CHAPTER 12: THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

1. Satisfying Stimulus. If response to a stimulus is satisfying to oneself, the tendency for this is
to be repeated under similar circumstances. The behavior is reinforced, developed, and internalized.
2. Reinforcement. Immediate, positive, tangible or intangible reinforcement through praise,
reward, or recognition are major conditions for successful behavioral change.
3. Overlearning. increases memory and improves learning performance.
4. Verbal and Non-verbal Associations. A critical prerequisite to behavior change is the
establishment of verbal and nonverbal connections.
5. Cognitive-perceptual readiness and internal motivation These are mandatory conditions for
behavioral change.
6. The Ordering of Information This influences the ease with which learning takes place.
7. Stimulus-response associations and discrimination abilities These are prerequisites to
chained behaviors.
8. Cognitive Constructs The cognitive constructs of perceptual imagery and recognition of
features, such as form, spatial arrangement, texture, and so on are prerequisites to concept formation.
9. Multiple discrimination and generalization responses Students observe and analyze events
and its relevance to current practice, retains those that are useful and eliminates those that are not.
10. Previous Knowledge Prerequisites to principles of learning and perception are concept
acquisition, and recall of previous knowledge learned, while Prerequisites to problem-solving behaviors
are perception, association, discrimination, concept formation, generalization, recall and selection
responses.
11. Critical thinking skills the use of critical thinking skills is a prerequisite to acquiring these
cognitive psychomotor skills.
12. Flexibility and adaptation Flexibility is the ability of students to change and allow for more
ways to expand the learning process. Adaptation to change to suit oneself into different events and
situations in order to speed up the learning process.
13. Feedback about performance, which includes why and of how topics learned improves
learning.
14. Balanced growth and development patterns Learning can be enhanced by matching
learning activities with the learner's level of development, cognition, abilities, styles, strengths,
modalities, and preferences
The Five (5) Processes of Learning
1. Learning is a treasure within.
2. Learning to know.
3. Learning to do.
4. Learning to live together in peace and harmony.
5. Learning to be.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNING
1. Learning is Unitary and Holistic The teacher should understand that the learner, responds to
the "whole" situation or total pattern as a "whole person" in a unified way.
2. Learning is Individual and Social Learning is an entirely individual matter for the simple
reason that every behavior has to do with her own learning.
3. Learning is Self-active and Self-initiating Self-activity is a universal basic principle of learning
which states that an individual can learn only through her own reactions to situations based on her
capabilities to understand and internalize such situations.
4. Learning is Purposive and Goal-oriented Learning is both active and purposeful. Goals and
objectives should be set for every learning situation.
5. Learning is Selective and Creative Human learning is both selective and creative. The decision
of what is to be learned is made by the learner in terms of how important it is in her eyes and to others.
6. Learning is Influential and Transferable Transfer affects the extent of all learning activities,
meaning that whatever is learned in one context or situation applies or affects another context or
situation making learning broader and expansive.
MAJOR TYPES OF LEARNING
1. Ideational Learning is pursued in the cognitive domain.
a. Cognition refers to processes through which an individual obtains knowledge about anything by
perceiving, remembering, and etc.
b. Perception refers to the source of all concepts which initiates mental activity
c. Concept refers to an idea or a mental image which makes reflective thinking possible.
d. Principle is a form of generalization that implies action.
2. Skill or Psychomotor Learning is pursued and developed in the cognitive and psychomotor
domain.
3. Emotional Learning refers to a mental state which is characterized by certain feelings and
emotions.
a. Emotion and Will are the ability to accept and cope with rejection and still continue performing tasks
to achieve a specific set of goals.
b. Attitudes refers to a disposition, readiness, inclination, or tendency to act toward a specific goal in a
particular way.
c. Values in Emotional Learning are learned through observation, simulations and significant and
reliable information necessary for adaptation.
Appreciation is a core value attached to nature, material things, aspects of art, processes, techniques,
conduct, and social institutions, among others.
d. Ideals in Emotional Learning Ideals are attitudes which function as driving forces in the realm of
human conduct.
ASPECTS OF SKILL DEVELOPMENT is a process requiring in depth knowledge and appreciation of what is
learned.
1. Form is the manner in which movements are carried out.
2. Execution is the actual performance of the skill.
a. Accuracy and Speed it is of particular importance that proper emphasis be placed on correct actions,
accuracy and speed.
b. Practice is absolutely necessary in the development of a skill.
CONDITIONS OF LEARNING
1. Verbal information. The ability of the student to express her ideas, thoughts, or actions
2. Intellectual skills. This includes learning to analyze and synthesize situations in order to plan
for alternative solutions to identified problems.
3. Cognitive strategies. The student recognizes learning experiences best suited to her own
needs and makes use of resources to strengthen and develop thinking.
4. Motor skills. These are actions done corresponding to what is thought about and what is
learned.
5. Attitudes, feelings and emotions. This is evoked or facilitated by the learning stimuli that can
further help determine the significance and meaningfulness of a learning situation.
LEARNING STYLES
1. Divergers look at situations or events from different perspectives.
2. Assimilators are learners who are more concise and logical in their approach.
3. Convergers are more concerned with problem-solving and uses this learning style in finding
solutions to practical issues.
4. Accommodators have a 'hands-on' learning experience that relies on intuition rather than
logic.
LAWS OF LEARNING
1. Law of Readiness states that in order to learn, one must be physically and mentally ready to
receive a learning stimuli
2. Law of Exercise stresses the idea that repetition is basic to the development of adequate
responses because tasks most often repeated are easiest remembered and practiced.
 3. Law of Effect involves the emotional reaction of the learner
4. Law of Primacy states that being first often creates a strong, almost unshakeable impression.
5. Law of Intensity states that if the stimulus or experience is real, intense and vivid, the more
likely learning will occur.
6. Law of Recency states that information or skills most recently learned are best remembered,
while the things learned some times ago are less remembered.
LEARNING THEORIES
1. Stimulus Response
a. Ivan Pavlov Classical Conditioning Theory
b. Edward Thorndike's Connectionism Theory He focused on the effects of reward and punishment,
success or failure, and satisfaction or annoyance on the learner.
1. The law of exercise or repetition States that "the more often a stimulus-induced response is
repeated, the longer it will be retained."
2. The law of effect States the pleasure-pain principle: A response is strengthened if followed by
pleasure and weakened if followed by displeasure.
3. The law of readiness States that because of the structure of the nervous system, certain conduction
units, in a given situation, are more predisposed to function than other parts of the body system.
c. B.F. Skinner's Theory of Operant Conditioning Skinner described the effects of the consequences of a
particular behavior on the future occurrence of that behavior as “operant conditioning."
Positive reinforcement such as reward or recognition strengthens behavior.
Negative reinforcement such as punishment and extinction weaken behavior.
Punishment weakens a particular behavior through the consequence of experiencing a negative
condition.
Extinction weakens a particular behavior through the consequence of not experiencing either a positive
or a negative condition.
d. John Watson's Behaviorism Theory
1. Behaviorism is naturalistic. Behaviorism states that the material world is the ultimate reality, and
everything can be explained in terms of natural laws.
2. Man is nothing more than a machine. States that man responds to conditioning process and
responds accordingly the way the mind perceives the stimulus.
3. Men are "biological machines" whose minds do not have any influence on their actions. According
to Skinner, the mind and mental processes are "metaphors and fictions" and that "behavior is simply
part of the biology of the organism.”
4. Behaviorism teaches that we are not responsible for our actions. Since men are mere machines,
then anything done by men is inevitable.
5. Behaviorism is manipulative. Behaviorism predicts and controls human behavior by controlling
rewards and punishment. One can shape the behavior of another individual.
e. Edwin Ray Guthrie's Contiguity Theory states that a combination of stimuli which has accompanied a
movement will on its recurrence tends to be followed by that movement
One-trial learning means that a stimulus pattern gains its full associative strength on the occasion of its
first pairing with a response.
2. Cognitive Theories on Learning
a. Kohler's Insight Theory argued that animals did not learn everything through a gradual trial-and-error
process, or stimulus-response association.
b. Kurt Lewin's Field Theory Kurt Lewin emphasized the meaning of human behavior in terms of the
forces and tension that moved men to action in his field theory.
1. Behavior must be derived from a totality of coexisting facts. These coexisting facts make up a
"dynamic field," or the state of any part of the field depends on every other part of it.
2. The Zeigarnik Effect. knowledge learned through hearing alone cannot be remembered after a series
of time have elapsed since it happened. Memory of events can happen if learning is reinforced by note
taking, demonstration and other audio-visual materials.
c. Jerome Brunner's Discovery Theory is an inquiry-based, constructivist learning theory. This takes
place in problem solving situations where the learner draws on her own past experiences and existing
knowledge to discover facts and relationships and new truths to be learned.
d. Rumelhart's Schema Theory According to David Rumelhart "a schemata theory is basically a theory
about knowledge." It is about how knowledge is represented and how that representation facilitates the
use of such knowledge in certain ways.
e. David Ausubet's Assimilation Theory on presentational methods of teaching in the acquisition of
subject matter in the curriculum.
 Meaningful reception learning. The learner understands, assimilates and practices what was
learned.
 Rote reception learning. The learner repeats from memory what was learned after constant
attention to meaning.
 Meaningful discovery learning. The learner perceives the significance of knowledge learned.
 Rote discovery learning. The learner discerns new facts, however needs to identify its meaning
to present events.
Types of Meaningful Learning
1. Representational or Vocabulary Learning consists of learning single words or what is represented by
them.
2. Concept Learning Defined as objects, events, situations or properties that possess common attributes
and are designated by some signs or symbols.
a. Concept formation. Develops in young children which occurs from objects seen and heard.
b. Concept assimilation which develops in school children and adults with empirical reasoning and
logical implications of events leading towards knowledge acquisition and application.
3. Propositional Learning it is not simply the meaning of single words that is learned, but the meaning of
sentences that contain composite ideas.
3. Social Theories
Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory Albert Bandura states that learning involves functionalism,
interactionalism, and significant symbolism. He stressed that individuals were capable of self-regulation
and self-direction.
Bandura proposed the Conditions Necessary for Effective Modeling
a. Attention refers to the individual's focus concentration.
b. Retention refers to the amount of information remembered including symbolic coding, mental
images, cognitive organization, symbolic recall and motor rehearsal.
c. Reproduction is the replication of an image including physical capabilities, and self-observation.
d. Motivation is the determination to find a reason to learn or imitate.