Four
Fundamental Orientations (Perspectives)
for Learning Theories
1.
Behaviorist Orientation
Behaviorism was founded by John B. Watson in the early
part of the 20th Century. This was the earliest
formulation of a coherent theory of learning, at least
in modern Western society. A variety of perspectives
emerged over the next few decades, including the work
of Thorndike, Tolman, Guthrie, Hull, Skinner, and others.
From the behaviorist perspective, three assumptions are
held to be true. First, the focus was on observable
behavior rather than on internal cognitive processes. If
learning has occurred, then some sort of observable
external behavior is apparent. Second, the environment is
the shaper of learning and behavior, not individual
characteristics. Third, principles of contiguity and
reinforcement are central to explaining the learning
process.
The behaviorist orientation is fundamental to much current
educational practice, including adult education. Skinner
believed the ultimate goal of education was to train
individuals to behaviors which would ensure their personal
survival, as well as the survival of cultures and the
species. The teacher's role, in this perspective, is to
provide an environment that elicits the desired behaviors
and extinguishes the undesirable ones.
Educational practices which have these notions at their
core include systematic design of instruction, behavioral
and performance objectives, programmed instruction,
competency-based instruction, and instructor
accountability. Training for skills and vocations is
particularly heavily saturated with learning and being
reinforced for "correct responses and behaviors."
2.
Cognitive Orientation
Cognitive theories of learning are concerned with processes
which occur inside the brain and nervous system as a person
learns. They share the perspective that people actively
process information and learning takes place through the
efforts of the learner. Internal mental processes include
inputing, organizing, storing, retrieving, and finding
relationships between information. New information is
linked to old knowledge, schema and scripts.
All the various cognitive approaches emphasise how
information is processed. There were some very early
efforts to organize cognitive theories in the late 1900's,
but these were usurped by the behaviorist work being done
at that time. It was not until the years after World War II
that cognitive theories began to find their strength.
The Gestalt
psychologists were the first to challenge the
behaviorist point of view. They criticized behaviorism
for its reductionistic tendencies, and felt it was too
dependent on external behaviors to explain learning.
By the mid twentieth century, Gestalt theories and the
work of Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka, and Lewin provided competition to
behaviorism as the only accepted theory of learning.
Gestalt learning theories emphasized perception, insight,
and meaning as the key elements of learning. The individual
was seen as a perceptual organism, who organized,
interpreted, and gave meaning to the events that impinged
upon his consciousness. Making sense of events and
phenomena was a driving concept. The learner makes sense of
things by thinking about them. For Gestaltists, the
individuality of the learner and his internal mental
processes is paramount.
Jean Piaget was influenced by both
the behaviorist and the Gestalt schools, and proposed
that one's internal cognitive structures change as a
result of developmental changes in the nervous system
and as a result of being exposed to variety of
experiences and the environments that contain them.
Contemporary research into cognitive learning theory
focuses on information procession, memory, metacognition,
theories of transfer, computer simulations, artificial
intelligence, mathematical learning models, Ausubel, Bruner, and Gagne are all
classified as contemporary cognitive theorists. Each
of these theorists emphasized different aspects of
cognitive functioning of the individual and group
contexts.
Cognitive theories are quite diverse, but all are unified
by the importance of the learner's internal mental
processes. These three pioneering cognitive theorists,
Bruner, Ausubel and Gagné also shared common ideas. They
did not emphasize a developmental perspective, as much as
Piaget did. These three theorists were ontemporaries, doing
much of their work in the 1960's and 1970's. Even then,
each was recognized as an authority in his field.
Although Ausubel, Bruner and Gagné each took different
perspectives on learning, each has made significant
contributions to the overall model of human learning.
Ausubel considered the impact of prior learning and
originated the tool called the "advanced organizer". The
behaviourists did not consider the importance of prior
learning.
Bruner's work on categorisation and concept formation
provided models of how the learner derives information from
the environment. Gagné looked at the events of learning and
instruction as a series of phases, using the cognitive
steps of coding, storing, retrieving and transferring
information.
Humanist
Orientation
Humanistic theories shift the emphasis to the potential for
individual growth in the learner. They bring the affective
functioning of the human into the arena of learning.
Freud's psychoanalytic approach to behavior was a powerful
influence on the humanistic learning theorists. Many of
Freud's concepts, such as the subconscious mind, anxiety,
repression, defense mechanisms, drives, and transference
found their way into the humanistic learning theories.
The humanists rejected the notions of behaviorism that the
environment determines learning. They favored the notion
that human beings can control their own destiny, and that
humans are inherently good and desire a better world for
themselves and others. Behavior is a consequence of choice;
people are active agents in their own learning and lives,
not helpless respondents to forces that act upon them.
Motivation, choice, and responsibility are influences of
learning. Life's experiences are the central arena for
learning.
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are the two theorists who
have contributed most to this perspective.
Social
Learning Orientation
The focus of social learning theories is interactions
between people as the primary mechanism of learning.
Learning is based on observation of others in a social
setting. Early social learning theories in the 1940's drew
heavily from behaviorism, suggesting that imitative
responses, when reinforced, let to the observed learning
and behavioral changes.
Later, in the 1960's the work of Bandura broke away from
the behaviorist views. He was the first to separate
observation of another's behavior from the act of
imitation. He postulated that an observer can learn by
observing without having to imitate what is being learned.
Four processes form the cornerstones of observational
learning theory. These are attention, retention (memory),
behavioral rehearsal, and motivation. All four processes
contribute to learning by observation.
Two other important proponents of social learning theory
are Vygotsky and John Seely Brown.
Many useful concepts emerge from the social learning
orientation, including motivational strategies, locus of
control, social role acquisition, and the importance of
interaction of learner with environment and other learners.
Learning Theory
Bibliography
(Merriam & Caffarella, 1991)
