Points of Agreement Among Learning Theorists
(Adapted from H. R. Hilgard)
Citation: Huitt, W. (1996, November). Principles of learning: Points of agreement among learning theorists. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date], from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/summary/lrnprn.html.
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Context
1. Meaningful materials and meaningful tasks are learned more readily than nonsense materials and more readily than tasks not understood by the learner.
2. Learning under intrinsic motivation is preferable to learning under extrinsic motivation.
3. Motivation that is too intense (especially pain, fear, anxiety) may be accompanied by distracting emotional states, so that excessive motivation may be less effective than moderate motivation for learning some kinds of tasks, especially those involving difficult discriminations.
Input
4. In deciding who should learn what, the capacities of the learner are very important. Brighter people learn things quickly that less bright ones learn with great difficulty or not at all; in general, older children can learn more rapidly than younger ones; the decline of ability with age, in older-aged adults, depends upon what is being learned.
5. A motivated learner acquires what he learns more rapidly than one who is not motivated. The relevant motives include both general and specific ones. For example, desire to learn and need for achievement are general, while desire for a certain reward or to avoid a threatened punishment are specific.
6. The personal history of the individual, for example, his reaction to authority, may hamper or enhance his ability to learn from a given teacher.
Process
7. Active participation by a learner is preferable to passive reception when learning. For example, elaborative rehearsal of information during classroom recitation is generally preferable to listening to a lecture or watching a motion picture.
8. Learning under the control of reward is preferable to learning under the control of punishment.
9. Transfer of new tasks will be better if, in learning, the learner can discover relationships for himself, and if he has experience during the learning of applying the principles within a variety of tasks.
10. There is no substitute for repetitive practice in the overlearning of skills or in the memorization of unrelated facts that have to be automatized.
11. Spaced or distributed practice is advantageous in fixing material that is to be long retained.
Output
12. Information about the nature of a good performance, knowledge of successful results, and knowledge of his own mistakes, aid learning.
13. Individuals need practice in setting realistic goals for themselves, goals neither so low as to elicit little effort nor so high as to foreordain to failure. Realistic goal-setting leads to more satisfactory improvement than unrealistic goal-setting.
14. Tolerance for failure is best taught through providing a backlog of success that compensates for experienced failure.
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