Educational psychology as a tool for developing studying

• Psyche = soul Logos = study, science
Psychology as the study of soul. - Middle Ages : Pluto, Aristotle, Descartes
soul is something metaphysical. It cannot be seen, observed or touched and we cannot
make scientific experiments on soul
• Psychology as the study of mind. - 18th
Century
word ‘mind ‘ is also quite ambiguous as there was confusion regarding the nature and
functions of mind
• Psychology as the study of consciousness. - 19th
Century : Wilhelm Wundt, William James
But there are three levels of consciousness – conscious, subconscious and the
unconscious and so this definition also was not accepted by some.
• Psychology as the study of behaviour.
William McDugall (1905) ,W.B. Pillsbury (1911) and J.B. Watson (1912)

PSYCHOLOGY
• Psychology is an academic and scientific study of mental processes
and behaviour. Psychologists study such concepts as perception,
cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, interpersonal relationships, and the
individual and collective unconscious.
• Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various
spheres of human activity including issues related to daily life - e.g. family,
education, and work—and the treatment of mental health problems.
• Psychology includes many sub-fields of study and application concerned with
such areas as human development, sports, health, industry, media, law.

DEFINITION - PSYCHOLOGY
• William Mc Dougall - “Psychology is a science which aims to give us better
understanding and control of the behaviour of the organism as a whole”.
• J.B. Watson - “the science of behaviour”
• Woodworth - “Psychology deals with the activities of the individual in
relation to his environment”

Major Branches of
psychology
SPORTS

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
A study of how humans learn and retain knowledge

EDUCATION: has its Latin root:
• “educere” = to lead out,
to draw out
– the innate capacities in man.
• “educare” = to bring up,
to raise.
– from one level to another.
• “educatum” = the act of teaching/training.

Definitions of Education
• Swami Vivekananda defines: “Education is the manifestation of perfection
already present in man.”
• John Dewey defines: “Education is life, life is education”.
• According to Pestalozzi, “Education is a natural, harmonious, progressive
development of man’s innate powers.’

Definitions of Educational Psychology
• C.V. Good : “Educational psychology is (i) the investigation of
psychological problems involved in education, together with the practical
application of psychological principles to education (ii) a study of nature of
learning.”
• J.M. Stephon : “Educational Psychology is a systematic study of
educational growth.”
• Crow and Crow, “Educational Psychology describes and explains
the learning experiences of an individual from birth through old age.”

• Educational Psychology helps in advancing theory and methods to better learning
and performance.
• Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn and retain
knowledge, primarily in educational settings like classrooms.
• This includes emotional, social, and cognitive learning processes.

Nature of Educational psychology
Applied Science-
It applies the principles and techniques of psychology in the field of
education, to study behaviour and experiences of the learner.
It draws facts from such areas as developmental psychology, clinical
psychology, abnormal psychology and social psychology.
Laws of educational psychology are universal.

Positive science-
A positive science deals with facts as they are or as they operate.
Educational psychology studies the child’s behaviour as it is, not, as it
ought to be.

It makes use of scientific methods-
Educational psychology adopts scientific method to study the learner’s
behavior. It formulates hypothesis, undertakes objective observation and
investigation, has also developed objective methods of data collection.
It maintains a degree of objectivity, reliability and validity in conducting
research.
It also aims at understanding, predicting and controlling human behaviour.

The data so collected is arranged and closely studied by using quantitative
methods of Statistical techniques to arrive at certain conclusions.
The laws or theories thus deduced are subject to verification in the light of
new facts or data. Every science keeps its doors open for fresh information
and new facts and changes its laws if warranted by the new data.

• The subject matter of Educational Psychology revolves around
three areas:
(i) The Learner
(ii) The learning process
(iii) The learning situation
Scope of Educational Psychology

The Learner
The subject-matter of educational psychology is knitted around the learner, the need of
knowing the learner and the techniques of knowing him/her well.
•the innate abilities and capacities of the individuals
•individual differences and their measurements
•the overt, covert, conscious as well as unconscious behaviour of the learner
•the characteristics of his growth and development
•each stage beginning from childhood to adulthood.

The Learning Experiences
Educational Psychology helps in deciding -
•which learning experiences are desirable
•And at what stage of the growth and development of the learner
- so that these experiences can be acquired with a greater ease and satisfaction.
Learning experience refers to any interaction, course, program, or other experience in
which learning takes place, whether it occurs in traditional academic settings (schools,
classrooms) or nontraditional settings (outside-of-school locations, outdoor environments)

Learning process
After knowing the learner and deciding what learning experiences are to be
provided, Educational Psychology moves on to the laws, principles and theories of
learning.
Other items in the learning process are remembering and forgetting, perceiving,
concept formation, thinking and reasoning, problem solving, transfer of learning,
ways and means of effective learning etc.

Learning Situation or Environment
Here we deal with the environmental factors and learning situations which come
midway between the learner and the teacher for the smooth functioning of the
teaching-learning process.
Topics like classroom climate and group dynamics, techniques and aids that
facilitate learning and evaluation, techniques and practices, guidance and
counselling etc..

The Teacher
Role of the teacher.
It emphasizes the need of ‘knowing thyself’ for a teacher to play his role properly
in the process of education.
His/Her conflicts, motivation, anxiety, adjustment, level of aspiration, essential
personality traits, interests, aptitudes, the characteristics of effective teaching etc
so as to inspire him/her for becoming a successful teacher.

Human Growth and Development
How a child passes through the various stages of growth and what are the
characteristics of each stage are included in the study of educational psychology.
Individual Difference
Every individual differs from every other individual. It is one of the fundamental
facts of human nature which have been brought to light by educational psychology.
This one fact has revolutionalized the concept and process of education.

Nature and Development of the Personality
Education has been defined as the all-round development of the personality of an
individual.
Guidance and Counselling
Education is nothing but providing guidance to the growing child.dual; personality
development also implies a well-adjusted personality.

Significance of Educational Psychology to a Teacher
• Educational Psychology helps teacher to know that how learning
takes place.
• It enables a teacher that how learning process should be initiated,
how to motivate, how to memorize or learn.
• It helps teachers to guide the students in right direction in order
to chanalized student’s abilities in right direction.
• It informs a teacher, about the nature of the learners and his
potentialities.

Significance of Educational Psychology to a Teacher
• It helps a teacher to develop a student personality because the whole
educational process is for student’s personality development.
• It helps a teacher to adjust his methodologies of learning to the nature /
demand of the learner.
• It enables a teacher to know the problems of individual differences and
treat every student on his / her merit.
• It helps a teacher that how to solve the learning problems of a student.
• It helps a teacher that how to evaluate a students that whether the
purpose of teaching & learning has been achieved.

LEARNING
Learning is generally defined as relatively permanent changes in
behavior, skills, knowledge, or attitudes resulting from identifiable
psychological or social experiences or practice.

LEARNING
Learning is also a process of acquiring modifications in existing knowledge,
skills, habits, or tendencies through experience, practice, or exercise.
Henry, P Smith “Learning is the acquisition of new behaviour or
strengthening or weakening of old behaviour as a result of experience”.
Crow and Crow “Learning is the acquisition of habits, knowledge and
attitudes. It involves new ways of doing things, and it operates in an
individual’s attempt to overcome obstacles or to adjust to new situations.”

LEARNING
The definitions emphasize four attributes of learning:
•As Process: the first is that learning is permanent change in behaviour.
•It does not include change due to illness, fatigue, maturation and use
of intoxicant.
•The learning is not directly observable but manifests in the activities of
the individual.
•Learning depends on practice and experience.

TYPES OF LEARNING
Informal, formal and non-formal learning:
Depending on the way of acquiring it learning may be informal, formal or non-
formal.
•Informal learning is incidental. It takes place throughout life. It is not planned.
Eg. educational videos and articles, self-study, social media interaction, on-the-job
mentoring, team activities and games
•Formal learning is intentional and organized. It takes place in formal
educational institution.
•Non-formal is also intentional & organized. It is flexible. Eg. swimming classes
for small children, sports clubs of various kinds for all ages, reading groups, debating
societies, amateur choirs and orchestras

TYPES OF LEARNING
Individual or Group learning:
Learning is called either individual or group learning depending upon the
number of individuals involved in the learning process.

TYPES OF LEARNING
Another classification involves the types of activity involved
a)Motor learning: - when learning involves primarily the use of muscles it is
called as motor learning. e.g.: learning to walk, to operate a typewriter
b)Discrimination learning: - Learning which involves the act of discrimination is
called discrimination learning. e.g. infant discriminates between mother and
aunt, milk and water.
c)Verbal learning: - when learning involves the use of words it is called as verbal
learning.

TYPES OF LEARNING
e) Concept learning: - when learning involves the formation of concept it is
called as concept learning.
It is the form of learning which requires higher order mental processes like
thinking, reasoning, problem solving, etc. we learn different concepts
from childhood.
For example, when we see a dog and attach the term ‘dog’, we learn that the
word dog refers to a particular animal, clock, maths
e) Sensory learning: - when learning is concerned with perception and
sense it is sensory learning.

NATURE OF LEARNING
1.Learning is a Continuous Process :
• After birth, the child acquires skill from experiences obtained from the environment. Hence,
leaning goes on throughout life.
• Learning can be formal or informal and it may be direct or indirect. When a learner learns he
develop, knowledge, skills, habits, attitudes, and aptitudes.
2.Learning is Change in behavior :
• The result of the Learning process can be measured through response/performance.
• It can be desirable or undesirable but in a positive direction.
• New patterns of inner motivations and overt behaviour – strengthening or weakening
attitudes and behaviour
• Learning includes all three aspects of human behavior - cognitive, affective and conative
aspects of mental process (motivation, goal- orientation, will, self-direction, and self-
regulation)

NATURE OF LEARNING
3. Learning is a universal process:
It can happen everywhere. Learning is a process for all living creatures. Human being
across all cultures learn as it is a life long process.
4. Learning is Goal-oriented:
• Learning is purposeful.
• For meaningful and effective learning, the purpose of learning must be clear, vivid
and explicit.

NATURE OF LEARNING
5. Learning is a process of progress and Development :
• Learning can occur in any direction. These directions can be desirable or
undesirable. – Vertical learning and Horizontal learning
• We want to bring the individual’s development in a desirable direction through
learning. We do not want a child to learn in undesirable directions like stealing or
pick-pocketing. So learning should bring progressive changes in the behavior of the
learner.
6. Learning is the Organization of Experiences :
• The basis of learning is the acquisition of new experiences.
• Behaviors of learners change as a result of new experiences.
• New learning experiences evolve as a result of past experiences acquired by the
learner.

NATURE OF LEARNING
7. Learning occurs due to Activity and Environment :
• Interaction with the environment is very essential for the learning process. The
more children interact with their environment, the more they learn.
• These interactions provide experience to the children. Due to these interactions
changes occur in the behavior of the children.
8. Learning is the Relationship between stimulus and Response:
• A person is considered as a learned-person if he reacts according to the task to be
learned.
• Through learning, a person learns reactions according to the stimuli associated with
the environment and other aspects of life.

NATURE OF LEARNING
9. Learning is the Fundamental process of Life:
• Without learning the progress of a person is not possible. It acts as the basis for the
progress of society and civilization.
10. Learning is transferable:
• The learning acquired in one situation is capable of transfer to some other situation.
• The knowledge acquired in one situation proves helpful in acquiring knowledge in other
situation. This is known as the transfer of learning.
• The learner should be careful not to let previously gained knowledge interfere in
acquiring new knowledge and experiences.

LEARNING
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Dg-06nrnc

LEARNING Curve
• Learning curve is a graphic representation of how learning takes place in a
particular situation
a) Period of slow progress: start learning of a given
activity from a scratch, his early progress will be
slow.
b) Period of rapid progress: In this stage, the
learner’s output raises rapidly.
c) Period of no apparent progress: Learning curves
frequently display a period of no apparent
progress. It is also known as plateau. no visible
learning progress
d) Period of sudden rise: a spurt in achievement.
While on the plateau, the learner acquires better
techniques, which help him later on to show
rapid progress.
e) Levelling: All learning will finally slow down to
such an extent that it will ultimately reach a
period of no improvement.
Causes of plateau (i) The learner may be reorganizing the
previous learning into a new pattern before further
progress is possible. (ii) The learner may have hit upon bad
habits (iii) Lack of progress may be due to decrease in
motivation. (iv) The task may not be of uniform difficulty.
(v) Loss of interest. (vi) The onset of fatigue is also one of
the causes of a plateau.

Types of LEARNING Curve
We get different types of learning curves depending
upon –
(a)The nature of the learner
(b)The nature of the task/learning material
(c)Time available.
(d)Conditions under which the learning takes place.
THREE COMMON TYPES OF CURVES:
(i)Negatively accelerated or the convex curve.
(ii)Positively accelerated learning curve or the concave curve.
(iii)Combination of convex-concave curve.

(i)Negatively accelerated or the CONVEX CURVE.
It depicts rapid initial improvement in learning that slows down with time. When the task is simple and
the learner has previous practice on a similar task, we get this type of learning curve.

(ii)Positively accelerated learning curve or the CONCAVE CURVE
There is slow initial improvement and learning increases with time. When the task is difficult we get such
type of learning curve.

(iii)COMBINATION OF CONVEX-CONCAVE CURVE.
It looks like the capital letter ‘S’. The curve takes concave or convex shape in the beginning depending
upon the nature of the task.

FACTORS INFLUENCING LEARNING
1. Intelligence
Intelligence by Howard Gardener (eight areas of intelligence)
• Linguistic intelligence • Logical – mathematical
intelligence
• Spatial intelligence • Musical intelligence
• Bodily – kinesthetic intelligence • Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence • Naturalist intelligence

1. Intelligence
• It affects what, when and how we learn.
• It is a capacity or ability for problem solving, thinking, reasoning, relating to
others, dealing with emotions, developing interests, sense of right and wrong
and living in consonance with our environment.
• Intelligence is positively interrelated with learning capacity of the students
and students high on intelligence are supposed to learn better and more as
compared to their counterparts with low on intelligence.

2. Motivation
Motivation may be regarded as something which prompts, compels and
energizes an individual - to act or behave in a particular manner, -
at a particular time - for attaining some specific goals or
purposes.
Motivation may also be formally defined as an internal state that arouses,
directs and maintains behaviour.

2. Motivation
1. Extrinsic motivation
• motivated by factors external to himself and unrelated to the task he is performing. Learners
who are extrinsically motivated may want good grades, money, or recognition that particular
activities and accomplishments bring.
• Essentially, they are motivated to perform a task as a means to an end.
2. Intrinsic motivation
• motivated by factors within himself and the task that he is performing.
• Learners who are intrinsically motivated engage in an activity because it gives them pleasure,
helps them to develop a skill that they think important, or seems to be ethically and morally
right in thing that they do.
• Both extrinsic and intrinsic

3. Maturation for Readiness to Learn
• it is impossible for five years old to comment on democracy or socialism as
he/ she is not ‘ready’ or cognitively adept at understanding these concepts.
• Maturation can best be interpreted as relatively permanent change in an
individual – be it cognitive, emotional or physical, that occurs as a result of
biological ageing, regardless of personal experience.

4. Emotions
• Negative emotions
• Positive emotions

4. Interests
• an interest may be defined as a learnt or acquired motive stemming from
some inherent needs of the individual which drive him/her to act in a way
that will sustain or satisfy his/her inner need structure.

4. Interests
• Individual differ in their patterns of interests because their need structures vary.
• For some people, social (belongingness) and emotional needs (respect) become the
guiding forces, for others, aesthetic (self-fulfilmesnt) or higher cognitive needs may be
the preponderant factors.
• Age variations are also visible.
• Young children have a need for activity, play, adventure etc. and thus they learn much
better through a play way approach. This arouses their interest in studies and helps to
sustain their involvement in work.
• For adolescents and older learners, the needs for affiliation and group belongingness
are very high and thus they always show an interest in recreational group activities
like parties, picnics, social outings, etc.
• Interests are, thus, determined by both age related and human needs factors

5. Attitudes
• We have many likes and dislikes and beliefs and opinions which predispose
us to behave in certain ways.
• Both prejudice and stereotypes are learnt attitudes, resulting from cultural
conditioning. They assume special significance in learning since they greatly
influence the direction, intensity, seriousness and commitment with which
one learns or engages in an activity

6. Learners physical and mental health
• Learning is greatly affected by the learner physical and mental health
maintained by him particularly at the time of learning.
• A healthy child learns better, similarly, a tense emotionally and mentally
disturbed child does not show much progress in learning

7. Content related factors
•Effect of previous experience: New learning depends upon old learning. Learning is
always influenced by previous experiences. Previous learning in the field makes the
task familiar and therefore, more approachable.
•Meaningfulness of material: The result of experimental studies have clearly
indicated that meaningful material can be easily memorized as compared to
meaningless material. Meaningful means that the material conveys some sense and
has some associations and previous experience with the learner.
•Difficulty of material: This is another important factor in learning when there are
more than 20% difficult words in a lesson the task of reading becomes very difficult
for the reader.

7. Content related factors
•Multi-Sensory Approach: Number of illustrations, figures, pictures, tables
projecting the abstract unfamiliar and significant aspects of the lesson facilitates
learning.
•Nature of content: The nature of content is a very important factor that influences
learning. The nature of the content should be simple to complex
•Selection of contents: The contents should be selected according to children need,
interests and abilities that influence greatly the children learning.
•Organization of contents: The contents should be organized in such a way that they
can easily accessible and enjoyable for children learning and it should be according
to children age and class.

Classical Conditioning
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i2rlymfLbE
• You eat a new food and get sick because of the flu. However, you
develop a dislike for the food and feel nauseated whenever you smell
it.

• You eat a new food and get sick because of the flu. However, you develop a
dislike for the food and feel nauseated whenever you smell it.
• US – Flue
• UR – nausea
• N – CS – new food
• CR – nausea to new food
• Garcia effect

• An individual receives frequent injections of drug, which are
administered in a small examination room at a clinic. The drug itself
causes increased heart rate but after several trips to the clinic, simply
being in a small room causes an increased heart rate.

• An individual receives frequent injections of drug, which are
administered in a small examination room at a clinic. The drug itself
causes increased heart rate but after several trips to the clinic, simply
being in a small room causes an increased heart rate.
• US – Drug injection
• UR – accelerated heart rate
• N-CS – small room
• CR – accelerated heart rate response to small room

Instrumental Conditioning
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teLoNYvOf90

Think-Pair-Share:
•If your room was messy and your parents wanted you to clean, which of the following
scenarios is most likely to motivate you to clean?
1. ‘If you clean your room by the time I come home from work, I’ll give you twenty dollars.’
2. ‘If you clean your room by the time I come home from work, you won’t have to do the dishes after dinner.’
3. ‘If you keep leaving your dirty clothes on the floor of your room, we are going to have a very long talk, and
I guarantee it won’t be pleasant!’
4. ‘If you keep leaving your dirty clothes on the floor of your room, I’ll take your phone for a week.’

Questions
1.What do you think is more effective in getting someone to do what you want: giving
them a reward, or giving them a punishment? Explain your reasoning.
2.If you could use any method in the world, how would you approach the problem of
getting a poorly behaved kid to start being polite and respectful?
3.Give an example of negative reinforcement that you’ve either witnessed or personally
experienced recently.

Thorndike’s Trial and Error Theory
• We learn everything by making mistakes and errors
• Mistakes - errors - gaining experience – next trial – till we get the solution
• Determinants:
• Number of attempts
• Motivation to achieve goal
• Exploration – either random or purposeful
• Response to the behaviour

• Learning behaviour arises when the organism faces a new and difficult situation – problem
• In order to solve the problem situation, the organism tries all sorts of movements one by
one in a random manner. Most of these are erroneous or incorrect movements.
• In course of trying out all sorts of possible movements, the correct movement is eventually
made.
• This accidentally performed action changes the future behaviour - which is then learnt by
practice - and erroneous beh is gradually unlearnt.
• Hence, a connection between learning situation (Stimulus – “S”) and the correct response
is made.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fanm--WyQJo

Puzzle Box Experiment by Thorndike
• At first, the cat is ineffective in
attempts to escape, the cat
tries to squeeze through any
opening, its claws and bites
everything it reaches for 8 -10
min.
• Gradually all other non-
successful impulses will be
stamped out and the particular
impulse leading to successful
act will be stamped in by the
resultant pleasure immediately

• Theory of connectionism, which states that behavioral responses to specific stimuli are
established through a process of trial and error that affects neural connections between
the stimuli and the most satisfying responses.
• The law of effect stated that those behavioral responses that were most closely followed
by a satisfying result were most likely to become established patterns and to occur again
in response to the same stimulus.
• The law of exercise stated that behaviour is more strongly established through frequent
connections of stimulus and response.

• Summary of Connectionism
• Learning is a gradual process
• Motivation (drive state) is an important condition for learning behaviour to occur
• Practice is important for holding the connection strongly
• Success of a response is rewarding and therefore such responses are learnt while
those which are unsuccessful are unlearnt.
• Learning involves the process of trial and error.

• Laws of Learning
• Law of readiness – degree of preparedness
• Law of exercise – more often repeated are best remembered
• Law of effect – consequence - connection depends upon the effect a
response produces on the organism(learner) – pleasant (satisfaction)
vs unpleasant effect (frustration).

INSIGHT THEORY - EXPERIMENTS
• In one experiment, Kohler put a chimpanzee (Sultan) inside a cage and a banana was
hung from the roof of the cage. A box was placed inside the cage. The Sultan try to
reach the banana by jumping but could not succeed. Suddenly, he got an idea and
used the box as a jumping platform by placing it just below the hanging banana.
• In another experiment, Kohler made this problem more difficult. Now it required two
or three boxes to reach the banana. Moreover, the placing of one box over the other
required different specific arrangements.
• In another experiment, the banana was placed outside the cage of the chimpanzee.
Two sticks, one larger than the others, were placed inside the cage. One was hollow
at one end so that the other stick could be thrust into it to form a longer stick. The
banana was so kept that could not be picked up by one of the sticks.

INSIGHT THEORY - EXPERIMENTS
• The chimpanzee first tried these sticks one after another but failed. Suddenly, he got
a bright idea. The animal joined the two sticks together and reached the banana. In
these experiments, Kohler used many different chimpanzees. Sultan, who was the
most intelligent of Kohler’s chimpanzees, could solve all the problems. Other
chimpanzees could solve the problems only when they saw the sultan solving them.
• With such experiments, Kohler concluded that in the solution of problems, his apes
did not restore to blind trial and error mechanism. They could solve their problem
intelligently. Kohler used the term “Insight” to describe the learning of his apes.

INSIGHT THEORY
• Insight involves the following criteria:
• The situation as a whole is perceived by the learner
• The learner tries to see and judge the relationship between various factors
involved in the situation
• As a result, the learner is helped in the sudden grasping of the solution of the
problem

INSIGHT THEORY
• As a whole, insight depends upon the following factors:
• Previous Experience: Past experience help in the insightful solution of the problems.
A child cannot solve the problems of modern mathematics unless he is well-
acquainted with its symbolic language.
• Intelligence: Insightful solution depends upon the basic intelligence of the learner.
The more intelligent an individual is, the greater will be his insight
• Learning Situation: How insightfully the organism will react depends upon the
situation in which it has to act. Some situations are more favorable than others for
an insightful solution. As a common observation, insight occurs when the learning
situation is so arranged that all the necessary aspects are open for observation.

INSIGHT THEORY
• As a whole, insight depends upon the following factors:
• Initial efforts: Insightful learning has to pass through the process of trial and error.
But this stage does not last long. These initial efforts, in the form of a simple trial and
error mechanism. The open way for insightful learning.
• Repetition and Generalization: After having an insightful solution to a particular type
of problem, the organism tries to repeat it in another situation, demanding a similar
type of solution. The way found in one situation helps him to react insightfully in the
other identical situation

INSIGHT THEORY
• Law of Proximity : Related concepts or lessons should be taught aligned or closely to each other. This
is the reason why subtraction is taught after addition, multiplication after subtraction
• Law of Similarity : Similar lessons or contents should be grouped together to make learners develop
understanding more efficiently and effectively. Unit wise learning
• Law of Closure : When a concept or topic is incomplete thus isn’t “closed”, incomplete information
may make learners want to discover what’s missing, rather than concentrating on the given
instruction.
• Law of Good Continuation : Lessons should be presented in such a way that learners will see these as
connected and contin-uous. Now you know why we have the “Review” part of the lesson plan.
• Law of Pragnanz : Pragnanz states that when things are grasped as wholes, the minimal amount of
energy is exerted in thinking.
• Law of Figure/Ground : For a figure to be perceived, it must stand out from the background. Emphasis
should be done on important aspects of the lesson.

Imitative Learning
• Albert Bandura
• Observational learning
• Takes place in social situation involving a model and an imitator
• By observing the model solve a problem one or more times and
applying the observed tricks (imitating) and solving the problem with
similar success
Eg. Speech, aggressive behaviours, gambling, drug addictions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lYsmt9qUVI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEhSk71gUCQ

Levels of Learning
• Robert Gagne (1916–2002) was an educational psychologist who pioneered the
science of instruction in the 1940s.
• His book "The Conditions of Learning," first published in 1965, identified the
mental conditions that are necessary for effective learning.
• Training
• Teaching
• Public speaking
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFqnyeufcjs

Levels of Learning
• The Nine Levels of Learning’ proposes that learners experience nine steps when
being taught something. It also suggests how you, as the trainer/educator, can
support these steps to ensure the learning is at its most impactful.
• The model gives the trainer a structure to work through that will keep the learner
engaged, and help them retain the content.
• These levels can happen across a classroom training session, a single eLearning unit
or even a curriculum. The key point is that across a learning journey, these nine
steps all need to happen.

Nine Levels of Learning
1. Preparation
• Gaining attention
• Informing learners of the objective
• Stimulating recall prior to learning
2. Instruction and Practice
• Presenting the stimulus
• Providing learning guidance
• Eliciting performance
• Providing feedback
3. Assessment and Transfer
• Assessing Performance
• Enhancing Preparation and Transfer

1. Gaining attention
• Starting the learning experience by getting your audience’s attention.
• Ensuring the learners are organized to investigate and participate in activities
by offering a stimulus to capture their attention.
• By posing stimulating inquiries to your students or starting your lesson with
detail of surprise.
Apply: Gain attention by raising the volume of your voice, gesturing, showing a short
video, on the topic of instruction, push notifications.

2. Informing learners of the objective
• To inform the learners of what to expect from the training. What objectives will you cover?
What should they know at the end of the training that they didn’t before?
• Let them know what you expect from them as well. This will help them formulate their
learning journey
• Apply: Explaining the team what they will have learnt by the end of the session.
Then, explaining how their learning is going to benefit them, and the organization.
This gives them a great chance to put forward any questions they may have about the topic. You can
also use it as a place to share helpful tips!

3. Stimulating recall prior to learning
•When your people learn something new, match the new information with related
information or topics they've learned in the past.
•Apply: Reviewing any previous learning that you've done with your team, and apply it to
what they're learning now. Also, ask your team if they have any previous experiences with
the topic, or if they have experienced the problems that the training is trying to resolve.
Then make connections between what they are learning, and their previous learning.

4. Presenting the stimulus
• Present the new information to the group in an effective manner.
• Step by step of actual performance eg. driving
• Apply: Organize your information in a logical and easy-to-understand manner.
Try to use a variety of different media and styles (such as visual cues, verbal
instruction, and active learning) to suit people with different learning styles.

5. Providing learning guidance
• Now you’ve taught the content, you’ve got to find a way to fill any knowledge gaps.
• The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve teaches us that we forget 90% of what we learn within 30
days, so echoing the content is crucial in fighting this.
• Apply: A great way to help your team retain the information is by acting out scenarios.
Scenario-based learning is where you put the learner in a situation where they can apply
their knowledge to overcome a hurdle.
• You can initiate this by creating a multiple-choice quiz with scenario-based questions.
Alternatively, how about providing case studies of the content in action?

6. Eliciting performance
• At this stage, you need to ensure that your people can demonstrate their
knowledge of what you've taught them. The way that they show this depends
on what they're learning.
• Practical learning
• Apply: If you've taught a new process or skill, ask your people to demonstrate
how to use it (role playing exercises can be useful for this). If you've taught
new information, ask questions so that they can show their knowledge.

7. Providing feedback
• Once you’ve elicited performance, it’s important you communicate to your learners how well they
performed.
• If they answered incorrectly then they need to know how they can improve, on the other hand, if they
passed with flying colours they deserve to be rewarded and encouraged!
• Corrective feedback- correct or incorrect
• Remedial feedback – helping to find correct answer without giving it away - directing
• Informative feedback – illustrate that they have been attentive and following
• Analytical feedback – suggestion to correct performace, noting what has been correctly done and
what if questions

8. Assessing Performance
• Your team should be able to complete a test, or other measurement tool, to
show that they've learned the material or skill effectively.
• Team members should complete this test independently, without any help or
coaching from you.
• Apply: Tests, short questionnaires, or even essays can be good ways of testing
your team's new knowledge.

• 9. Enhancing Preparation and Transfer
• Gagne proposed that the final step to the learning journey is to put the
learner in the position of an expert.
• If the learner can demonstrate they’ve absorbed the content by
applying it to their job and by teaching others, then they can finally call
themselves a wisdom warrior!

Situation
You live in a hostel and your roommate is very messy. You have tried to convey it
innumerable times but things have not changed. There is no option of you changing the
room. Create an solution model using each level of learning by Gagne to make him/her
learn to be neat.

Transfer of Learning
• Nature of transfer :
• Positive Transfer
• Negative Transfer
• Zero Transfer

Kinds of Transfer
• Near versus far transfer: Near transfer occurs when the training context and trained behavior are almost
identical to the application context and application behavior.
• For example a student learns an arithmetic rule with problems on a worksheet and then applies the same
rule in the same way on the same day to similar problems in a math workbook. However, he becomes
confused when expected to use the rule in a word problem.
• With far transfer, the two situations are interestingly different.
• For example, the student who has learned a basic arithmetic rule proceeds to apply it later in a variety of
word problems with no cues. Or knowledge of Spanish facilitates the learning of French. Far transfer
(sometimes referred to as “high-road” transfer) often requires insight or judgment not required by near
transfer.

Kinds of Transfer
•Specific versus general transfer: Specific transfer occurs when the contents of learning are transferred. For
example, a student who is taught the basic organizational components of a narrative uses exactly those
components later in writing an organized and elaborated story.
•In the case of general transfer, general skills or underlying principles are transferred. For example, the same
student may recognize that there is an organized structure that needs to be imposed on other types of
writing as well, not just stories.

The Trace Decay Theory of Forgetting

The Interference Theory of Forgetting
Interference theory refers to the idea that forgetting occurs because the recall of certain items
interferes with the recall of other items. In nature, the interfering items are said to originate
from an overstimulating environment.
1.Proactive Interference- Previously acquired information interferes with the new information.
Older memories are often more strongly encoded in long-term memory because the individual has had more
time to revisit and rehearse them. As a result, they are easier to recall than memories that were made more
recently.
Research has shown that one way to reduce proactive interference is to rehearse the new information through
testing or recitation.
Eg. New year Dates, New Language , rules of tennis – squash

The Interference Theory of Forgetting
2. Retroactive Interference - Newly acquired information makes it more difficult to remember
previously acquired information.
Eg. New theories interfere with the old ones .

Factors affecting Forgetting
• Rate of original Learning – Learning with speed: forgetting will be slow | slow learning speed: quick forgetting
• Periodic Reviews
• Over Learning – Practice that continues after a perfect recall has been scored. Overlearning is essential for improving
retention eg.
• Interference – can hamper memorization and retrieval.
• Meaningfulness – meaningful material is less forgotten.
• Intention to learn – when we deliberately try to learn.
• Emotion – vivid autobiographical memories tend to be emotional events. Are remembered more often and with detail
and clarity

Strategies to Improve Retention
• Overlearning the material
• Make the information more meaningful
• Use colour coding – image based techniques
• Space out study subjects
• Practice whole vs part learning
• Recite the material
• Use a study System

pane ledge window
air open frame handle door
shade phone bottle screen
brown see fresh

Growth & Development
• Growth refers to physical increase in some quantity over time. It includes changes in terms of height,
weight, body proportions and general physical appearance
• In Encyclopedia Britannica, growth is defined as “an increase in size or the amount of an entity”. It means
growth involves all those structural and physiological changes that take place within individual during the
process of maturation.
• Development refers to the qualitative changes in the organism as whole.
• Development is a continuous process through which physical, emotional and intellectual changes occur.
• It is a more wider and comprehensive term than growth. It is also possible without growth

Stages of Development
• Infancy (Birth – 1 year)
• Early Childhood (1 – 3 years)
• Middle Childhood (3 – 6 years)
• Late Childhood (6 – 11 years)
• Adolescence
• Early Adulthood
• Mature/Middle Adulthood
• Old Age

Stages of Development (by Erik Erikson)
Stage Age Developmental Crisis
1 Birth – 1 Year Trust vs Mistrust • From warm, responsive care, infants gain a sense of trust, or
confidence, that the world is good.
• Mistrust occurs if infants are neglected or handled harshly.
2 1 - 3 Years Autonomy vs
shame and doubt
• Using new mental and motor skills, children want to decide for
themselves.
• Parents can foster autonomy by permitting reasonable
free choice and not forcing or shaming the child.
3 3 – 6 Years Initiative vs guilt • Through make-believe play, children gain insight into the
person they can become. Initiative— a sense of ambition and
responsibility—develops when parents support their child’s
sense of purpose.
• But if parents demand too much self-control, children
experience excessive guilt.

Stage Age Developmental Crisis
4 6 – 11 Years Industry vs
inferiority
• Elementary school years.
• Directing their energy towards mastering knowledge and
intellectual skills.
• At school, children learn to work and cooperate with others.
• Inferiority develops when negative experiences at home, at
school, or with peers lead to feelings of incompetence and
unproductivity.
5 Adolescence Identity vs
role confusion
• Individuals face finding out who they are, what they are all
about, where they are going in life.
• By exploring values and vocational goals, the young person
forms a personal identity.
• The negative outcome is confusion about future adult roles.

Stage Age
Developmental
Crisis
6 Young
Adulthood
Intimacy vs
Isolation
• Individuals face the developmental task of forming intimate
relationships.
• If young adults form healthy friendships and an intimate relationship
with another, intimacy will be achieved, if not isolation will result.
• Because of earlier disappointments, some individuals cannot form
close bonds and remain isolated.
7 Middle
Adulthood
Generativity vs
stagnation
• Generativity means giving to the next generation to develop through
child rearing, caring for others, or productive work.
• The person who fails in these ways feels an absence of meaningful
accomplishment.
8 Late
Adulthood
Integrity vs
despair
• Reflection on the past.
• Integrity results from feeling that life was worth living as it happened.
• If not, the retrospective glances likely will yield doubt/gloom -
Despair

Development
• Shikha, a 5-year-old, is certain that rolling out a ball of clay into a snake makes more clay.
• A 9-year-old child in Gujarat, India, firmly insists that it is impossible to be Indian and Gujarati at the same time:
"I'm already Indian. I can't also be Gujarati.“
• Jamal, a very bright elementary school student, cannot answer the question "How would life be different if
people did not sleep?" because he insists, "People HAVE TO SLEEP!“
• A young girl who once said her feet hurt, suddenly begins to refer to her foots, then describes her footses, before
she finally returns to talking about her feet.
• A 2-year-old brings his own mother to comfort a friend who is crying, even though the friend's mother is available,
too.

Development
• The term development - orderly, adaptive changes we go through from conception to death.
• The term is not applied to all changes, but rather to those that appear in orderly ways and remain for a
reasonably long period of time.
• A temporary change caused by a brief illness, for example, is not considered a part of development.
• Human development has several aspects.
• Physical development - changes in body structure and function over time
• Personal development - changes in personality that take place as one grows.
• Social development - changes over time in the ways we relate to others
• Cognitive development - gradual orderly changes by which mental processes become more complex and
sophisticated - refers to changes in thinking.

Cognitive Development
• Schemas
• schemas (mental systems or categories of perception and experience).
• schemas are the basic building blocks of thinking they are organized systems of actions or thought that allow
us to mentally represent or "think about the objects and events in our world.
• Schemas can be very small and specific, for example, the sucking-through-a-straw schema or the recognizing-
a-rose schema.
• Or they can be larger and more general, for example, the drinking schema or the gardening schema.
• As a person's thinking processes become more organized and new schemes develop, behavior also becomes
more sophisticated and better suited to the environment.

• Adaptation
• In addition to the tendency to organize their psychological structures, people also inherit the tendency to adapt
to their environment.
• Two basic processes are involved in adaptation: assimilation and accommodation.
• Assimilation is the application of previous concepts to new concepts.
• Assimilation is how humans perceive and adapt to new information. It is the process of fitting new information
into pre-existing cognitive schemas. Assimilation in which new experiences are reinterpreted to fit into, or
assimilate with, old ideas. It occurs when humans are faced with new or unfamiliar information and refer to
previously learned information in order to make sense of it.
• An example is the child who refers to a cat as a “small dog.” They try to match the new experience with an
existing schema for identifying animals.

• In contrast, Accommodation is the process of taking new information in one's environment and altering pre-
existing schemas in order to fit in the new information. This happens when the existing schema (knowledge)
does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation. Accommodation is imperative
because it is how people will continue to interpret new concepts, schemas, frameworks, and more.
• Accommodation (altering existing schemes or creating new ones in response to new information) occurs when
a person must change existing schemas to respond to a new situation.
• Children demonstrate accommodation when they add the schema for recognizing cats to their other systems
for identifying animals.
• Piaget believed that the human brain has been programmed through evolution to bring equilibrium, which is
what he believed ultimately influences structures by the internal and external processes through assimilation
and accommodation.

• Piaget's understanding was that assimilation and accommodation cannot exist
without the other. They are two sides of a coin. To assimilate an object into an
existing mental schema, one first needs to take into account or accommodate to
the particularities of this object to a certain extent. For instance, to recognize
(assimilate) an apple as an apple, one must first focus (accommodate) on the
contour of this object. To do this, one needs to roughly recognize the size of the
object. Development increases the balance, or equilibration, between these two
functions. When in balance with each other, assimilation and accommodation
generate mental schemas of the operative intelligence. When one function
dominates over the other, they generate representations which belong to
figurative intelligence.

Cognitive Development by Jean Piaget
• Piaget believed that all people pass through the same four stages in exactly the same order. These stages are
generally associated with specific ages. Piaget noted that individuals may go through long periods of
transition between stages and that a person may show characteristics of one stage in one situation, but
characteristics of a higher or lower stage in other situations. Therefore, knowing a student's age is never a
guarantee that you know how the child will think (Orlando & Machado, 1996).
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development proposes 4 stages of development.
• sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
• preoperational stage: 2 to 7 years
• concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years
• formal operational stage: ages 12 and up

The Sensorimotor Stage
Ages: Birth to 2 Years
•The first stage is the sensory motor stage, and during this stage the infant focuses on physical sensations and on
learning to co-ordinate his body.
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:
•The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring its
environment).
•During the sensorimotor stage a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence (the
understanding that objects have a separate, permanent existence); self-recognition (the child realises that other
people are separate from them); deferred imitation (encode an internal representation of an object or act, which
could then be retrieved at a later date).
•They relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world
mentally
•At about 8 months the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they
can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they disappear.

The Preoperational Stage
Ages: 2 - 7 Years
•At the beginning of this stage the child does not use operations, so the thinking is influenced by the way things
appear rather than logical reasoning.
•A child cannot conserve which means that the child does not understand that quantity remains the same even
if the appearance changes.
•Furthermore, the child is egocentric; he assumes that other people see the world as he does. This has been
shown in the three mountains study.
•Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental
imagery.
•During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing,
such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
•A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical
(problem solving) type of thought.
•Moreover, the child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in
sub-sets, which involves classify objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously
•Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living
objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

The Concrete Operational Stage
Ages: 7 - 11 Years
•By the beginning of the concrete operational stage, the child can use operations ( a set of logical rules) so he
can conserve quantities, he realises that people see the world in a different way than he does and he has
improved in inclusion tasks. Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking (direction, Spatial reasoning).
•During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.
•Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in
appearance, certain properties remain the same.
•During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g. picture a ball of plastic returning to its original
shape).
•During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think
and feel.

The Formal Operational Stage
Ages: 11 and Over
•As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and
classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.
•Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not everyone
achieves this stage).. This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in
scientific reasoning.
•Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal
operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
•During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up
cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).
•They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
•Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would
happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible consequences.

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