Gagne's Condition of Learning Theory, Educational Psychology, Gagne's Hierarchy of Learning, Gagne's The Nine Events of Instruction, M.Ed., B.Ed.

1. Gagne’s
Condition of Learning Theory
By
Neema K
I st year M.Ed.
School of Pedagogical Science
Kannur University, Dharamsala

3. ROBERT M GAGNE (1916-2002)
★ Robert Gagne was an American educational psychologist best
known for his Condition of Learning theory.
★ Gagne developed the ‘science of instruction’ in the 1990”s
during world war II.
★ His book ‘The Condition of Learning’ first published in 1965.
★ He identified the mental condition that are necessary for
affective learning.
★ In, it he discusses the analogies of learning objective and how
the different classes of object require specific teaching methods.

4. CONDITION OF LEARNING THEORY
❏ Gagne believed that the environment influence the learning process.
❏ He focuses on intentional or purposeful learning, which is occurs in
school or specific training programs.
❏ His theory identifies the general types of human capabilities that are
learned.
❏ These capabilities are the behavioral changes (learning outcomes) in a
learner.
❏ The theory looks at the observable changes in human behaviour that
confirm that learning has occurred.

5. 4 Elements provide the framework for
Gagne’s Condition of Learning Theory
1. Condition of Learning
2. Association Learning
3. The Five Categories of Learning
4. The Nine Events of Instruction

6. Conditions of Learning
Gagne describe two different types of conditions, that is
1. Internal Conditions
2. External Conditions
❖ Internal Conditions :- The capabilities that are already exist in a
learner before any new learning begins. The internal conditions are
necessary for learning. These internal conditions are transformed
during the learning process.
❖ External Conditions :- External conditions include different stimulus
that exist outside the learner such as the environment, the teacher,
and the learning situations.

7. Association Learning
There are three basic prototype of learning that demonstrate the
characteristics of association learning,
❏ Classical conditioning :- The process where the learner
associates on already available response with a new stimulus
or signal.
❏ Operant conditioning :- The process where a response in a
learner is instrumental and thereby leads to a subsequent
reinforcing event.
❏ Verbal association :- It is occurs when the learner makes verbal
responses to stimuli that are words or pairs of words. Chaining
is a process where a learner connects individual associations in
sequence.

8. The five categories of Learning outcomes
❖

9. Intellectual skills
➢ ‘Knowing how ‘ or having procedural knowledge.
➢ Involve the use of symbols such as numbers and language to
interact with the environment.
➢ It is require an ability to carry out actions
➢ When a learner has learned an intellectual skill, he or she will be
able to demonstrate its application to at least one particular
instance of the subject matter learned.
The five categories of Intellectual Skills.
1. Discriminations
2. Concrete Concept
3. Defined Concept
4. Rules
5. High Order Rules

10. Discriminations :-
● This is the first skill to master in intellectual skills.
● It is the ability to distinguish one feature of an object or symbol from
another such as textures, letters, numbers, shapes, and sounds. The
human performance or learning outcome achieved by discrimination.
● It is the prerequisite to further learning.
Concrete Concepts :-
● It is occurs after discriminations learning is complete.
● Concrete concepts are the simplest of the two concept types.
● It is the ability to identify a class of objects, object qualities, or
relations.

11. Defined Concepts :-
● Concepts not only require identification, but also need definition.
● It is require a learner to define both general and relational
concepts
Rules :-
● It is a learned capability of the learner, by making it possible for
the learner to do something rather than just stating something.
Higher-Order Rules :-
● The process of combining rules by learning into more complex
rules used in problem solving.
● When attempting to solve a problem, a learner may put two or
more rules together from different content in order to form a
higher-order rule that solves the problem.

12. Cognitive Strategies
➢ It is the process that learners guide their learning, remembering,
and thinking.
➢ cognitive strategies govern our processes of dealing with the
environment by influencing internal processes.
➢ A learner uses cognitive strategies in thinking about what was
learned and in solving problems.
➢ Learner manages the processes of learning, remembering, and
thinking.
➢ The performance or learning outcome achieved through cognitive
strategies is having the ability to create something new.

13. Verbal Information
➢ This is refers to the organized bodies of knowledge that we
acquire.
➢ They may be classified as names, facts, principles, and
generalizations.
➢ Verbal information is referred to as declarative knowledge, or
knowing that.
➢ The performance or learning outcome achieved through verbal
information is the ability of being able to state in a meaningful
sentence what was learned.

14. Attitudes
➢ The internal state that influences the choices of personal actions made
by an individual towards some class of things, persons, or events.
➢ Choices of action (behaviours) made by individuals are influenced
significantly by attitudes.
General classes of attitudes
1.attitudes that affect social interactions.
2.attitudes that consist of positive preferences towards certain activities.
3.attitudes that pertain to citizenship, such as a love of country or
showing concern for social needs and goals.
➢ The performance or learning outcome achieved through attitudes is
evident in an individual’s choice of actions. For example, choosing
swimming over running as a preferred exercise, or choosing not to
participate in group events reflects how attitude motivates choices.

15. Motor Skills
➢ Motor skills are the precise, smooth, and accurately timed
execution of movements involving the use of muscles.
➢ They are a distinct type of learning outcome and necessary to
the understanding of the range of possible human
performances.
➢ Learning situations that involve motor skills are learning to
write, playing a musical instrument, playing sports, and driving
a car.
➢ The timing and smoothness of executing motor skills indicates
that these performances have a high degree of internal
organization.

16. Gagne postulates that if the five categories of learning outcomes
and the ways of analyzing learning requirements are combined in a
rational and systematic manner, then it will be possible to describe a
set of ideas that make up a theory of instruction. He adds that a
theory of instruction should attempt to relate the external events of
instruction to the outcomes of learning by showing how these events
lead to appropriate support or enhancement of internal learning
processes.

17. Gagne’s Hierarchy of Learning
❏ Gagne proposed a system of classifying different types of
learning in terms of the degree of complexity of the mental
processes involved.
❏ He identified eight basic types, and arranged these in the
hierarchy. the Higher orders of learning in this hierarchy build
upon the lower levels. The lowest four orders tend to focus on
the more behavioral aspects of learning.
❏ The highest four focus on the more cognitive aspects.
❏ Here he distinguishes eight types of learning, beginning with the
simple forms and ending with the complex.

18. Problem Solving
Rule Learning
Concept Learning
Discrimination Learning
Verbal Association
Chaining
Stimulus-Response Learning
Signal Learning
Robert M Gagne’s Hierarchy of Learning
Cognitive aspects
Behavioral aspects

19. Signal Learning
➔ This is the simplest form of learning,
➔ Learn how to respond to a signal.
➔ Based on pavlov's classical conditioning
➔ Learning the animal or individual acquires a conditioned
response to a given signal.
➔ Usually the response is emotional.
➔ Eg: withdrawal of the hand upon sight of a hot object, and the
tearing of the eyes upon sight of an onion . The conditioned
responses are withdrawal of the hand, and tearing of the eyes.

20. Stimulus - Response learning
❖ This is more sophisticated form of learning.
❖ Based on Skinner’s operant conditioning.
❖ Stimulus-response (S-R) learning may be used in
acquiring verbal skills as well as physical movements.
❖ The Learner is trained to behave in a certain manner in
anticipation of a reward or punishment that will be
provided after a given response.

21. Chaining
★This is a more advanced form of learning in which the subject develops
the ability to connect two or more previously-learned stimulus-response
bonds into a linked sequence.
★It is the process whereby most complex psychomotor skills (eg riding a
bicycle or playing the piano) are learned.
★In this type of learning the person links together previously learned S-R’s.
★This type of learning often seems to occur so naturally that we do not
notice the specific series of events which led to it.
The student has the ability to connect two or more concepts learned via
stimulus-response learning. An example would be learning how to play a
musical instrument.
★Gagne uses the example of a child who learns to say “doll” at the sight of
a doll, then learns to lie down, hug the doll, and say “doll”.

23. Verbal association
❖ This is one of the key processes in the development of language
skills.
❖ This learning is a type of chaining, but the links are verbal units.
❖ The simplest verbal association is the activity of naming an object,
which involves a chain of two links: An observing response enables
the child to identify properly the object he sees; and an internal
stimulus enables the child to say the proper name.
❖ When the child can name an object “ball” and also say “ the red ball”
he has learned a verbal association of three links.

24. Ball…...

25. Discrimination learning
● This is the process in which we learn to discriminate
between similar phenomena.
● The stimuli may resemble each other but we learn to
identify the differences and respond differently to each
one.
● Eg: Learning to distinguish between a square and
rectangle.

27. Concept learning
❏ The learner is able to react in a consist manner when responding
to different stimulus which belong to the same general class or
category.
❏ It forms the basis of the ability to generalise, classify etc.
❏ In concept learning the student’s behavior is not under the
control of particular physical stimuli but of the abstract properties
of each stimulus.
❏ Concepts have concrete references even though they are
learned with the use of language.
❏ The student is able to react in a consist manner when
responding to different stimulus which belong to the same
general class or category. In other words, they are able to
generalize and classify concepts.

28. Rule learning
➔ This is a very-high-level cognitive process that involves being able
to learn relationships and connections between concepts and
apply these knowledge in different situations,The student is able
to apply this knowledge to new concepts.
➔ It forms the basis of the learning of general rules, procedures, etc.
➔ We may represent knowledge as a hierarchy of rules, in which we
must learn two or more rules before learning a higher order rule
which embraces them.

29. Problem Solving
➢ This is the highest level of cognitive process according to
Gagne.
➢ The student is able to create a multifaceted procedure or rule
in order to solve a problem and then apply that procedure to
solve similar problems.
➢ individuals use rules to achieve some goal. When the goal is
reached, however, the student has learned something more
and is then capable of new performances using his new
knowledge.

31. The Nine Events of Instruction
1. Gaining Attention
2. Informing Learners of the Objective
3. Stimulating Recall of Prior Learning
4. Presenting the Stimulus
5. Providing Learning Guidance
6. Eliciting Performance
7. Providing Feedback
8. Assessing Performance
9. Enhancing Retention and Transfer

32. Enhancing Retention and Transfer
Eliciting Performance
Presenting the Stimulus
Assessing Performance
Gaining Attention
Informing Learners of the Objective
Stimulating Recall of Prior Learning
Providing Learning Guidance
Providing Feedback
L 9
L 8
L 7
L 6
L 5
L 4
L 3
L 2
L 1
The Nine Events of Instruction

33. ❖ Gain attention
➢ Present a problem, story or situation that will grab the
learner’s attention.
➢ The idea is to grab the learner’s attention so they will
want to invest in the learning process
❖ Inform learner of objective
➢ This allows learners to form ideas, opinions and
thoughts on what they will learn.
➢ This key point allows students to focus on the goal of
the lesson

34. ❖ Stimulate recall of prior information
➢ This allows students to retrieve and reconstruct their
knowledge.
➢ Two important learning processes take place during this
phase, the retrieval practice and the scaffolding process
❖ Present information
➢ Present the information in organized sequences and
chunks to avoid brain overload.
➢ This phase allows students to receive feedback and
individualize tasks to overcome the challenges of learning.

35. ❖ Provide guidance
➢ Educators are presented with opportunities to coach
students.
➢ This phase may take place during one-on-one
sessions or in group settings.
❖ Elicit performance
➢ Learners are allowed to practice and develop skills
and/or knowledge.
➢ Modeling, teacher-to-student or student-to-student
may take place during this phase.

36. ❖ Provide feedback
➢ Feedback may come in many forms such as formal or
informal assessments.
➢ The key to this phase is to be as specific as possible.
➢ General feedback is discouraged when coaching or
guiding learners.
❖ Assess performance
➢ Evaluation of learner’s progress takes place during the
assessment performance phase.

37. ❖ Enhance retention and transfer
➢ Learners are encouraged to review the lesson in
its entirety.
➢ Teachers construct and deconstruct problems,
provide additional resources, reteach/restate
objective, goals and skills.

40. Educational Implications of Condition
of Learning Theory
★ The teaching learning activities should be so arranged that it should go in accordance
with the mental abilities of the learner at each level of the learning hierarchy.
★ The formal education should be planned hierarchically on the basis of the increasing
complexity of the different types of learning so that what is acquired at one grade acts
as a foundation for learning in the subsequent grades.
★ Teachers should ensure that the learner has acquired the necessary initial state of
learning before he is introduced to subsequent levels of learning.
★ Due weightage should be given to the learning hierarchy while framing the curriculum.
★ The role of teacher is to plan and control the external events which influence the
internal mental processes.
★ A teacher should be a designer and manager of instruction and an evaluator of student
learning.

41. Thank You