This document discusses different types and theories of learning. It defines learning as a relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from experience. There are three main types of learning: simple non-associative learning, associative learning, and observational learning. Important learning theories discussed include trial and error learning, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and cognitive learning. The document also outlines different characteristics, domains, and factors that influence the learning process.

1. LEARNING
For Physiotherapy and Nursing students

2. Definitions:
• Learning maybe defined as relative permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a
result of experience.
• Behaviour changes are due to maturation or to temporary conditions of organism.
• Woodworth: “Any activity can be called learning so far as it develops the individual and
makes him alter behaviour and experiences different from what that would otherwise
have been”
• Henry P. Smith: “Learning is the acquisition of new behaviour or the strengthening or
weakening of old behaviour as the result of experience.”
• It has three important features:
• Learning brings change in behaviour .
• Changes take place through practice or experience and not due to maturation.
• The change in behaviour should be relatively permanent lasting for years, months or weeks.

3. Types of Learning
1. Simple non-associative learning.
a) Habituation.
b) Sensitization.
2. Associative learning
a) Operant conditioning.
b) Classical conditioning.
3. Imprinting
4. Observational learning.
5. Play
6. Enculturation
7. E-Learning and augmented learning
8. Rote learning
9. Informal
10. Formal learning and non formal learning
11. Tangential learning

4. Characteristics of learning
• Learning is growth
• Learning is adjustment.
• Learning is organising experiences.
• Learning is purposeful.
• Learning is intelligent.
• Learning is active.
• Learning is product of environment.
• Learning affects the conduct of the learner.
• Learning depends upon insight.
• Learning takes place through trial and error.

5. Domains of Learning.
• The three domains of learning are:
• Cognitive.(To recall, calculate, Discuss)
• Psychomotor.(To dance, swim, ski, dive etc)
• Affective(To like something or someone, love, appreciate, fear, hate etc).
Example: Learning to play chess,
• Person will learn the rules of game(Cognitive)
• Person will learn how to setup the chess pieces, properly hold and move the
pieces on chessboard. (Psychomotor).
• Person will later tend to love the game itself or apply its values in his life or
appreciate it history. (Affective)

6. LAWS AND THEORIES
• These provide theoretical framework to understand how people learn. These theories
help understand how people acquire knowledge, Skills, modify attitudes, values and
learn new behaviours.
• Many psychologist have done great work in describing theories of learning. Out of all
their works some of the important theories of learning are as follows:
• Learning by trial and error.
• Learning by conditioning.
• Classical conditioning.
• Operant conditioning.
• Learning by cognition.
• Insight learning.
• Sign learning.
• Learning by observation(Social learning).

7. Trial and error method
• Edward Lee thorndike, the American psychologist conducted a series of
experiments on trial and error method of learning by animals.
• A hungry cat was confined in a box and outside of the box a dish of food was kept
• The cat in the box had to pull strings to come out of box
• Cat in box made several random movements like jumping, dashing and running to
get out of the box.
• The cat at last succeeded in pulling in the string, door opened and cat came out
and ate the food.
• He promptly put the cat to next trial, it was repeated for several times, it was
noticed that as the repetition increased error also reduced.
• He concluded that learning of cat in the puzzle box can be explained in terms of
direct connections between stimulus and response.

8. • Drive: Drive was hunger and was intensified with sight of food.
• Goal: To get the food by getting out of box.
• Block: Cat was confined in box with a closed door.
• Chance success: First opening of door.
• Selection: Recognizing the right movement to open door.
• Fixation: Learn to open the door.
Thorndike’s Laws of Learning:
Law of effect: Any response followed by reward(food) will be strengthened, any
response which is unsuccessful will be weakened.
Law of frequency: It’s a direct relationship between repetition and the strength of
stimulus- response bond. (Law of use and disuse).
Law of recency: Any activity which was learnt recently has an advantage of being
repeated once again because of fresh experience.

9. Learning by Conditioning
• Conditioning in physiology a behavioural process whereby a response become
more frequent or predictable in a given environment as a result of
reinforcement(Reward for a desired response).
• These theories are better understood by experiments of Ivon pavlov on classical
conditioning and B.F Skinner on Operant conditioning.
• Classical conditioning: Form of learning where people learn to associate two
stimuli that occurs in sequence.
• Operant conditioning: Refers to fact that learner must operate or perform a
certain behaviour before receiving reward or punishment

10. Classical conditioning:
• Pavlov conducted research physiologist working dog’s digestive system and found
that his dog sometime salivated in absence of food or when the assistant who
normally brought the food.
• His method was to present the dog with food and measure the amount of saliva.
• Then he began ringing a bell prior to presenting the food.
• At first dog didn’t begin salivating until the food arrived.
• After a while, dogs began to salivate when the sound of
bell was heard.
• They learned the association of sound of bell with presentation of food.
• The sound of bell became equivalent to presentation of food.

11. • Basic elements of Classical conditioning:
• Unconditioned stimulus: A Stimulus that reflexively elicits a response.
US- Meat or food.
• Unconditioned response: The natural response to unconditioned stimulus.
UR- Salivation.
• Conditioned stimulus: Artificial stimulus that has acquired ability through
conditioning.
CS- Ringing the bell.
• Conditioned response: It is a response conditioned to the CS.
CR- Salivation in response to ringing the bell.

12. Operant conditioning
• The term was coined by B.F. Skinner. It operates on the law of effect, i.e., If the
behaviour is rewarded it persists; If its punished, it stops.
• Examples:
• A child learning not to hit because he was punished after another child before.
• Example of traffic signal.
• He believed that best way to understand behaviour is to look at the causes of
action and its consequences.
• Experiment:
• Skinner placed a rat inside a glass box containing a lever and food tray. The animal
was free to explore the box. Whenever the lever in the box was pressed,
automatically a pellet of food was dropped on the tray.
• A mechanical device recorded the number of times the rat pressed the lever.
Pressing the lever—The operant response
The food—Stimulus consequence

13. • The rate of presses increased notably with the rewarding of the rat with food
each time he pressed the lever by reinforcement the rat learned the instrumental
or operant response. The reinforcement can be positive or negative/reward or
punishment.
• In the instrumental conditioning the learner has some control over his
circumstances. This is very useful in:
• Shaping and modification of behaviour.
• Used in psychotherapy.
• Used in learning.

14. Learning by insight.(Cognitive learning)
• According to this theory, learning cannot be explained in terms of S-R association
alone. They proposed that learner forms a cognitive structure in memory.
• It states that person organises memory info into relationships and meanings
without any known reinforcement, new associations are formed and new
relationships are perceived along events.
• Experiment: Wolfgang Kohler conducted an experiment on chimpanzee and his
name was Sultan.
• He kept the chimpanzee inside a cage and kept a banana outside the cage at a
little distance. He placed two sticks inside the cage, one longer and one shorter.
• The chimpanzee could get the banana by using the longer stick. Accordingly, the
chimpanzee used the longer stick and got the banana, which was a sign of insight.
• In another experiment Kohler used 2 sticks, which can be fitted together to make
it long. The banana was kept outside the cage.

15. • The hungry sultan who was inside the cage tried to get the bananas by extending
out his hands, then with the sticks.
• Then he got tired and started to play with the sticks. Meanwhile one end of the
stick got incidentally fastened into the ring of the stick and both were joined.
• Characteristics of Learning by Insight (Aha Experience):
• It is sudden
• It is due to understanding
• It alters perception
• New patterns of organization
• Higher species have more insight
• Insight develops usually after some trial and error.

16. Learning by Observation
• Albert Bandura and Richard Walters focused on the highly efficient form of
learning known as observation learning or Imitation.
• Imitation is defined as a response that is like the stimulus triggering the response
a person or animal watches or hears another do or say something then responds
in the same way.
• Bobo doll experiment.
Factors influencing learning:
• The learner whose behavior is to be changed or modified.
• The type of experience or training required for modification in learner’s behavior.
• The men and material resources needed for providing desired experiences and
training.

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