conditions of learning

Learning Theory and Conditions of Learning

by Jeff Stats on Apr 27, 2009

J.B. Watson, the father of Behaviorism, defined learning as a sequence of stimulus and response actions in perceptible cause and effect relationships, thus the focus of Behaviorism is on the training of observable human behavior. Major scholars associated with this learning theory are J.B Watson, E. L Thorndike, and B.F Skinner. According to the last, voluntary or automatic behavior is either reinforced or weakened by the immediate presence of a reward or a punishment, he claimed that, "The learning principle behind operant conditioning is that new learning occurs as a result of positive reinforcement, and old patterns are abandoned as a result of negative reinforcement".

So we can easily track the applied character of this theory to the learning/teaching process as teaching is the arrangement of possibilities of reinforcement under which students learn. They learn without teaching in their natural environments, but teachers arrange special incidents which advance...Read More >>