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)