development in a step by step manner, synthesis of both old and new
experiences for creating a new pattern.
 Learning is concerned about cognitive, affective and conative aspects. Knowledge
acquisition process is cognitive, any change in the emotions is affective and conative is
acquisition of new habits or skills.

5.2.3 Importance of Learning

 By learning we change ourselves emotionally, psychologically, behaviourally to adopt

healthily life-style and practices.
 Develop knowledge base, improve oneself and grow as a person.
 Learning new ideas gets us access to new and different opportunities.
 New skill will influence the way we do things day to day and make doing things quicker
and easier, saving time, energy and stress.
 Learning across our lives is essential for staying up to date in an ever-changing world.
 Learning new things is very important for our self-esteem.
 Learning anything different ensures we meet new people, make new friends and really
enhance our social or work life.
 The importance of learning is that it helps in building self-confidence.
 Learning is Important in growing your income and status

5.2.4 Principles of Learning (Horne and Pine, 1990 in Corpuz and Salandanan, 2007)

 Learning is an experience which occurs inside the learner and is activated by the learner.
This means that learning will not take place unless the learner her/himself allows it to
happen in his/her mind. It is not primarily controlled by the teacher, rather on the learners'
wants, interests and motivation to learn.
 Learning is the discovery of the personal meaning and relevance of ideas. Learners can
easily understand concepts if these are relevant to their needs and problems.
 Learning is a consequence of experience. In short, use experiential learning as much as
possible period.
 4. Learning is a cooperative and collaborative process. Learners will learn more if they are
given chances to work together and share ideas. Make use of group activities.
 Learning is an evolutionary process. Learning especially if this means a change in
behavior, does not happen in a click. This requires time and diligence.
 Learning is sometimes a painful process. This means that learning requires sacrifice, hard
work, study time.
 One of the richest resources for learning is the learner him/herself. learners sharing their
prior knowledge, stories, information, etc that can enrich the learning process.

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  The process of learning is emotional as well as intellectual. Learners can't learn that much
if they have something that is bothering their minds. These can be problems and worries
they have either in or out of the classroom.
 The processes of problem solving and learning are highly unique and individual.

5.2.5 Steps in the learning process include:

 Observation (watching) very carefully.

 Using other sensing methods like listening, touching or tasting.
 Speaking and asking for responses to questions such as ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ something
happens.
 Imitating or copying the same action saying, ‘Let me do it myself’.
 Repeating the action again and again.
 Performing the action while others are observing you.

5.2.6 Types of Learning

Motor Learning: Our day to day activities like walking, running, driving, etc, must be learnt for
ensuring a good life. These activities to a great extent involve muscular coordination.

Verbal Learning: It is related with the language which we use to communicate and various
other forms of verbal communication such as symbols, words, languages, sounds, figures and
signs.

Concept Learning: This form of learning is associated with higher order cognitive processes
like intelligence, thinking, reasoning, etc, which we learn right from our childhood. Concept
learning involves the processes of abstraction and generalization, which is very useful for
identifying or recognizing things.

Discrimination Learning: Learning which distinguishes between various stimuli with its
appropriate and different responses is regarded as discrimination stimuli.

Learning of Principles: Learning which is based on principles helps in managing the work most
effectively. Principles based learning explains the relationship between various concepts.

Attitude Learning: Attitude shapes our behaviour to a very great extent, as our positive or
negative behaviour is based on our attitudinal predisposition.

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5.2.7 Three Types of Behavioural Learning

The behavioural psychology described three types of learning:

 Classical Conditioning: In case of Classical Conditioning, the process of learning is

described as a Stimulus - Response connection or association. Classical Conditioning
theory has been explained with the help of Pavlov’s Classic Experiment, in which the
food was used as the natural stimulus which was paired with the previously neutral
stimuli that’s a bell in this case. By establishing an association between the natural
stimulus (food) and the neutral stimuli (sound of the bell), the desired response can be
elicited.
 Instrumental/Operant Conditioning: Propounded by scholars like Edward Thorndike
firstly and later by B.F. Skinner, this theory stresses on the fact that the consequences of
actions shape the behaviour. The theory explains that the intensity of a response is either
increased or decreased as a result of punishment or reinforcement. Skinner explained how
with the help of reinforcement one can strengthen behaviour and with punishment reduce
or curb behaviour. It was also analyzed that the behavioural change strongly depends on
the schedules of reinforcement with focus on timing and rate of reinforcement.
 Observational Learning: The Observational Learning process was propounded by
Albert Bandura in his Social Learning Theory, which focused on learning by imitation or
observing people’s behaviour. For observational learning to take place effectively, four
important elements will be essential: Motivation, Attention, Memory and Motor Skills.

Classical Conditioning Theory and Learning

The key premises of Classical Conditioning theory was established by Russian Physiologist
named Ivan Pavlov, who first discovered the crucial principles of classical learning theory with
the help of an experiment done on dogs to study their digestive processes. The Nobel Prize
laureate of 1904, while studying the digestive processes in dogs came across a very interesting
observation during his experimentation. He noticed that his subject would begin to salivate by
seeing the lab assistant with white lab coats entering into the room before being fed.

According to Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning theory, learning takes place because of association
which is established between a previously neutral stimulus and a natural stimulus. It should be
noted, that Classical Conditioning places a neutral stimulus before the naturally occurring
reflexes. In his experiment, he tried to pair the natural stimulus that is food with a bell sound.
The dogs would salivate with the natural occurrence of food, but after repeated associations, the
dogs salivated just by hearing the sound of the bell alone. The focus of Classical Conditioning
theory is on automatic and naturally occurring behaviours.

The theory of Classical Conditioning has several applications in the real-world. It is helpful for
various pet trainers for helping them train their pets. Classical conditioning techniques can also
be beneficial in helping people deal with their phobias or anxiety issues.

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Key Principles of Classical Conditioning Theory

 Acquisition: This is the starting stage of learning during which a response is established
firstly and then gradually strengthened. During the acquisition phase, a neutral stimulus is
paired with an unconditioned stimulus which can automatically or naturally trigger or
generate a response without any learning. Once this association is established between
the neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus, the subject will exhibit a behavioural
response which is now known as conditioned stimulus. Once a behavioural response is
established, the same can be gradually strengthened or reinforced to make sure that the
behaviour is learnt.
 Extinction: Extinction is expected to take place when the intensity of a conditioned
response decreases or disappears completely. In classical conditioning, this occurs when
a conditioned stimulus is no longer associated or paired with the unconditioned stimulus.
 Spontaneous Recovery: When a learnt or a conditioned response suddenly reappears
after a brief resting period or suddenly re-emerges after a short period of extinction, the
process is considered as a spontaneous recovery.
 Stimulus Generalization: It is the tendency of the conditioned stimulus to evoke the
similar kind of responses once the responses have been conditioned, which occurs as a
result of stimulus generalization.
 Stimulus Discrimination: Discrimination is the ability of the subject to discriminate
between stimuli with other similar stimuli. It means, not responding to those stimuli
which is not similar, but responding only to certain specific stimuli.

Instrumental/Operant Conditioning Theory and Learning

Renowned Behavioural Psychologist B.F. Skinner was the main proponent of Operant
Conditioning theory. It is for this reason that the Operant Conditioning is also known as
Skinnerian Conditioning and Instrumental Conditioning. Just like Classical Conditioning,
Instrumental/Operant Conditioning lays emphasis on forming associations, but these associations
are established between behaviour and behavioural consequences. The theory stressed on the role
of punishment or reinforcements for increasing or decreasing the probability of the same
behaviour to be repeated in the future. But the condition is that the consequences must
immediately follow a behavioural pattern. The focus of operant conditioning is on voluntary
behavioural patterns.

Key Components of Instrumental/Operant Conditioning

 Reinforcement: Reinforcements strengthen or increase the intensity of behaviour. This

can be Positive and Negative.

Positive Reinforcement: When a favourable event or an outcome is associated with

behaviour in the form of a reward or praise, it is called as positive reinforcement. For
example, a boss may associate bonus with outstanding achievements at work.

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 Negative Reinforcement: This involves removal of an unfavourable or an unpleasant
event after a behavioural outcome. In this case, the intensity of a response is strengthened
by removing the unpleasant experiences.

 Punishment: The objective of punishment is to decrease the intensity of a behavioural

outcome, which may be negative or positive.

Positive Punishment: This involves application of punishment by presenting an

unfavourable event or outcome in response to a behaviour. Spanking for an unacceptable
behaviour is an example of positive punishment.

Negative Punishment: It is associated with the removal of a favourable event or an

outcome in response to a behaviour which needs to be weakened. Holding the promotion
of an employee for not being able to perform up to the expectations of the management
can be an example of a negative punishment.

 Reinforcement Schedules: According to Skinner, the schedule of reinforcement with

focus on timing as well as the frequency of reinforcement, determined how quickly new
behaviour can be learned and old behaviours can be altered.

Learning by Observation

According to Albert Bandura, learning cannot simply be based merely on associations or

reinforcements but by observation. He reckoned that children keenly observe their surroundings
and the behaviour of people around them particularly their caregivers, teachers and siblings and
try to imitate those behaviours in their day to day life. He also tried proving through his
experiment that children can easily imitate the negative behaviours or actions.

Another important principle of Bandura’s Social Learning Theory was that learning something
by way of observation, need not necessarily mean that it would lead to a change in the behaviour.
This behavioural change is entirely influenced by the felt need or motivation of a person to
endorse and adopt a behavioural change.

Key Steps involved in Observational Learning

 Attention: Attention is very important for learning to take place effectively by following
observational techniques. A novel concept or a unique idea is expected to attract the
attention far more strongly than those which are routine or mundane in nature.
 Retention: It is the ability to store the learnt information and recall it later, which is
equally affected by a number of factors.
 Reproduction: It involves practicing or emulating the learnt behaviour, which will
further lead to the advancement of the skill.
 Motivation: Motivation to imitate the learnt behaviour of a model depends a lot on the
reinforcement and punishment. For example, an office-goer may be motivated to report to
office on time by seeing his colleague being rewarded for his punctuality and timeliness.