NCERT Class 11 Psychology Learning

 Learning

Introduction

At the time of birth every human baby is equipped with the capacity to make a limited number of responses. These responses occur reflexively whenever appropriate stimuli are present in the environment. As the child grows and matures, s/he becomes capable of making diverse types of responses. These include identifying the images of some persons as one’s mother, father or grandfather, using a spoon when eating food, and learning how to identify alphabets, to write, and to combine them into words. S/he also observes others doing things in specific environmental conditions, and imitates them.

Learning names of objects such as book, orange, mango, cow, boy, and girl, and retaining them is another important task. As one grows older, one observes many events or objects, and learns their distinct features. Objects are categorised as ‘furniture’, ‘fruits’, and so on. One also learns to drive a scooter or a car, to communicate with others effectively, and to interact with others. It is all due to learning that a person becomes hard working or indolent, socially knowledgeable, skilled, and professionally competent.

Each individual manages her or his life and solves all kinds of problems because of the capacity to learn and adapt. This chapter focuses on the various aspects of learning. First, learning is defined and characterised as a psychological process. Second, an account is presented that explains how one learns. A number of learning methods that account for simple to complex types of learning are described. In the third section, some empirical phenomena, that occur in the course of learning, are explained. In the fourth section, different factors that determine the speed and extent of learning are described including different learning styles and learning disabilities.

NATURE OF LEARNING

As indicated above learning is a key process in human behaviour. It refers to a spectrum of changes that take place as a result of one’s experience. Learning may be defined as “any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience”.

One must remember that some behavioural changes occur due to the use of drugs, or fatigue. Such changes are temporary. They are not considered learning. Changes due to practice and experience, which are relatively permanent, are illustrative of learning.

Features of Learning

The process of learning has certain distinctive characteristics. The first feature is that learning always involves some kinds of experience. We experience an event occurring in a certain sequence on a number of occasions. If an event happens then it may be followed by certain other events. For example, one learns that if the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then dinner is ready to be served. Repeated experience of satisfaction after doing something in a specified manner leads to the formation of habit. Sometimes a single experience can lead to learning. A child strikes a matchstick on the side of a matchbox, and gets her/his fingers burnt. Such an experience makes the child learn to be careful in handling the matchbox in future.

Behavioural changes that occur due to learning are relatively permanent. They must be distinguished from the behavioural changes that are neither permanent nor learned. For example, changes in behaviour often occur due to the effects of fatigue, habituation, and drugs. Suppose you are reading your textbook of psychology for sometime or you are trying to learn how to drive a motor car, a time comes when you will feel tired. You stop reading or driving. This is a behavioural change due to fatigue, and is temporary. It is not considered learning.

Let us take another case of change in one’s behaviour. Suppose in the vicinity of your residence a marriage is being performed. It generates a lot of noise, which continues till late night. In the beginning, the noise distracts you from whatever you are doing. You feel disturbed. While the noise continues, you make some orienting reflexes. These reflexes become weaker and weaker, and eventually become undetectable. This is also one kind of behavioural change. This change is due to continuous exposure to stimuli. It is called habituation. It is not due to learning. You must have noticed that people who are on sedatives or drugs or alcohol, their behaviour changes as it affects physiological functions. Such changes are temporary in nature and disappear, as the effect wears out.

Learning involves a sequence of psychological events. This will become clear if we were to describe a typical learning experiment. Suppose psychologists are interested in understanding how a list of words is learned. They will go through the following sequence : (i) do a pre-test to know how much the person knows before learning, (ii) present the list of words to be remembered for a fixed time, (iii) during this time the list of words is processed towards acquiring new knowledge, (iv) after processing is complete, new knowledge is acquired (this is LEARNING), and (v) after some time elapses, the processed information is recalled by the person. By comparing the number of words which a person now knows as compared to what s/he knew in the pre-test, one infers that learning did take place.

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 11 Psychology - Learning