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SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
DEPAERMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SPECIAL NEEDS
UNIT CODE EPS B205
UNIT TITLE: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Contact Hours
45 Hours
Pre-requisites
None
Purpose
Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology, Learning, Remembering and Forgetting,
Factors that Influence Learning, Transfer of Learning, Individual Differences in Learning,
Motivation, Attitude, Personality, Classroom Management, The Exceptional Learner, and
Guidance and Counseling
Course Description
This course is designed to expose the learners to learning experiences with the students in the
classroom setting and in any learning environment. The teacher trainee is expected to
understand some of the challenges the students face while learning and be able to apply
psychological principles to solve them.
Learners’ outcomes
By the end of the course, learners should be able to respond to questions from the following
areas: Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology, Learning, Remembering and
Forgetting, Factors that Influence Learning, Transfer of Learning, Individual Differences in
Learning, Motivation, Attitude, Personality, Classroom Management, The Exceptional
Learner, and Guidance and Counseling
Course content
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Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology
Theories of Learning
Remembering and Forgetting
Factors that Influence Learning
Transfer of Learning
Individual Differences in Learning
Motivation
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Attitude
Personality
Classroom Management
The Exceptional Learner
Guidance and Counseling
Mode of Assessment/Evaluation
2 CATS
30%
Final Exam
70%
Core Teaching Materials
Gage, N. L. & Berliner, D. C. (1991). Educational psychology. Toronto, Houghton: Mifflin
Company.
Lefrancois, G. R. (1994). Psychology for teaching. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing
Company
Core Reference Materials
Houston, P. J. (2004). Fundamentals of learning and memory (2nd Ed.). London: Academic
Press
Ingule, O. F et al (1999). Introduction to psychology. Nairobi: East Africa Education
Publishers
Reisberg, (1991). Psychology of learning and education. Norton: Macmillan
Travers, (2001). Essentials of learning (Revised ed.). New York: Macmillan
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LECTURE ONE: INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATION PSYCHOLOGY
Meaning of Educational Psychology
What is Educational Psychology?
We cannot define educational psychology without knowing what psychology is.
The term "psychology" is derived from two Greek words – psyche (soul) and
logos (science or study). Thus, literally it means study or science of soul. This
view was later refined to mean the scientific study of human behaviour and
thought processes. It explores the ways in which we behave as individuals and
in groups, the way we think and relate to others and the conditions under which
we do so.
As a science of behaviour, psychology psychology has many branches and
approaches some of which include the following:
Developmental Psychology is the science that studies changes that take
place in the lifespan of a person. The changes take place in the body from
the time of conception through uterine life, infancy, early childhood,
middle and late childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle
adulthood, later adulthood, aging and dying. The teacher uses this
knowledge in order to develop a curriculum that is in line with the
intellectual stage of development of the learner. It also helps the teacher
to gauge the level of difficulty of content so that he/she can organize
teaching and learning activities that present the right level of difficulty to
learners. The teacher also derives from Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development the teaching procedures that are appropriate to the level of
cognitive development of the learner. Developmental psychology also
enables the teacher to understand the emotional, social and moral
development. With this understanding, the teacher is able to develop
learning activities that help the learner to develop positively in these
areas. This ensures that the learner is well groomed intellectually,
physically, socially, morally, emotionally, and even spiritually.
Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with mental
processes that are involved in understanding behavior. These processes
include thinking, remembering, forgetting, problem solving and
perception. From this area of psychology, the teacher applies the
principles of enhancing memory of learned material. He also learns what
to do in the learning situation in order to minimize forgetting of the learnt
material
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Social Psychology refers to the study of social interactions and their
influence on individual and group behavior. This branch of psychology
enables the teacher to understand how attitudes are acquired and changed.
For example how learners acquire positive and negative attitudes towards
a teacher, subject, school or even the school administration and how the
acquired attitudes affect learning and adjustment to school. The teacher
also gains insight as to how biases and prejudices are acquired and how
they can affect learning. The teacher also gains information regarding
how friendships develop and how friendships are maintained. This has a
bearing on the learners’ social adjustment and acceptance by the peers
and its effects on learning.
Psychometric psychology deals with the measurement theory which
equips the teachers with skills needed in the measurement and evaluation
of relevant variables such as achievement and personality traits in
education settings. Being equipped with measurement skills enables the
teacher to evaluate learning and make necessary adjustments so that
effective learning can take place.
Personality psychology deals with personality theories concerned with
individual differences. They explain why each learner is unique in terms
of his/her needs and personality traits. Information gained from
personality psychology equips the teacher with tools needed in terms of
understanding each learner in particular and learners in general. This
understanding helps the teacher to organize learning experiences that
cater for each learner. This is important since the teacher deals with
learners with differences in intellectual ability, emotional experience and
expression, moral thinking and behavior, sociability and other traits that
learners bring to class.
Mental hygiene refers to those factors that promote the learner’s
adjustment. These factors may exist in the home, in the school, among
peers, and in the community and may operate to promote or hinder
learning and adjustment. The teacher who is aware of the factors will be
prepared to handle any problem that arises from any of the possible
angles and help the learner to cope adequately in all situations.
Guidance and counseling are major concerns of mental hygiene. The
teacher who can both guide and counsel learners will help to promote
appropriate methods of solving problems and dealing with the stresses of
daily living in the learner.
Thus, Educational Psychology is the application of the knowledge gained from
these areas of Psychology to solve educational problems. This is in line with the
following definitions
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 Oladele’s (1987):“Educational Psychology is the application of
Psychological principles, techniques and other resources of Psychology
to the solution of educational problems confronting the teacher as he
attempts to direct the process of learning and growth of the child towards
the objectives set by the teacher, the school and the society”
(experimental psychology).
 Gage/Berlner (1992) define educational psychology as an applied branch
of psychology concerned with application of the principles and
techniques of psychology to the solution of the problems confronting the
teacher in the classroom.
 Woolfolk (1998) also defines Educational psychology as the study of
what people think, do, and feel as they teach and learn in a particular
environment where education and training are intended to take place.
 Crow and Crow (1973) describe educational psychology as the learning
experiences of an individual from birth through old age (developmental
psychology).
 Ausubel (1968) define educational psychology as a special branch of
psychology concerned with the nature, conditions, outcomes and
evaluation of school learning and retention (social and cognitive
psychology)
 Educational psychology is the science which explains the changes that
take place in the individuals as they pass through the various stages of
development (Judd, 1939; developmental psychology)
 Kolesnik (1970) define education psychology as the study of those facts
and principles of psychology which help to explain and improve the
process of education (experimental psychology)
 According to Peel (1956), educational psychology is the science of
education (experimental psychology)
 According to Skinner (1958), educational psychology is a branch of
psychology that deals with teaching and learning
 Stephen () defines educational psychology as the systematic study of the
educational growth and development of a child (developmental
psychology).
 Trow (1953) defines educational psychology as the study of the
psychological aspects of educational situations.
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 Educational Psychology is the discipline concerned with teaching and
learning processes; applies the methods and theories of psychology and
has its own as well (Woolfolk, 1995).
 Educational psychology refers to the academic discipline that focuses on
human teaching and learning (Berliner, 2006).
Focus Areas of Educational Psychology
Focal areas of educational psychology can also be referred to as elements of
teaching-learning situation. There are six major areas covered in educational
psychology and these include the following
 The learner (whom to teach): The learner is a very important element in
the teaching-learning process. Without him/her, nobody is learning and
of course if nobody is learning, there is no teaching. For this reason, the
teacher should understand learner characteristics. The learners in any
classroom situation bring differences in personality, learning styles,
experiences, level of motivation, abilities, emotional dispositions,
cognitive styles and perception. They bring differences in social
economic backgrounds, cultural orientations, religious and family
backgrounds as well. For these reasons, the teacher needs to use
appropriate psychological theories and principles in order to understand
each learner and his/her personality dynamics. He/she needs to
understand learners in general and social dynamics that promote learning
for each of the learners.
 The content being taught (what to teach): For the subject matter to be
learned with ease, it needs to be selected, organized and presented in a
manner that makes it learnable. The subject matter, experiences and
activities should be organized according to the various stages of
development of the child in order to ensure that the learners assimilate
the content. The teacher should also deliver the content in fluent and
clear communication.
 The teaching-learning process (how to teach): This is the process by
which people deliver content, acquire changes in behavior, improve
performance, reorganize their thinking, discover new concepts and
information. This process entails everything that people do when they
learn. Educational psychology helps teachers to get to know how
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learners think and perceive, remember and forget. The teacher gets to
understand the conditions that make these behaviors probable and also
the conditions that inhibit them. With this knowledge, the teacher can
ensure that learning has all the chances of occurring.
 The learning environment (where and when to teach): This refers to
the surroundings in which the learner finds him/herself and in which the
learning process takes place. It can also be defined as any factor that
affects the learner or the learning process such as facilities. The facilities
may be adequate or inadequate, safe or unsafe, comfortable or
uncomfortable, appropriate or inappropriate.
 The teacher (who is to teach): The role of the teacher is to impart
knowledge and he must understand himself thoroughly. He must have a
stable personality.
 The social climate: This is a very important factor as it may help to
facilitate or hinder learning. The social climate refers to the human
interactions that take place in any classroom situation between the
teacher and the learners. The social climate can be cordial or hostile.
Hostilities may exist between the teacher and the learners, among
learners in the class or among learners in different classes. A hostile
relationship may also exist between the school and its immediate
neighborhood.
Relevance of Educational Psychology to the Teacher
1. Catering for individual differences: No two persons are exactly
the same. There are individual differences in terms of intelligence
level, ability, likes and dislikes and in other potentialities. In
addition, different minds are to be trained by the teacher. There are
the gifted, retarded, talented and handicapped children. All of them
should not be treated in the same manner. The knowledge of
educational psychology helps the teacher to cater for these
individual differences among learners.
2. Guidance for the education of exceptional children: Educational
psychology has contributed a lot for making specific provisions
and organization of educational programs for exceptional children
who remained neglected in the past and were denied suitable
educational facilities.
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3. Understanding developmental characteristics: Learners pass
through different stages of development- infancy, childhood and
adolescence, etc. and each developmental stage has its own
characteristics. The teacher must be acquainted with the
characteristics of each stage and utilize these characteristics in
imparting instruction and molding the behaviours of the learner.
4. Character development: Educational psychology helps in the
formation and development of character. The teacher comes to
know the methods he should adopt in inculcating character traits,
and moral principles among the children
5. Constructive and creative discipline: The slogan “spare the rod
and spoil the child” was the key instrument in the past. Now
teachers adopt a cooperative and scientific approach to modify the
behaviours of children. The teacher now plays the role of a
democrat and not of an autocrat.
6. Understanding group dynamics: In recent years, the importance
of social behaviour has gained a great significance. The teacher
therefore, must know the operations of group dynamics in the
classroom teaching-learning process as well as total school and
social environment and their effect on learning.
7. Understanding the nature of classroom learning: The
knowledge of educational psychology helps the teacher to adapt
and adjust his teaching according to the level of the learners. For
instance when a large number of learners are not understanding the
concepts taught in class, the teacher should be able to find out what
is causing that and adjust accordingly using knowledge of
educational psychology.
8. Understanding effective methods of teaching: Educational
psychology has discovered several new approaches, principles, and
techniques of teaching which are very helpful in eliminating
traditional practices. For instance educational psychology tells us
how significant play and recreation are for the children and how
role play methods turn learning into an interesting task.
9. Use of new instructional technology: It has been experimentally
proven that the use of audio-visual aids holds the attention and
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interests of children for a longer period and makes the difficult
concepts more clear and learning becomes more lasting.
10.Curriculum construction: Psychological principles are used in
formulating curriculum for different stages. For instance attempts
are made to provide subjects and activities in the curriculum which
are in conformity to the needs of the students, their developmental
characteristics, learning patterns and needs of the society.
11.Timetable framing: Psychological principles are kept in view
when framing the timetable. Now efforts are made not to teach
difficult subjects in successive periods or in the last period before
interval or at the end of the school day.
12.Provision of co-curricular activities: For a balanced and
harmonious development of children, it is now realized that there
should be an adequate provision of activities like debates,
discussions, drama, social service activities, games and sports.
13.Measurement of learning outcomes: Educational psychology has
produced so many tests and instruments of mental measurement
which are proving to be extremely useful in the field of education.
For instance the teacher can know that children with IQ below 90
cannot do well in medical, engineering, administrative, or other
similar vocations.
14.Understanding the learning process: Teaching and learning go
side by side. All education depends on the learning of new
responses and the capacity of a child to learn new responses.
Educational psychology discusses the nature of learning theories
and types of learning for different age levels and situations.
15.Knowledge of mental health: Mental health of the teacher and the
learner is important for effective teaching-learning. A study of
educational psychology helps the teacher to know the various
factors which are responsible for the mental ill-health and
maladjustment. He accordingly tries to eliminate such factors and
create a healthy mental environment.
16.Educational psychology and the nervous system: The entire
education depends on the function of the brain and nervous system.
It becomes essential for a teacher to study the nervous system
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which controls human behaviour. He must have the knowledge of
sensory organs which are the gateways of knowledge.
17.Understanding the significance of research: Educational
psychology helps in developing tools and devices for the
measurement of various variables which influence behaviour and
performance of learners as well as teachers.
18.Developing scientific attitude: Knowledge of educational
psychology is helpful in making the teacher more scientific in his
educational practices and consequently he may become more
methodical, objective and rational in his work.
19.Educational psychology and play: Play is a natural tendency of
having great educational potentials. Knowledge of educational
psychology helps the teacher to provide for a variety of activities
for children.
The Pre-Scientific Methods Used by Teachers
Pre-scientific methods are those that are not founded in any scientific research
or theory. These are methods that have not been tested for the applicability or
validity. When the teacher uses them, they possess the likelihood of inhibiting
or preventing learning. Some of these methods include the following
 Certain habits: There are certain habits which are pre-scientific and if
used by the teacher could be detrimental to learning. These are habits like
being unprepared. A teacher may imagine that there is no need to prepare
for a lesson because he/she has taught it for many years and therefore has
control over the content. This teacher may not take time to prepare the
lesson plan or lesson notes and therefore goes to class with the textbook
alone. This teacher cannot run an effective lesson because of being
unprepared. Although it is true that he/she has taught the content for
many years it is important to take time and interact with the content by
making a lesson plan and lesson notes.
 Pre-established beliefs: Teachers or school heads may hold certain preestablished beliefs which can inhibit learning. There is the belief that
anybody can teach anything. The school heads who hold this belief will
allocate teachers subjects that they are not comfortable teaching. For
example a teacher could be very good in teaching physics and since
physics is a science, he could be allocated to teach all the sciences. This
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will result in the teacher producing poor results in those subjects where he
lacks competence. There is also the issue of relying on untrained teachers
because they will not ask to be paid a lot of money. These teachers may
have the potential of being good teachers but their untrained state
translates into poor performance. They also do not possess the
appropriate methods of dealing with many aspects of the student’s life in
the school.
The use of common sense: This is yet another pre-scientific belief.
Teachers who lack training in educational psychology may rely on use of
common sense. For example they may hold the belief that any student can
learn anything. They are not aware that for a learner to be able to learn
there are many variables that interact in highly complex ways to promote
or hinder him/her from learning. These variables are the learner’s
intellectual giftedness which may be genetically determined, the learner’
motivation, interest, needs and values. The teacher has to understand the
learner very well in order to be able to determine what he/she can learn
and the conditions under which learning will occur.
Personal impressions: The teacher may have biased perceptions of
particular learners or a class in general. He/she may believe that a certain
learner or a class is bad or poor. This belief may be a result of staff-room
tales. A teacher with these impressions is likely to cultivate very negative
attitudes towards the learners. The negative attitudes affect his/her
interactions with the learners both inside and outside the classroom. This
will promote the development of hostility between the teacher and the
learners and as a result learning and adjustment is affected negatively.
Popular beliefs: Every school has its own popular beliefs. One such
belief is that learners cannot be disciplined unless they are punished. A
teacher with such a belief relies on punitive measures in his interactions
with learners. Reliance on punishment has very many negative effects on
learners. It is responsible for the development of hostilities and negative
emotions between the teacher and the learners and its effects on learning
are negative. They hinder learning and also promote development of
maladjustment to school.
Folklore: This refers to the staff room tales. When the teachers are in the
staffroom they tell each other stories about students. These stories may be
told by a teacher or teachers who have problems with a certain class or
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certain pupils. The stories may be full of biases, prejudices, and negative
attitudes towards the students. He/she may believe that students are
disobedient, lazy, poor academically, rude, or even outright bad. The
teacher with these beliefs wishes to bias the other teachers so that they
too can hold the attitudes he/she holds. If the other teachers too assume
the same biases, they approach students negatively and as a result
learning and teaching are grossly affected. These teachers approach
students in a hostile manner, which in turn affects both achievement and
adjustment to school.
 Subject-centered approach: The teacher who uses subject-centered
approach forgets that the content is meant to be imbibed (taken in or
absorbed) by the learner. They focus on the coverage of content. The
teacher is also teacher-centered while the learner takes the passive role in
learning-teaching process. What happens in this situation is that the
learner is also lost most of the time and he/she lacks competence and
motivation to learn the content. This result in the learner’s disorientation
and failure to achieve in tests and examinations based on the content.
 Drilling: This is a method of teaching that relies on rote memory. Rote
memory refers to committing to memory meaningless content. Students
who are subjected to drilling concentrate on passing the examination
only. They do not learn the meaning or usefulness of the content learned.
They find it difficult to use or apply the knowledge in life situations. The
traditional methods of teaching mathematics and science relied a lot on
drilling accompanied by heavy punishment for those who failed to master
the content. Inherent with drilling methods was the concept that the
subject was taught because it was difficult. As a result the content was so
mystified that only a few bright students were able to cope with it. As a
result the teacher concentrated attention on the few students who could
cope with it while he/she said that the other students were in class to
warm it up for the capable ones.
Benefits of the Scientific Approach
A teacher gains from using the scientific approach in his/her interaction s
with learners. This is a teacher who demonstrates competence in the
following skills
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 He/she possesses the traditional skills of explaining,
demonstrating, informing and evaluating.
 He/she can organize leaning activities.
 He/she can diagnose learning difficulties of pupils
 Can motivate children to learn so that they direct their energy
towards the learning task.
 He/she is able to select materials appropriate to the level of the
learners’ attainment
 He/she can identify the learning difficulties of children and refer
them for treatment by other specialists
 He/she has a better theoretical and functional understanding of
the educational process.
 He/she has a broader deeper and more effective understanding
of the learning teaching process based on scientific research.
This approach is realistic and it leads to effective teaching.
 Educational psychology fills the gaps in the teachers’
understanding of educational processes. Corrects
misconceptions so that the teacher sees education and its
processes in a different light. He/she sees possibilities, relations
and problems.
 The teacher can identify problems in a given classroom situation
and can find more solutions to these problems.
Revision Questions
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ii.
iii.
iv.
Explain the difference between the following terms
a) Psychology and educational psychology
b) Education and educational psychology
How does educational psychology differ from other branches of
psychology
What do we mean when we say that “educational psychology is an
applied branch of psychology”?
“The teacher is merely a facilitator of learning”. Explain the significance
of this statement.
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v.
vi.
Show the importance of the following focal areas of educational
psychology
a) The learner
b) The learning environment
c) The teaching-learning process
d) The teacher
e) The social climate
f) The subject matter
What is the relevance of educational psychology to the classroom
teacher?
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LECTURE TWO: LEARNING
 Learning is a relatively permanent change in capacity to perform acquired
tasks through experience (Wittrock, 1977)
 Learning is a process of acquiring relatively permanent change in
understanding, attitude, knowledge, information, ability, and skill through
experience (Thomas & Jere, 1986)
 Learning is an enduring or permanent change in behaviour (Shwell,
1986).
 Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of
experience and practice (Ingule & Ndamuji, 1996)
 Behaviorists define learning as an enduring change in behaviour
potentiality which occurs as a result of reinforced practice.
 Cognitive psychologists define learning as the mental activity by means
of which knowledge, skills, habits, attitudes, and ideals are acquired,
retained and utilized, resulting in the progressive adaptation and
modification of behaviour and conduct.
Modes or Ways of Learning
 Imitation or modelling: Human beings especially children learn new
behaviours by observing and practicing the behaviours of others. This
means that the behaviour of others serve as a model to be imitated.
 Association and conditioning: We learn attitudes and acquire habits
through association and conditioning. For instance often students learn to
associate friendly teachers with provision of safety, warmth and good
learning conditions.
 Incidental learning: Here, one is not taught to learn something. He/she
is not expected to be tested either. This kind of learning is commonly
known as by-the-way learning. It often takes place in connection with
something else. It is a form of informal learning.
 Memorisation: This refers to remembering by heart. If memorization is
accompanied by understanding of tasks, then memory gains some
importance in the mind of the learner e.g., reciting the rosary, the Lord’s
prayer etc by Christians
 Drama and play: Learning takes place through actively taking part in
role plays and drama.
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 Transfer of learning: This takes place when learning of one task affects
the ability to learn another. This means that we build on previous learning
to master more complex ways.
Principles of Classical and Operant Conditioning
1. Reinforcement: both forms of learning are strengthened by the use of
reinforcement or reward. The reinforcer may be the presentation of
something pleasant, such as food to a dog, or the removal of some
unpleasant stimulus, like electric shock. The effect of reinforcement is
to increase the possibility of re-occurrence of a response that it
accompanies.
2. Extinction: this is the process where the conditioned response rate
declines due to continued presentation of the conditioned stimulus
without reinforcement. For example, in classical conditioning, the
sounding of the bell for a long period without presenting meat powder
will lead to the reduction in the rate of salivation. In operant
conditioning, pressing of the bar in the skinner-box without the
presentation of food or water will lead to the reduction in the rate of
bar-pressing
3. Spontaneous recovery: in both classical and operant conditioning,
spontaneous recovery involves the re-appearance of the conditioned
response without any additional reinforcement after a period of rest.
4. Stimulus generalisation: this involves an organism’s tendency to
respond to all stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimuli. For
example, the dog in Pavlov’s experiment occasionally salivated to
sounds similar to those of the bell such as a whistle. The ability to
generalize has important evolutionary significance. If we eat some red
berries and they make us sick, it would be a good idea to think twice
before we eat some purple berries. Although the berries are not exactly
the same, they nevertheless are similar and may have the same
negative properties
5. Stimulus discrimination: this is the tendency to respond differently
to stimuli that are similar but not identical. Pavlov’s dogs quickly
learned, for example, to salivate when they heard the specific tone that
had preceded food, but not upon hearing similar tones that had never
been associated with food. Discrimination is also useful—if we do try
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the purple berries, and if they do not make us sick, we will be able to
make the distinction in the future.
Application of Classical Conditioning to the Teaching-Learning Process
 The Learning Environment: From classical conditioning, we learn that
it is important to provide a conducive learning environment. The belief is
that all behaviour is controlled by environmental conditions and demands.
The learning environment should be enriched enough. It should be
arranged in a manner that makes learning possible. It is true that if Pavlov
had not provided the right environment for learning, the dog would never
have been conditioned to learn the association between the bell and the
food.
 The principle of Contiguity: This principle states that events that occur
together in time and space are associated together. These are the events
that are paired. When we look at the school situation we are concerned
with the events that are paired. If the teacher pairs pleasant experiences
with the school experiences the students learn to approach school with
enthusiasm. They learn to enjoy school and learning.
On the other hand, the teacher who pairs the school experiences with
unpleasant events makes learners to fear and hate school. There are many
unpleasant events that can be present in school. These include the use of
harsh words, insulting language, and punitive events. These negative
events affect the learner’s adjustment to school and performance. They
also create negative feelings and attitudes toward the teacher, the subject
he/she teaches and school in general. Teachers are therefore advised to
pair school experiences with pleasant events.
Application of Operant Conditioning in the Teaching-Learning Situation
Learner involvement
From operant conditioning, we can also apply the principle of learner
involvement. This is because when Skinner put the rat in the Skinner box, he
wanted it to learn actively. The rat had to explore the box and as a result on its
own discovered the relationship between bar pressing behaviour and food.
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Likewise the teachers should encourage learner involvement. The learners
should be given the chance to be searchers of knowledge. If they search for
knowledge, it becomes very significant for them. They should be allowed to
discover knowledge under conditions of reinforcement.
Social Learning Theory
This type of learning is also referred to as observational learning. The theory is
based on the belief that people acquire knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and values
through observing others in their social world (Atkinson, 1990). Children
observe their parents, siblings, teachers, and community figures and imitate
what they see.
According to Bandura (19986, 1977), people learn new behaviour through two
types observational learning namely, vicarious conditioning and modelling.
Vicarious conditioning is learning that occurs when the child observes another
child’s behaviour and its consequences. For example a young sibling could
observe an older sibling being praised or rewarded for demonstrating positive
behaviour patterns like obedience, hard work, honesty, and good grooming or
even excellence in field events.
In vicarious conditioning the learner is the young sibling who will be motivated
to engage in the behaviour the older sibling is rewarded or praised. This child
tries to excel in that behaviour in order to be treated like the older siblings. The
younger sibling can also observe the older sibling being punished for bad
behaviour like cheating, bullying others, laziness, poor grooming etc. The
younger sibling watches as the older sibling suffers as he/she carries out the
punishment or as he/she takes blame from either the parents or the teachers. The
younger sibling learns to avoid all those behaviours the older sibling is punished
for. He/she learns to behave differently in order to be praised or rewarded
instead of being punished.
Application of Vicarious Conditioning to School
From vicarious conditioning, we learn the importance of exposing learners to
models of good behaviour. At the same time we ensure that, when good
behaviour occurs it should not be ignored. It should be rewarded in order to
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encourage its occurrence and its spread to other children. When good behaviour
is ignored it dies out. To avoid this, the teacher should recognise the efforts that
learners are making and reinforce them so that they are strengthened and given
the chance of being observed and emulated by other learners.
Modelling
This refers to learning through direct observation. It involves a model and an
observer. The model may be the father, mother, sibling, teacher, or peer while
the observer is the learner. The model demonstrates behaviour which the learner
imitates. The behaviour could be mannerisms, gestures, dressing style, language
use, walking style, display of aggression, manner of working, attitudes, and
values. In order to acquire any of the above behaviours the observer watches the
model demonstrate the behaviour and practices it.
Application of Modelling
To apply the concept gained from the modelling theory the teacher should do
the following:
 Become models of good behaviour like good grooming, punctuality, hard
work, positive attitudes, responsibility, honesty, etc.
 The teacher should recognize models of good behaviour from among
students and reinforce them positively.
 The teacher should also invite models of the desired behaviour from the
community to come and speak to the students. For example models of
women who earn a living through mathematics, physics, chemistry, and
biology can be invited to talk to the girls and encourage them to take
these subjects seriously and also to confirm to them that women can
actually excel in them.
Insightful/Gestalt learning
This type of learning is also referred to as field learning. It is a cognitive type of
learning which focuses on the use of mental processes like thinking, perception
and insight in finding a solution to the problems confronting a learner. This
theory focuses on the ability of animals and people to solve problems through
reorganizing the perceptual world and using the facilities available to solve
problems.
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The experiments to demonstrate how learning occurs through insight were
conducted by Wolfgang Kohler in the 1920s. Kohler worked with Chimpanzees.
He had one bright chimpanzee called Sultan (Atkinson, 1990). Kohler put sultan
in a cage and then put a banana outside the cage, but out of sultan’s reach. In the
cage, Kohler put a stick. Sultan reached out for the banana but he could not
retrieve it with his hand because it was out of reach. When he did not get the
banana he looked around the cage and saw the stick. He quickly went for the
stick and used it to retrieve the banana. On the next day Kohler put the banana
further away outside the cage but at the same time placed two bamboo sticks in
the cage. Sultan ran for one of the sticks to get the bananas. However, as he
played with both sticks, one end of the stick entered the hollow side of the other
stick. Sultan looked at the joined sticks and immediately ran to solve his
problem. With the now lengthened stick, he pulled the bananas. Insight then is
that mental activity that is very rapid; almost immediate that helps us to solve a
problem, when we mentally “see” the relationships of things in our immediate
environment. It is a rapid perception of relationships, which helps us to
restructure and reorganize our perceptual world. For example sultan was able to
restructure his environment and reorganize it to solve his immediate problem.
Application
From the theory of insightful learning we need to take note of the following:
 The teacher should enrich the learning environment by providing
facilities learners could use to solve learning problems
 The teacher should have faith in the learners’ mental abilities to work
over information until they solve the problems confronting them.
 The teacher should realize that learners like to make sense of what
they learn by cognitively restructuring events.
 Insightful learning is whole, complete and unforgettable.
Information Processing System
This deals with the ability of the human mind to take in information (Encoding),
store it by maintaining it in memory and the ability to retrieve or recover
information from memory. According to Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), the
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huma mind is like a computer. The human mind senses, stores and retrieves
information as a computer does. Atkinson and Shiffrin discuss three
hypothetical memory levels or stages. These memory levels explain how
learners acquire complex concepts, how these are attended to, how they enter
the memory banks and how they are accessed when needed. The memory banks
are the following:
The short-term sensory storage
The short-term memory/ working memory
The long-term memory.
The short term sensory storage (STSS)
This memory bank is also called a sensory register. Its function is to receive
sensory information from the environment. This information is stored briefly in
the short term sensory register. This memory bank has limited capacity. The
STSS memory consists of the exact replica of sensory information. The visual
memory is called iconic memory. It looks like a snap shot that fades away in
about 0.5 seconds. It is visual spatial. This means that objects are seen in
different positions in space. That is we see objects that are near or far from us.
The auditory memory is called echoic memory and lasts 4 seconds. This
memory is phonological; it contains the echo of the sounds that we hear. The
STSS is bombarded by information all the time. Therefore it must select what
information to focus on or to attend to. Any information that is not attended to is
lost and we do not even remember or register it. However, the information that
is attended to is processed and encoded enabling it to move further along the
memory levels. It moves to the short-term memory.
The short term memory (STM)
This bank is also called working memory. It receives all the information that is
attended to in the STSS. At this memory level information is processed based
on what it looks like, sounds like or means. This memory bank has limited
capacity, which last for 20 to 30 seconds. It can contain 7 to 9 pieces of
information at a time. Information is stored acoustically and semantically; this
refers to how it sounds like and what it means.
Two things are likely to happen to information at this bank. We may get
information that we do not want to keep for a long time. For example we may
want to go to the shop to buy a few items but you do not write a shopping list.
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On your way to the shop you will rehearse the items we want to buy until we
buy them. Once we have bought them we do not need to rehearse the
information again and you quickly forget it. This kind of rehearsal is called
maintenance rehearsal and its purpose is to keep the information in memory for
a short time. This information does not move further along the memory bank.
The second thing that could happen is that we may want to process information
for the purpose of storing it in the long-term memory bank. In this case you will
engage in elaborative rehearsal. This rehearsal involves a repetition of
information and a memory search. We will search our memory to find out
whether there is new information that is similar to the incoming information.
This enables us to link the new information with the information already in
memory. For example if we are introduced to our lecturer for the first time and
we are told that he is called Mr. Odhiambo we will search our memory and find
another Odhiambo stored there. We will link the new Odhiambo to the old one
to help us remember him next time he comes to class. Maintenance rehearsal
helps to get information into the long-term memory bank.
The long-term memory bank
This is the permanent storehouse of information. We store first dates, special
birthdays, capital cities and other information accumulated throughout one’s
lifetime there. This memory bank has unlimited capacity. We may want to look
at how information enters this memory bank. In our discussion off the shortterm memory we have noted that information is kept in memory through both
maintenance and elaborate rehearsal. The maintenance rehearsal is for
information that we do not intend to keep in memory for long. The elaborate
rehearsal is for memory we want to make permanent. It involves a recreation of
information through repetition and also giving it meaning through its connection
with already existing information. This information is then stored in memory
bank. It is easier to remember if it has gone through elaborate rehearsal.
Elements that Interact to Bring about Learning
 The Stimulus (S): This is the source of learning i.e., where learning
comes from such as the teacher, facilitator, parents, mass media (TV,
newspapers, radio, magazines, etc).
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 The Organism (O): This is the recipient of learning i.e., the organism of
learning is the listener, student, audience or children.
 The Response (R): This refers to the outcome of learning. The response
is also known as performance or realized behaviour as a result of
learning.
 Content: This includes what is presented in learning i.e., subject matter,
message, or skill
 Process: This involves how the content is organized and passed on by the
stimulus to the organism. The process must be appealing or interesting
for effective learning to take place.
 Milieu: This is where learning is taking place e.g., the classroom.
Factors that Affect Learning
These are classified into three i.e., learner characteristics, instructor/ facilitator/
teacher characteristics, and the learning environment
1) The learner related factors
 Age of the learner
 Previous experience
 Attention span
 Intelligence of the individual
 Emotional state of the learner, e.g., domestic violence at home
 Physical handicaps e.g., sight, hearing difficulties, etc
2) Facilitator’s/ teacher factors
 Competence of the facilitator
 Character of the facilitator
 Expertise of the facilitator
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3) Environmental factors
 Noise
 Temperature
 Light
 Home environment
 The learner-teacher relationship
 Physical surroundings
 Learning facilities e.g., text books
Revision questions
1. Discuss situations in life that can be explained by
a) Classical conditioning
b) Operant conditioning
c) Insightful learning
d) Modelling
e) Observational learning
2. Discuss the role played by attention and rehearsal in learning
3. Explain instances where the theory of insightful learning is
applicable at home and classroom situations
Interest, Aptitude and Attention
Definitions of Interest
An interest is a tendency to become absorbed in an experience and
to continue it (Bingham, 1937)
Interest may refer to the motivating force that impels us to attend to
a person, a thing, or an activity (Crow & Crow, 1973).
Interest is a feeling of liking associated with a reaction, either
actual or imagined to a specific thing or situation (Jones, 1934).
Characteristics of Interest
 Interests are closely linked with our instincts, basic needs, drives and
motives
 Interest and attention are very much related to each other. Interest is a
precondition to attention
 Interests are innate as well as acquired dispositions
 Pursuit of one’s interest provides energy and a driving force
 Pursuit of one’s interest provides strength to an individual to resist fatigue
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




Interests are sharpened by heredity and environment
Interests are not fixed and permanent
Interests of the individual tend to become less varied with increasing age
Interests of individuals differ
Learning becomes effective and efficient when the interests of the
children are satisfied
Factors Affecting Interest
 Personal factors which include
i. Child’s physical health and development
ii. Child’s mental health and development
iii. Child’s age
iv. Child’s gender
v. Child’s aptitudes
vi. Child’s ideals, motives and wishes
vii. Child’s emotions, sentiments, and complexes
 Social economic or environmental factors
i. Socio-economic status of the family
ii. Rearing practices in the family
iii. Cultural status
iv. Education and training
v. Opportunities given to the child to explore their interests
How Teachers can Develop interests in children
 Accept and appreciate individual differences of children
 Provide children with a variety of materials and experiences to explore
and observe
 Encourage children to be spontaneous in their expression of ideas and
feelings
 Appreciate every child’s effort even if there is a lot of room for
improvement
 Incorporate stories in the teaching-learning programme because interest
in various subjects is awakened through story-telling
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Aptitude
Definitions
 Aptitudes embrace any characteristic which predisposes to learningincluding intelligence, achievement, personality, interests and special
skills (Bennett & Weisman, 1969).
 Aptitude is a condition or set of characteristics regarded as symptomatic
of an individual’s ability to acquire with training some usually specified
knowledge, skill, or set of responses such as the ability to speak a
language, to produce music etc (Bingham, 1942).
 Aptitudes are latent potentialities, undeveloped capacities, to acquire
abilities and skills and to demonstrate achievement (Hahn & Macheam,
1955)
 Aptitude has been defined as a measure of the probability of the success
of an individual with training in a certain type of situation- a job, in
school, or in such activities as playing netball, or learning a language
(Jones, 1934)
Ability, achievement and aptitude
Ability is concerned with the present. It indicates the combination of skills,
habits, and powers which an individual now has and which enables him to do
something
Achievement looks at the past. It indicates what has been done.
Aptitude looks to the future and on the basis of the habits, skills, and abilities
that an individual now has, predicts what he/she, with training may become and
what success he/she may have in a given occupation or position.
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Characteristics of an Aptitude
It is a unique combination of ability and personality characteristics
which predisposes a person to do one kind of work better than another
and increases his chances of success at it e.g., teachers and doctors
deal with people while engineers and technicians deal with machines.
An aptitude is largely acquired, though in several cases it has an innate
basis e.g., doctors in the family enhanced through training.
An aptitude is a set of conditions or characteristics as indicative of
one’s potentialities of success or failure in a course or job or vocation
An aptitude is relatively constant e.g., machine oriented versus people
oriented careers.
Generally, it is considered that aptitudes are formed up to puberty
(adolescence).
Uses of aptitude tests
 Selection of subjects in schools e.g., chemistry, physics, biology, etc.
 Selection of candidates for admission to various training courses e.g.,
nursing, teaching, engineering, etc.
 Selection of candidates for jobs e.g., doctors, teachers, engineers, etc.
Different types of aptitude tests
 Art (drawing, painting, sculpture) aptitude tests
 Clerical (secretarial, book keeping, accounting, religious) aptitude tests
 Manual (blue-collar jobs) aptitude tests e.g., lifting things, washing
plates, etc.
 Mechanical (engineering) aptitude tests
 Medical aptitude tests
 Scholastic aptitude tests i.e., success in school e.g., certificate course,
diploma, degree, etc
 Scientific aptitude tests
 Teacher’s aptitude tests
Measuring scholastic aptitudes
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Usually, four methods are employed to measure scholastic aptitude of the
students.
1. School marks: This is the traditional method of measuring aptitude i.e.,
performance in a particular subject.
2. Occupation of parents: Researchers tested the IQs of children of parents
following different occupations and found that children of professional
people (doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc) got higher IQ scores while
children of day labourers got lower IQ scores.
3. Teacher’s observation: The following points are always observed by
teachers to generalize the aptitude of students
i. Rapidity in comprehending (understanding) material of study
ii. Rapidity and accuracy in reading
iii. Ability in attacking new problems
iv. Large vocabulary
v. Eagerness to answer questions e.g., lawyers
vi. Deficiency in one or more skills etc
4. Scholastic aptitude tests: These tests are helpful in giving educational
and vocational guidance to students. Students with superior scholastic
aptitude are always preferred in college or university admissions.
Definitions of an Attitude
 An attitude is a tendency to react favourably or unfavourably towards a
designated class of stimuli such as a racial group, a custom or an
institution (Anastasi, 1988)
 An attitude denotes the sum-total of a person’s inclinations and feelings,
prejudice or bias, preconceived notions, ideas, fears, threats, about any
specific topic (Thurstone, 1931).
Characteristics of an Attitude
It is a point of view which may be true or false that one holds towards an
idea, object or person
It includes certain aspects of personality such as interest, appreciation and
social conduct e.g., extroverts and positive attitude towards social
gatherings.
An attitude is learnt from parents, teachers, siblings, and other role
models
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An attitude is adopted e.g., from western world through media such as
magazines, television shows.
An attitude has aspects such as direction (positive or negative), intensity
(low or high), generality (e.g., I hate science courses) or specificity (I
hate maths).
Definitions of Attention
 Attention is the concentration of consciousness upon one object rather
than upon others (Dumville, 1938)
 Attention is being keenly alive to some specific factor in our
environment. It is a preparatory adjustment for a response (Morgan &
Gilliland, 1942).
 Attention is a process of getting an object of thought clearly into the mind
(Ross, 1954)
 Attention is the ability of an organism to process some part of the
incoming sensations to the sense organs and ignore the rest of the stimuli
(Child, 1986).
Types of Attention
a) Non-volutionary or involuntary attention: This type of attention is
aroused without the will coming into play. We attend to an object or
idea without any conscious effort on our part e.g., sudden noise,
member of opposite sex
b) Volutionary or voluntary attention: This is conscious attention
governed by the will of a person.
Characteristics of Attention
 Attention is a form of activity of the mind
 It is cognitive (thought) and affective (feeling)
 It is selective
 It has a narrow range
 It is mobile. It moves from one object or idea to another
 It is attracted by new things
 It makes clear and vivid the objects which we attend to.
Factors that affect attention
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a) External factors
 Nature of the stimulus: All types of stimuli are not able to bring forth
the same degree of attention. The most effective stimulus is always
chosen for capturing maximum attention and vice-versa. For example a
nude person who is sane vs. A nude person who is insane)
 Intensity and size of the stimulus: In comparison with a weak stimulus,
the stronger stimulus attracts more attention so does a bright light or a
strong smell e.g., of a perfume. Similarly, a large object in the
environment is more likely to catch attention than a small object e.g., a
small snake vs. big snake. A teacher with a modulated voice (i.e., neither
too loud nor too low; neither high pitched nor low pitched) is able to
attract the attention of the students.
 Contrast, change and variety or novelty: Change and variety attract
attention more easily than sameness and routine. Change in gestures,
movements, voice and treatment of the subject-matter is very helpful in
attracting the attention of the students. So it is always better to introduce
novelty to break monotony and get attention of the students.
 Repetition of the stimulus (Frequency): We may ignore a stimulus the
first time, but when it is repeated several times, it captures our attention.
The teacher repeats the salient points of the lesson in order to bring it
home to the students.
 Movement of the stimulus: We are more sensitive to objects that move
in our field of vision. Pictures depicting motions are very helpful in
attracting attention. Teacher’s movements in the classroom should be
rational and orderly.
b) Internal factors
 Interest: This is a vital factor in securing attention. The common
tendency is that we attend to only those objects in which we have
interest. A wise teacher is able to draw the attention of his/her
students if he/she tries to make the lesson interesting by connecting
it to their basic needs, drives, and interests.
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 Motives (goal of paying attention): some of the important
motives that exercise a definite influence upon attention are thirst,
sex, hunger, curiosity and fear. For instance when a hungry child
smells food, attention is shifted onto the smell of the food.
 Fatigue: When our physical ability become depleted or strained,
our ability to pay attention reduces as well.
 Personality characteristics: Extroverts may not concentrate on
something for a long time like introverts do. They therefore have
limited attention than introverts.
 Physical or sensory deprivation: Sensory deprivation may lead to
feelings of imbalance, hallucinations, irritability and inability to
concentrate. For example people hard of hearing may not pay much
attention for long like normal people will do unless they are given
devices to aid their hearing process.
Significance of Attention
 It arouses learners interest in the lesson or subject matter
 It increases efficiency of the learner
 It motivates learners to learn more
 It makes learners ready to learn
 It brings a state of alternatives in learners for doing tasks e.g., responding
to questions asked by the teacher.
 It helps the learner to perceive events or ideas.
LECTURE THREE: REMEMBERING (MEMORY) AND FORGETTING
Definition of Memory
 It is the retention or storage of information in any form (Guilford, 1988)
 Memory consists of remembering what was previously learned
(Woodworth & Marquis, 1948).
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 Memory is the power that we have to store experiences and to bring them
back into the field of consciousness sometime after the experiences have
occurred (Ryburn, 1956)
 Memory is the ability to retain and reproduce impressions once perceived
(Fiedsetal, put year)
Levels of Memory
1. Sensory Register/Immediate Memory
The sensory register is a direct representation between the learner and the
environment. It represents the encoding process where our sense organs are
receiving information. The sensory register is so brief and can accommodate
small quantities of information. While a lot of information is lost, some of it is
directed to the short term memory (STM)
2. Short-term/Temporary Memory
The STM receives information from the sensory register and starts processing it.
It is active or working memory because the learner is active and conscious of
the information. The information temporarily stored in the STM may last as
long as 30 seconds even if the material is not being rehearsed. While some of
the information is lost, some of i is directed to the long-term memory (LTM).
Distinction between Short-term and Immediate Memory
 Information to be temporarily stored in the STM is dependent on
retention time. If retention time is less than 2 seconds, then information
is stored in immediate memory but if retention time is longer say 10 to 30
seconds, then information will be kept in the STM.
 Whereas sensor images in immediate memory decay regardless of the
learner’s actions, rehearsal by the learner can keep material in the STM
indefinitely.
 The span of immediate memory exceeds that of STM. The STM can hold
5-9 items at any time but about 11-13 items are available for recall in the
immediate memory for at least half a second. However, this theory holds
that human beings can retain 7 items. Some people are able to retain
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much more information in the STM by a process called chunking, which
groups information by coding it e.g., the number 143254376 can be
remembered by listing them under three heads: 143, 254, 376, pairing the
numbers: 14, 32, 54, 67, 10 or by squaring the numbers:
149162536496481 as 12= 1, 22= 4, 32= 9, 42= 16, 52= 25, 62= 36, 72= 49,
82= 64, 92= 81for remembering better.
Factors that influence what gets in the STM
 Individual
 Physical makeup
 Physiological components i.e., mood, health, motivational level,
state etc all constitute the interest into what we learn
 Past experience
 Cultural background
 Intensity of stimuli such as pitch of the voice for emphasis, colour,
etc
 Environmental factors i.e., where the stimulus is being produced
 Meaning attached e.g., academic, social, cultural, emotional,
aesthetic/beauty.
3. Long-term Memory/Permanent Memory
The LTM represents the life experiences of the learner. Therefore information is
stored for a very long period of time in large quantities but in a passive form.
The information in the LTM is either qualitatively (e.g., your grandfather was
always smart) or quantitatively (e.g., your grandfather had 7 children) improved
or it can as well become distorted and there after fade away. When that
information is needed it has to find its way to the STM through retrieval. From
the clinical and neurological findings, the LTM has unlimited capacity capable
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of storing all individual’s life experiences. It stores information with little or no
decay and requires little if any rehearsal. For instance knowing our account
number of the bank or phone number.
Among its characteristics, LTM codes information according to meaning,
pattern, and other characteristics. It’s this memory that helps us to remember a
number of things on a relatively permanent basis. Therefore teachers should
understand the mechanisms that operate in the process of transferring
information from the STM to the LTM.
Tulving (1972) identified several types of memory which include the following:
Iconic memory: This is remembering by seeing (i.e., picking information
by seeing and remember by seeing).
Choic memory: This is remembering by hearing e.g., hearing the music
of old time and remember where you used to go for such entertainments.
Episodic memory: This is remembering by events e.g., when you go for
burials you remember your relatives who died long time ago.
Procedural memory: This is remembering by observing how certain
things are done e.g., the Catholic Church mass follows an order such that
when they recite the creed, petitions follow and then offertory.
Sematic memory: This is remembering meanings of what we learn. This
is mainly done by retrieving a collection of relationships between events
or associations of ideas e.g., studying fishing in Kenya and Norway,
rules for converting direct speech into indirect speech and vice-versa
Declarative memory: This is remembering of facts e.g., formulas in
maths, physics, chemistry, etc. It is mainly used by lawyers.
Murdock (1974) highlights three important forces that are necessary to bring
about memory;
 Encoding: This is the ability to organize information into easier and
meaningful pattern. The encoding process therefore focuses on the role of
the stimuli in presenting easier and meaningful information that can be
easily understood by the learner.
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 Storage: This is the ability to keep information obtained in a safe place
so that it can be accessed when needed. The stored information is
unfolded in relation to the present or required situation e.g., academic
issues in examination.
 Retrieval: This is the ability to access the stored information to be used
where it is needed. Retrieval therefore relates to the importance of
qualitative and quantitative enrichment of the stored information,
distortion, etc. When you store and do not utilize information through
rehearsal or reciting, you care likely to forget it e.g., computer skills like
typing speed, driving skills, etc.
Forgetting
Munn (1967) defines forgetting as the permanent or temporary loss of
the ability to recall or recognize something learnt earlier.
Drever (1952) defines forgetting as failure at any time to recall an
experience when attempting to do so or perform an action previously
done.
Bhatia (1968) defines forgetting as failure of an individual to review in
consciousness an idea or a group of ideas without the help of original
stimulus.
Thus forgetting is being unable to find the correct information (from the
mind) at the given situation.
Forgetting is temporary at times when we can later remember the names
and actions whereas it is said to be permanent when we are unable to
recall the information.
Why students forget the content they learn
Different theories give different explanations as to what causes forgetting.
 The Decay Theory or Decay through Disuse: Forgetting is a result of
time factor. Therefore information stored in the long-term memory has to
be rehearsed in order to avoid decay. For instance a surgeon who has
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finished 10 years without operating patients and a person who has
finished many years without using a computer may forget due to lack of
practice.
 Interference Theory or Interference of Association: Events that occur
around the learning process can lead to forgetting. Interference may be
proactive (before the lesson) or retroactive (during or after the lesson).
Proactive interference
This is forgetting that occurs when old information makes it difficult to
remember new information. For example a teacher gives learners a list of words
(list A) and asks them to study it. The teacher does not test for the memory of
this list at this time. He gives the learners another list of words (list B) and then
tests them on the recall of the second list of words (list B) not the first list (list
A). What normally happens is that as the learners try to recall words on the
second list they experience some mix-up. They remember some words and
forget others. At the same time some of the words on list A are recalled. The
words on list A are said to interfere with the recall of list B. This interference is
called proactive interference or inhibition.
Retroactive inhibition or interference
This occurs when new learning makes it difficult to remember old learning. For
example this occurs if a teacher gives learners lists of words (A and B) to learn
and then tests them on the recall of test A. As the learners try to recall words on
list A some of the words will be forgotten and some of the words from list B
will be recalled because the memory of list B interferes with memory of list A.
This interference is called retroactive because later memory acts backwards to
interfere with earlier memory.
Example of lists
List A
List B
LIST A
LIST B
Cat
Cut
Dip
Deep
Hut
Hat
Reed
Rind
Fat
Fit
Feat
Feet
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Rut
Rat
Ship
Sheep
Further
Father
Leap
Reap
Goat
Gate
Rate
Late
Lot
Rot
Creek
Crack
Cup
Cap
Arrive
Alive
Application
The teacher should take note that both retroactive and proactive interference are
greater when the items in memory are similar. Therefore to promote memory he
should do the following
 Make new learning clear by bringing out the similarities and differences
between old and new information
 A learning task must be over-learned and practiced until it is mastered.
The principle is that partially learned tasks interfere more with other
partially learned tasks.
 Over-learning means going beyond the mastery of tasks and ensuring that
the content is at the “finger tips”. This means that content can be recalled
with ease.
 Repressive Theory or Motivated Forgetting: An individual
intentionally makes an attempt to forget because the content is unpleasant
or painful, less relevant or too difficult. For instance if one is forced to
take a course, after finishing he will just forget everything and have no
interest in looking through the notes.
 Retrieval Theory: This is difficulty accessing stored information because
of personal reasons e.g., fatigue, sickness, depression, anxiety, stress, low
IQ, etc. For example a student afraid of a teacher may forget what has
been learnt.
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 Source Amnesia or Systematic Partial Forgetting: This is a situation in
which we may learn something but forget where we learnt it. For example
meeting someone you have ever seen and forget where you met him/her.
 Encoding failure: We also forget information because it never actually
made it into the LTM. Encoding failure sometimes prevent information
from entering LTM.
 Change of Stimulus Conditions: We may have learnt in specific
environment but we forget in the changed environment. For instance we
can say the speech well at home in front of the audience we are unable to
speak.
Other explanations of forgetting
1. The Behaviouristic Theory
The behaviourists developed the following explanations: the disuse model and
the interference model
a) The disuse theory
This theory submits that people forget the S-R connections or associations made
previously because they grow rusty or fade away through lack of use. This
concept can be explained through the Pavlovian or Skinnerian experiments. In
Pavlov’s classical conditioning, it refers to the withdrawal of reinforcement. If
the food which served as the reinforcer to keep the association between the bell
and the food alive was removed extinction occurred. If the dog was subjected to
this state for long i.e., the bell ringing without accompaniment of food then the
stimulus-response connections were lost.
In Skinnerian operant conditioning if the rat continued to press the bar without
accompaniment of food as a reinforcer this bar pressing behaviour disappeared
because the connections or associations between between it and food was lost.
This information can be applied in the classroom situation for the purpose of
helping the teacher to understand the dynamics involved in forgetting and
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remembering. Just like Pavlov’s dog and Skinner’s rats would forget the S-R
associations they had learned, learners too forget what they learn under similar
principles. To promote remembering the teacher needs to ensure that learned
material is rehearsed under conditions of reinforcement.
Rehearsal
Learners who do not rehearse content often lose the S-R connections they had
learned. Rehearsing refers to the constant repetition and review of content. For
rehearsal to benefit learners, the teacher should give them time and place to do
their rehearsal (study time). The teacher should also ensure that the learners
rehearse content which is meaningful to them because there is a tendency to
forget content if it is meaningless. There is the need to show learners how the
content they are learning is related to what was learned earlier. These activities
help to stamp in the S-R connections already learned keeping them alive and
hence minimizing forgetting.
Reinforcement
Remembering is best promoted if learning is reinforced. Withdrawal of
reinforcement causes extinction which is the disappearance of the learned
response. If a learner displays the desirable behaviour being reinforced
forgetting occurs. The teacher should never lose sight of the fact that
reinforcement strengthens behaviour and makes it more probable. Making it
more probable means that behaviour is given the chance to occur again.
b) Interference model
This is another behaviouristic explanation of forgetting. According to this
model learners forget content that they learn because other learning interfere.
For example learners will forget old content because new content interferes with
memory. They will also forget new content because old content interferes with
new its memory. When old content interferes with memory of new content this
is proactive inhibition or interference. If new content interferes with memory of
old content we refer to this as retroactive inhibition.
4. Cognitive explanation
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According to the cognitive theory, the key to memory is the way in which the
material is coded and organized as it is stored in the long-term memory bank.
Something important happens at every stage of information processing to either
promote memory or forgetting.
The short-term sensory storage
At the short-term sensory storage the key to memory at this level is attention.
For information to be retained in memory it should be focused on and rehearsed
briefly so as to be registered for further processing. Any information that is not
attended to is lost or forgotten.
The short-term memory/working memory
The most important process at this level is rehearsal. Rehearsal takes two forms
depending on the reasons why we want to retain the information in memory.
Maintenance rehearsal
Sometimes we want to keep information in memory briefly and then discard it.
For example we meet an old friend n town and he gives us his telephone
number. Before we enter this number in our own cell phone or in our diary we
shall rehearse it. Once the number is entered in the relevant place we stop
rehearsing it. Another exam [le to illustrate this type of rehearsal is a shopping
list. We may want to go to the market to buy some items e.g., ripe bananas,
cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, green maize, and carrots. Before we make
our shopping list we rehearse these items until we write all of them on paper.
Again once they are on paper we stop rehearsing them. This is rehearsal of
information, which is not intended to move to long-term memory bank. It
involves repetition of information over and over again. When the information is
no longer needed it is forgotten.
Elaborate rehearsal
This is used for all information that we wish to transfer to long-term memory
bank. This rehearsal involves repetition of information and linking it with
information already existing in the long-term memory. These two processes
ensure that information is catalogued and filed in the long-term memory.
The long-term memory bank
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The following memories exist in this bank
 Declarative memory: This is the memory for things that can be expressed
in words
 Semantic memory: This is memory for general facts
 Episode memory: This is memory for personal experiences
 Procedural memory: This is memory for actions and skills
At this memory bank information is organized in categories. Items that are
similar are stored close together. For each item in memory, there is an
imaginary index card which is appropriately catalogued. Forgetting occurs if
there are cataloguing errors i.e., a card can be catalogued in the wrong place or a
card can get lost.
What causes cataloguing errors?
 Cataloguing errors can occur if a learner takes in too much information
within a short time. For example if you attend a function and are
introduced to about ten people within a short time you will find it difficult
to match the right names and faces due to cognitive bottlenecks. But if
you are introduced to one person every day for ten days you will not have
a problem remembering each one of them because you have processed all
the information properly.
 If two things are similar one may be remembered in the place of the
other.
Application
In order to ensure that content learned is remembered it is important to give it
time to be processed at all memory levels until it enters the long-term memory
bank because everything that gets there is permanent.
Ways of Improving memory
1. Increase attention
Attention refer to focusing on information, registering it and isolating it from all
possible distracters. This is an important prerequisite for memory. Attention can
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be increased through selecting a study environment which does not contain too
many distractions. Distraction in this case refers to unnecessary noise, heat,
cold, activities and things that appeal to sight and hearing.
2. Rehearsal
Rehearsal refers to repetition of what has been learned in a school setting. As
learners conduct their study it is important to ensure that they engage in
repetition of correct responses with the awareness of what the responses relate
to. They should not engage in repetition of meaningless material. For the study
to be successful, the teachers should ensure that
 The school organizes study timetables
 Give the learners time and classrooms convenient for that purpose
 They train learners on how to conduct individual study for example how
to pick out important facts, review them immediately and again later
 They train learners on how to engage in distributed practice or massed
practice depending on reasons for the study.
Distributed practice involves taking short periods of study at a time and
taking a break after each period (lesson with break periods in between).
This method is very beneficial when the learners want to process
information and store it in memory permanently. The short periods of
study could be taking two hours of study at a time and then breaking to
do a totally unrelated activity before resuming the study again. The
unrelated activity could be taking a shower, a walk, a snack, or even a
nap. This activity should be one that helps a person to relax as well as
reward oneself.
Massed practice refers to sitting for long hours of study (reading
throughout). Through this method the learner can be introduced to the
model of study developed by Thomas and Robinson (1972) called
SQ4R. This refers to the following
 S- Survey: Survey the material through once (quickly to get a
general idea of what is to be remembered.
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 Q- Questioning: Raise questions about the material. The learner
ask him/herself questions e.g., what, why, when, where, who, about
the surveyed material.
 4R:
 1st R- Reading: Read the material for mental comprehension
in preparation for the questions that may follow.
 2nd R- Reflecting: Organize and make meaning of the
material by linking it with previous knowledge, comparing
and contrasting facts, concepts, and principles
 3rd R- Reviewing: Actively review the material to be
remembered. Read the material again and check where you
have failed to provide an answer to the question
 4th R- Recite and recall: The information in the material is
remembered through recitation both orally and in writing.
By the time the learner is through with the last step the material is well
committed to the memory.
3. Use of mnemonics
These are special phrases which help to store information in the LTM.
Mnemonic devices are important in learning familiar information. They
facilitate encoding and retrieval of information. Learners attempt to make long
information short for purposes of remembering e.g., BODMAS, WHO,
UNICEF, ETC.
4. The Loci Method
This was a method used by ancient Romans as old as 86 and 82 BC. First you
think of a location. Then for each item you want to remember you think of a
representative image or something that symbolizes that item to you then you
imagine each image in place in the location.
Example
Bedroom floor .......................................................soap bubbles
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Your bed................................................................two large apples
Your dressing table...............................................filled with eggs
Your coffee table...................................................two huge carrots
The clothes wardrobe............................................cabbage hanging there
These techniques use imagery which is a representation in thought of visual
scenes forming a vivid, unusual image of each object which is unforgettable.
5. Organization
This means the order of what has been learnt. When a topic is presented in an
orderly, precise, clear, and consistent manner, meaning is stored in the LTM.
Therefore school syllabi should be arranged likewise.
6. Content
When the information being learnt has inherent meaning, it is retained in the
LTM and information becomes meaningful if it is related to what the learner
already knows. The teacher should therefore teach from known to unknown.
7. Chunking
This refers to grouping information by coding it. For example the number
143254376can be remembered by listing them under three heads: 143, 254, 376,
pairing the numbers: 14, 32, 54, 67, 10 or by squaring the numbers:
149162536496481 as 12= 1, 22= 4, 32= 9, 42= 16, 52= 25, 62= 36, 72= 49, 82= 64,
92= 81for remembering better.
Revision Questions
i.
What will you advise the learners to do in order to minimize forgetting
caused by
a) Disuse
b) interference
ii.
Discuss the role played by the following processes in aiding memory
a) attention
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b) maintenance rehearsal
c) elaborative rehearsal
iii.
What are the causes of forgetting?
iv.
Explain how you could help learners to engage in practice of learned
material.
LECTURE FOUR: FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE LEARNING
When we think about learning, the concern is bout delivery of content from the
teacher to the learners. The teacher is seen as the source of knowledge and his
role is to deliver the content for the learners to take in. However, factors that
influence learning involve a dynamic interaction between multi-faceted
variables as discussed below:
I.
The teacher
As a facilitator of learning, the teacher has the enormous (huge) responsibility
of ensuring that everything he does goes a long way in facilitating or hindering
learning. Even before we consider delivery of content it is imperative to look at
other issues pertinent to the teacher’s role. Some of the issues may look minor
or irrelevant but their impact is not to be ignored.
a) The teacher’s grooming
This refers to the teacher’s management of self in terms of dressing and
general appearance. The teacher should be consciously aware of his role
as a model. While the teacher may not afford designer clothes, he is
required to take good care of what he wears. It should be clear to the
students that the teacher takes time every morning to make himself
presentable in every possible way. Any teacher whose personal
presentation is shoddy (substandard) does himself and the students a
disservice. The teacher should dress in a manner that is compliant with
the expectations of required decency. Both males and females can be
indecent. We realize that what is decent or indecent is relative and
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therefore leave it to the individual teachers to use their good discretion in
order to observe acceptable modes of dress. In any case the manner of
dress and grooming tell a lot about a person. When people first see you as
a teacher, they judge you by your appearance before they know whether
you can teach or not.
b) Teacher’s competence
The teacher’s competence is considered in several issues. First among
them is his ability to handle the subject matter and secondly his classroom
management skills. Thirdly but not the least in importance is his
communication ability. The teacher’s competence in these areas is
paramount because it can determine the amount of learning that takes
place. We need to insist that the teacher should be well informed
regarding the subject matter, conversant and comfortable with its
scholarship and methods of delivery.
c) Classroom management
A good teacher is a good classroom manager. He knows what to do when
confronted with specific challenges that present themselves in any classroom
situation. He possesses the necessary skills to adequately handle all manners
of issues that arise inside the classroom. A good classroom manager is a
good organizer. He is organized in his daily operations and in the classroom.
Good organization helps to save time and other resources.
d) The teacher’s communication ability
Good communication is an art. It does not necessarily require the teacher to
use huge bombastic words so that pupils know that he went to school. It does
not require him to be a walking dictionary either. It calls upon the teacher to
gauge the weight of his words depending on the recipient’s level. He should
be fluent, clear and simple. Of course we do realize that each subject has its
own technical jargon. The teacher should ensure that these technical words
are well understood by the learners.
A good teacher is a good businessman. He has something to sell and the
buyers are the learners. For this reason he should maintain a pleasant
atmosphere and not show hostility. Some teachers behave as if the classroom
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is a war zone and sometimes they have good reasons to do so. If the teacher
knows that he is unprepared for the lesson or lacks the necessary mastery of
content he may result to use of defence mechanisms like fault finding, being
excessively punitive among other negative practices. One important aspect
of teacher behaviour is his attitude towards the profession, school, learners,
or even himself. If the teacher’s general attitude is positive he will most
likely maintain conditions necessary for learning.
II.
The learning environment
The learning environment refers to the facilities available for use by the
learners. These are the classrooms, fields, laboratories, dining room, and
dormitories. The issues of concern here are appropriateness or
inappropriateness, over crowdedness, ventilation, and quality of buildings
a) Appropriateness or inappropriateness. There are learning
environments that are not appropriate for use for example
o Lessons that are scheduled in the dining hall next to the school
kitchen. In this environment, learners are exposed to various
stages of food preparation as well as changing smells as the
food gets ready. Hungry learners will not be motivated to be
very attentive during the last lessons just before lunch time
break.
o There are schools whose locations are inappropriate such as
those in the middle of towns surrounded by bars, hotels, and
noisy operations that go on in the heart of the town. Such
school locations are a hindrance to learning.
b) Over crowdedness. Speaking to teachers reveal that many
classrooms in Kenyan schools are overcrowded. In some classrooms
the teacher does not have the space to stand or even move around.
This means that he cannot monitor students’ behaviour effectively. A
classroom that is overcrowded is uncomfortable for both the teacher
and learners. Over crowdedness is a factor causing maladjusted
behaviour. If the teacher is unable to access every learner in the
classroom there are those learners that engage in divergent acts like
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writing letters, reading novels, dozing, or even day dreaming while the
lesson is in progress.
c) Ventilation. This refers to the amount of air circulating in the
classroom. Fresh air is important because it burns food into energy. If
there is enough air in the classroom the learners are likely to keep
awake, alert and attentive. However if the classroom is poorly
ventilated the learners are likely to be dull, lethargic and inattentive.
Poor ventilation can be caused by over crowdedness and
inappropriateness of a learning environment. For learning to be
influenced positively the issue of proper ventilation should be
addressed in every school facility.
d) Quality of buildings. The overall quality of school buildings is an
important factor in either promoting or hindering conditions for
learning. Buildings provide security and warmth. Properly constructed
buildings keep the natural elements away i.e., rain, wind, sunshine and
cold.
o If the school buildings are not firm the wind blows away the
roofs and sometimes children are harmed or even killed.
o During the rainy season children feel unsafe particularly in
lightening prone areas. If no lightening arrestors are installed
then children live in fear because they know they are likely to
be harmed or even killed by lightening.
o Even issues such as ensuring that the classroom has a ceiling
can affect learning. Without a ceiling the classroom can become
unsafe particularly when it is raining. Pupils can have most of
the rainy afternoon wasted because the teacher’s voice gets
drowned in the noise of the raindrops on the iron roofs.
o Sometimes pupils learn in buildings that have been condemned
and therefore unusable. They may be afraid that walls or roofs
will crack, split, fall and injure them.
III.
The learner
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The learner is the person for whom the learning process is intended. The
teacher should always bear in mind the fact that learners bring to class a
wide range of differences in any one-classroom situation. These
differences are bound to influence learning. The following learner
characteristics influence learning
a) Personality disposition. Some of the personality dispositions of
learners that the teacher needs to understand are the following:
emotionality, sociability, and ability to cope with stress and even
learners’ management of problem situations.
There are learners who have serious problem managing anger,
frustration, and other emotions they experience and as a result learning
is affected negatively. Also there are those pupils who have problems
making and keeping friends due to lack of social skills. They may be
in constant conflict with peers and classmates a situation which will
affect learning for them and their peers. Coping with stress and even
managing problem situations cause difficulties for some pupils.
Basically, the teacher should be aware that if there are problems
emanating from any of these issues learning will not be promoted.
b) Intellectual giftedness. Learners bring to class differences in
intellectual giftedness. There is the high, the average and low
intellectual giftedness. Sometimes a teacher may run a lesson that
favours the highly gifted learners. It is the intension of this lesson to
remind the teacher that every learner has the right to benefit from
classroom interactions. Every learner should be given a chance to
benefit from the lesson. The view that the classroom is owned by a
few learners while majority of the learners are to warm the classroom
for the gifted ones should be discarded. The teacher should cater for
individual differences to ensure that every learner is attended to. The
teacher should also make sure that each learner is helped to realize
their potential so that an “A” student gets the “A”, the “B” student
gets the “B” and so on. Any “A” student who gets a “B” is
underachieving and any “B” student who gets a “C” is underachieving
and this situation should not be accepted nor allowed. If a learner is
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underachieving proper investigation as to why this is happening
should be carried out.
c) Motivational levels. Motivation refers to the amount of energy and
the time the learner puts in an activity. A learner may be highly
motivated and therefore spends a lot of time and energy pursuing a
subject. Another learner may have only average motivation while
another learner may lack motivation completely. The teacher should
discover ways and means of maintaining the high levels of motivation
in highly motivated learners. He should also find out why learners
may lack motivation to pursue a subject. Motivation and achievement
are related in that the highly motivated learner is expected to show
high performance in tasks and conversely low motivation translates
itself in poor performance. The teacher should discover both the
teacher and learner factors that cause low motivation.
d) Conflicts of interest. Sometimes learners fail to attend to the learning
task even when the teacher is doing his best to promote conditions for
learning. This can happen if the learner has other interests that conflict
with the learning tasks. Sometimes the learner has a problem that is
social in nature; maybe he has received news from home that
somebody is unwell. During the lesson, such home issues distract this
particular learner. There are many things that could distract a learner
at any one time and the teacher should handle each issue with a lot of
sensitivity.
e) Social economic backgrounds. The learner’s social economic
background is a factor that will influence learning in one way or the
other. Some learners come from backgrounds where they have few
resources that are needed for learning. They may not have books or
writing materials or even adequate facilities to do their homework for
further study. When these pupils come to school with unfinished
work, untidy work or even late, the teacher should handle each
situation with sensitivity because at times the teacher’s approach to
such a problem may actually aggravate it instead of solving it.
IV.
The subject matter
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Many years ago, Ausubel (1978) and Brunner (1960) stated that schools
exist to foster intellectual growth by transmitting knowledge and basic
skills. They further acknowledge that learning should facilitate
intellectual growth. For this reason it is important to discover those
factors that will facilitate learning in the classroom situation. Of course
when the teacher goes to any classroom with the purpose of holding a
teaching-learning session, he takes with him some content. The content
can be referred to as subject matter which in turn can be transmitted to
mean certain facts, principles, skills or procedures. These could be from
any subject, topic, or sub-topic. If all other factors are considered, that is
the learning environment, teacher characteristics, learner characteristics,
etc, then the teacher must ensure that the content is presented in such a
way that the learners can assimilate it into their cognitive structure. The
most important factor to consider here is ensuring that the learner finds
content meaningful. Meaningfulness of content is a critical issue in the
sense that it leads to understanding. Indeed meaningfulness and
understanding are the essence of classroom learning.
Consider the following elements when preparing subject matter of
your lesson
 Meaningfulness of the material.
The meaningfulness of content lies in the fact that what is meaningful is
easy to process mentally. It renders itself easy for storage in memory. It is
easier to retrieve. It makes the learner comfortable and ready for further
learning. This reduces frustration for both the learner and the teacher.
Research has also indicated that learners will remember meaningful
content better than meaningless content.
In order to illustrate meaningfulness of content, study the following
content and give yourself a minute to recall the content on list B.
List A
List B
Nkcot
Class
Ikn
Pupil
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Enfik
Teacher
Lyvor
Ivory
Reccalit
Knife
Ssale
Token
Lipup
Ink
It is possible that you have discovered that it is difficult to process and
remember content in list A while content in list B poses no problem at all
whatsoever. The same thing happens to learners if they find content
meaningless. They are unable to process it and remember it. For this reason the
teacher should make every possible effort to ensure that the learner finds
content meaningful. In order to achieve this goal the teacher could try the
following suggestions:
 Expose the learner to potentially meaningful material. This refers to
ensuring that the content has the potentiality of being meaningful to the
learner. This can be trick at times. Sometimes the teacher himself ma
experience difficulty processing content and finding it meaningful. Of
the teacher does not find content meaningful then it becomes difficult to
help the learner to find it meaningful.
 Read several sources of particular information. Different sources
highlight different angles of a situation. After reading those sources the
teacher will be more enlightened. The teacher should not rely on a single
textbook or some notes made many years ago.
 The teacher could also consult colleagues who will share their own
experiences, approaches and sources they have found helpful.
 The teacher should keep a breast with current developments in the
content area. He should have more in his bag of tricks that at no time
should he find himself inadequate.
 The teacher who finds content meaningful goes a step further to ensure
that the learner is helped to find meaningfulness as well. In this context
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the teacher should select content, organize it in a potentially
meaningful way. To do this the teacher ensures that the content is
consistent with the learner’s developmental level. This means that before
content is presented to the learner, the teacher has already gauged the
readiness level of the learner. This refers to the cognitive or mental
ability of the learner to assimilate the content. Here, the learner’s
motivation also counts.
 Readiness of the learner.
It is important to look at the role of the teacher closely in this context. The first
thing he should do is to assess the readiness of the learner by identifying the
knowledge the learner already possesses, the learner’s abilities, motives, and
experiences and make these a starting point. Secondly, present the material in a
style that captures the students’ motivation. In doing so, the teacher ensures that
the content is well linked with the learners’ experiences and where examples are
given they should be derived from the learners’ world. Problems are
experienced in some cases when teachers make the subject matter abstract.
Abstract content has no bearing in the lives and experiences of the learners. It is
irrelevant and therefore learning it becomes difficult. Bringing out the
usefulness of content is an important concept. This is the idea of making content
relevant to the needs of the learner making him perceive it as useful to him.
 Discovery learning.
In order to promote meaning and understanding, the teacher should encourage
discovery learning. This can be done by giving learners assignments that require
them to do their individual or group projects in the library or in the field. In this
area the teacher should refer learners to specific sources of information with
enough guidance that spells out the concepts, meanings, and relationships to be
discovered. Once learners have done their projects, they can present their
findings in class for purposes of enriching each learner’s or group’s findings by
integrating all the findings. This way each learner acquires additional
information on points they had missed out. This method works on the principle
that knowledge that is self-discovered is more significant to the learner and is
remembered better.
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 Concept learning
Concept learning too enhances both meaningfulness of content and
understanding for the benefit of enhancement of learning. The learner should
not be exposed to facts that are isolated. Instead he should be helped to perceive
relationships and classifications. In other words he should be exposed to the big
picture and not small unrelated pictures. If the learner can understand a concept
then he can also transfer the knowledge to future situations.
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LECTURE FIVE: TRANSFER OF LEARNING
The ability of an individual to apply previous experience on new related
experience is key in learning. Unless students are able to transfer prior skills and
knowledge on new ones, continuity of learning will be difficult.
Definitions of Transfer of Learning
 The ability to take understanding acquired in one context and apply it in a
different context (Mayer & Wittrock, 2006).
 The ability to recognize or provide a new example of a concept, solve a
unique problem, or apply a learning strategy to a new situation (De Corte,
2007).
 One way to think of transfer is as “preparation for future learning”
(Schwartz et al., 2005).
 Cormier and Hagman (1987) define transfer of learning as the application
of skill and knowledge learned from one context to another.
 Oladele (1998) defines transfer of learning as the effect of prior learning
on the present.
 Charham (1987) affirms that human and animal learning is normally
affected by past experience, and that various subjects are included in the
school curriculum because of their utility and wide application to real life
situations. For instance, the teacher who has taught his/her students some
skills in maths would believe that such skills be transferred to related
subjects like physics or accounting. If the students fail to apply these
skills in their subsequent learning, it means that the students have not
been successful in transferring learning.
 Transfer of learning refers to a process that enables us to use previously
learned responses in new situations. Transfer results in the ability to
perform sensibly and adequately in a new task as a result of having
performed other tasks previously. Put simply, transfer of learning is the
ability to apply knowledge from one situation to another. Examples
include the ability to apply mathematical formulae to compute
mathematical problems, the ability to use knowledge in mathematics to
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understand balancing equations in chemistry or physics, and ability to use
mathematical knowledge to go and purchase items from the shop.
Aspects of Transfer
There are two basic aspects of transfer. These are discrimination and
generalization.
Discrimination
When the learner is exposed to knowledge or skills that are similar he should
understand all the specific features so that he applies in each situation only
those aspects that are applicable and leaves out those features that are not
applicable. Ivan Pavlov illustrated the idea of discrimination when conditioning
dogs to respond to bell tones. In discrimination training he would give the dog
food only under one particular tone and not any similar tone. Then the dog
learnt that only one tone led to food and therefore it salivated only when that
particular tone was presented. Likewise, when it comes to transfer of learning
the pupil should be able to pick out specific features from the general features
and use them.
Example: the dictionary, catalogue and directory have general and specific
features. The general features are found in the arrangement of content. All
documents have their contents arranged alphabetically and therefore require the
same skill in their usage. However, the aspects of discrimination come in when
we consider the type of information found in each document. In bakery too
discrimination can be applied. There are general guidelines that are used to
produce bread or cakes but when the baker wants to bake bread with raisins or
fruitcake, or teacake, he applies very specific features by using discrimination.
Discrimination is an aspect used every day in computer programming. There are
general features and specific features in computer operations. For example, all
computer programs have an interaction interface. These are specific features
like calculations, typing documents carrying out simulations etc. It is the user
who determines the specific features to use depending on the task to be
performed. Discrimination requires the ability to pick out the differences i.e.,
what we apply in a specific situation and what not to. This involves the
understanding of specific features.
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Generalization
This means understanding the general features, similarities or sameness of
information or skills. For example, the dictionary, directory, and catalogue are
similar as information is arranged alphabetically. These documents use the same
skills to search for information but the similarity ends there. In baking there are
similar procedures of making ingredients and using baking pans and ovens for
the product. In computer operations the skills used to open the computer and to
access information is the same. In generalization therefore, the learner
understands general features. Pavlov conditioned dogs to acquire generalization
training. He would call different tones and then give the dog food every time a
tone was sounded. This dog knew that as long as there was a tone no matter
which one food was on the way. Similarly, learners can acquire generalization
in transfer of learning.
Types of Transfer
There are three types of transfer:
 Zero transfer: This refers to acquiring knowledge, skills, or principles
that are not transferable from one situation to another. This occurs when
there is no relationship between one subject and the other. Therefore,
learning one subject has no effect on the other one positively or
negatively. This type of learning reveals no link between previously
learnt task and the current task. Examples of zero transfer can be
illustrated by the learning of mathematics and Kiswahili. Unless
Kiswahili is used as a language of instruction in mathematics there is no
relationship between the two. Mathematical principles will not help a
learner understand Kiswahili principles and vice versa. Other examples
can be illustrated between geography and music or fine art and biology.
These two pairs of subjects share no meeting ground. Each is independent
from the other in terms of facts, skills, principles, and technical jargon.
The learning of one is independent from learning of the other and does
not inhibit nor enhance the other.
 Negative transfer: This occurs when content in a subject or in two
different subjects has a negative influence on one another. This happens
when what is learned in one situation hinders or inhibits what is learnt in
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another situation. For example, if a learner is introduced to two new
languages which are similar at the same time, negative transfer occurs. A
learner who is learning English and German at the same time experiences
difficulties mastering both languages simultaneously due to inhibition or
interference. English interferes with German and vice versa. Negative
transfer operates much the same way as proactive and retroactive
inhibition does. Before mastering of each is achieved there is a lot of back
and forth movement and even mix-up of English and German words.
Consequently, this brings about a slowed process or retardation in the
learning process. However, with enough practice and mastery of both
languages, negative transfer is minimized and even eliminated altogether.
 Positive transfer: This occurs when knowledge acquired in one situation
helps learners to acquire knowledge, skills, or principles in another
situation much faster. Learning in one context facilitates learning in
another. For example, learning of mathematical principles enables the
learner to acquire principles in physics. Apart from aiding learners in
their subsequent learning, it also helps them to learn the new task better
and effectively.
Other examples of positive transfer in the school setting include
 Learning grammar in any language and writing compositions in
language
 Learning of biology and agriculture
 Learning of physics and mathematics
 Learning of chemistry, biology, agriculture, mathematics,
geography, business education, and physics.
Positive transfer indicates a positive relationship between particular topic areas
in given subjects or even two or more content areas in different subjects.
Positive transfer can operate at two levels. That is lateral transfer (horizontal)
and vertical transfer.
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Lateral or Horizontal transfer
This occurs when a learner is exposed to content that is applicable to another
subject situation at the same level.
Examples:
 A child who is trying to learn basics in arithmetic discovers that (4*9
=36, 9*4= 36). (3+5= 8, 5+3= 8) is transferring knowledge laterally or
horizontally.
 Secondly when a learner acquires the basic skills of baking a cake in
school and he applies the knowledge to bake at home is also indicates
horizontal transfer.
 Thirdly mathematical skills and principles taught in form one helps the
learner to acquire principles and skills to master form one physics. So this
kind of transfer is applicable at the same level and is basically
foundational.
Vertical transfer
This occurs when knowledge is applied to other learning’s at a higher level
either in the same subject or in another subject. For example, form one
mathematics series is a foundation for form two, form three, and form four
mathematics. This happens at all applications of subject areas in an ascending
order. For vertical transfer to occur the subject should be well mastered at the
foundational levels so that learning is given a chance to generalize and become
useful further along the learning process. For example, when a learner masters
simple grammatical rules, he is able to speak correct English, write competently
and to study other subjects in English as well. Also when a learner masters
simple arithmetic and numeracy he is enabled to acquire complex concepts in
mathematics and physics.
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Factors Affecting Transfer of Learning
A. Similarity between learning situations:
The more closely two learning situations are related the more likely is transfer
of learning to occur. For example, when class two learners are given this
problem:
 Angi has two pieces of meat. Kim gives her three more pieces of meat.
How many pieces does Angi have now? (2*3=6)
 Bruce had three pencils. His friend Orlando gave him two more. How
many pencils does Bruce have now? (3+2=5)
 Sophie has three cookies. Flavio has four cookies. How many do they
have altogether (3+4=7)
The learners will do the first two tasks well and the third task less well because
the first two are more closely related than the first and third tasks, and transfer is
more likely to occur between the first two tasks.
B. Depth of original understanding:
Transfer requires a high level of original understanding, and research indicates
that students often fail to transfer learning because they do not understand the
topic in the first place. The more practice and feedback learners have with the
topics they study, the greater the likelihood that transfer of learning will occur.
C. Learning context:
If the examples presented are isolated words rather than in the context of the
subject, students would get confused and conclude otherwise e.g., using
chemistry examples in history.
D. Quality and variety of examples:
Teachers need to provide learners with a variety of high-quality examples and
relate them to meaningful contexts. For instance, when teaching density
students can see that compressed cotton takes up less space, so compressing
cotton increases its density.
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E. Emphasis on metacognition:
Metacognition increases general transfer. For example, remaining open-minded,
reserving judgement, searching for facts to support conclusions, and taking
personal responsibility for learning are general dispositions grounded in
metacognition. Teachers can encourage transfer of these dispositions through
modelling across disciplines and by communicating that learning is a
meaningful activity that is facilitated by awareness of their own thinking.
Teaching for Transfer
There are several basic ways of teaching for transfer which include:
 Substantive (specific) transfer. This method refers to specific transfer of
rules, facts, or skills. It is the direct transfer of knowledge from one
situation to another. For example, applying rules of punctuation to write a
job application letter or using the knowledge of the alphabet to find a
word in the dictionary. To facilitate this kind of transfer the teacher
exposes the learner to the substance of the material to be applied. His is a
very common phenomenon in computer programming. If a certain
computer program is required in a person’s occupation, the person is
taught that particular computer program during training. Also in dress
making the person is exposed to actual dress making skills needed on the
job. A surgeon is trained in a hospital setting and performs surgery under
supervision. The most important concept here is the exposure of the
substance of material to be applied and lots of experience.
 High road transfer. This is training learners to consciously apply
abstract knowledge learned in one situation to different situations. There
are two methods of doing this:
 Forward teaching method. This method is used when a learner
intends to use a principle or strategy in future e.g., equipping
teachers in the making with a strategy to become better teachers in
future. The teacher plans transfer in advance. For example, a
surgeon taking theory and practical during subsequent semesters
may do some forward planning. During the theory semester he
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may search for and collect all relevant skills and procedures from
the surgeons’ literature with the intention of applying them during
the practical or “hands-on” sessions. Also a teacher preparing for
teaching practice may search for principles about teaching and
learning (pedagogical skills). He may search in the focus areas like
how to motivate learners, the art of classroom management, etc
with the intention of applying the same during actual teaching.
This kind of transfer is forward teaching in the sense that the
person looks to applying it in future situations.
 Backward teaching method. This method is used when the
learner is faced with a problem situation that requires some prior
knowledge. The person has to look back on what has been learned
in previous situations to help in solving a new problem. This
method requires the person to search for other related situations
that might provide clues to the solution of the current problem.
The most important thing in this kind of transfer is mindful
abstraction or deliberate identification of a principle or main idea,
strategy, or procedure that can apply to many situations. This
guides future learning and problem solving.
 Procedural (general) transfer. This method is useful when applying
knowledge about how principles and rules apply across a wide variety of
situations. It includes the learning of broadly applicable concepts,
principles, and procedures. For example, when pupils learn the meaning
of words such as untie, unfair, it is useful to learn that the prefix un
means not or contrary to.
In order to ensure that transfer is given all the chances of occurring, the teacher
should ensure the following:
 That training situations are made as similar to the real world
situations as possible. If the real world is not accessible to the
students it should be described to them.
 Provide many practicals on the original task before the transfer task
is attempted.
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 Stress transfer both inside and outside the classroom. This means
that when teaching, transfer should always be in focus.
 The teacher should use specific, concrete examples from
television, newspapers, school activities, current events and life in
general.
 The teacher should devise projects and competitive games that
foster transfer.
 The teacher should finally always test for transfer.
Classroom Implications of Transfer of Learning
1. The teacher should know that transfer of learning will not take
place when both old and new subject matter are unrelated.
Hence teachers should endeavour to teach subject matter in a
more meaningful and detailed way rather than by
rote/cramming.
2. The teacher should provide opportunity for students to practice
subject natter being discussed along with him. When learners
are allowed to take active part in teaching-learning activities
they will be able to repeat the task at another time.
3. For transfer of learning to take place, teachers should always
emphasize relationships that exist between one subject matter
and another e.g., teaching borrowing in subtraction and division
in maths subject.
4. The teacher should endeavour to develop positive attitudes
towards learning a task so that students can be motivated to like
the task rather than avoid it.
5. It is believed that what students see, touch, feel or manipulate
will be better remembered than the one they are not familiar
with. Hence, for meaningful transfer of learning to take place
the teacher should incorporate exercises that involve use of
various senses of learners in the learning process.
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Revision Questions
a. Imagine two novel situations that you could require your students
to show:
i)
Discrimination
ii)
generalization
b. Bring out clearly the difference between Zero and Negative
transfer
c. With examples show illustrations of
i)
Lateral transfer
ii)
Vertical transfer
iii)
Positive transfer
iv)
Negative transfer
v)
Zero transfer
d. Why do you consider transfer of learning a very important aspect
in the learning process?
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LECTURE SIX: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING
Teacher experience shows that learners in the class with the same books and
same teachers show variations in achievement.
What causes individual differences in learning?
Intellectual ability is the capacity to acquire and use knowledge to adapt to the
environment. According to Lefrancois (1994), intelligence does not just happen,
it has a cause. The nature-nurture debate has been used to explain variations that
exist among people. Observation of members of the same family reveals marked
contrasts in appearance, interests, and abilities. In the study of what causes these
differences psychologists have developed three positions. These are; the
hereditary, environmental and interactionist positions or approaches.
 The hereditary approach. Adherents of this approach believe strictly in
the role played by genes in the determination of human traits. This
position holds the view that nature and not nurture determines the
intellectual giftedness of individual children. According to this view,
intellectual ability is genetically determined. Studies done by various
psychologists have tended to confirm high correlation in IQ among
identical twins reared apart. This view holds the belief that during
fertilization when the maternal and paternal genes interact, IQ is fixed.
Therefore some children inherit high IQs while still others receive low
gifts in this trait. This position does not acknowledge the role different
environments may play in modifying intellectual ability. It holds the view
that intelligence is fixed and the child is a helpless pawn of the dictates of
nature.
 The environmental approach. Adherents of this approach believe that
experiences provided by different environmental conditions and demands
shape intelligence. Among these psychologists is J.B Watson who prided
himself that if he were given a dozen of children and his own
environments to raise them in, he would produce any kind of person. He
would shape one into a beggar, another into a thief, another into a banker,
etc. This approach attributes variations in intellectual ability to
environmental causes. Children’s intellectual giftedness is ultimately
determined by nurture and not nature. This view focuses on all the
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importance of improving environmental conditions, enriching them in
order to influence intelligence positively. Those children who are raised
in enriched environments have their IQ stimulated and enhanced.
 The interactionist approach. Today heredity versus environment is no
longer an important question. The more important question has to do with
how individuals and environment interact during development with the
processes that account for intellectual change. Of special interest is how
deficits can be remedied and gifts fostered (Lefrancois, 1994). Adherents
of this approach recognize that genes or nature contribute certain
potentialities towards intellectual endowment but the actual determinant
to what a child’s intellectual ability will be lies in the interaction between
nurture and nature as the sole determinants of intellectual ability of the
child. This is a popularly held position today and we need to examine
what genes contribute and what the environment contributes towards the
shaping of intellectual ability.
What genes give
The question of concern here is whether genes fix intellectual ability.
Genes do not fix intelligence as such; they provide the blueprint of
intellectual abilities. This means that genes establish a wide range of
possibilities or potentialities. These potentialities are bound to unfold in
relation to the range of possible experiences that the environment can
provide.
In other words genes provide the raw materials for intellectual abilities
and set the limits. This implies that even the environmental influences
modify the inherited potentials within certain limits. For example a child
may inherit a potential towards average IQ, which has its own ranges. All
a teacher and the best environment can do for such a child is o help him
to realize his maximum potential. These potentialities are analogues to a
rubber band, which can remain un-stretched or stretched to various
lengths. This analogy is important for learners. It suggests that the
learning environment should be arranges in a manner that will allow the
rubber band to stretch to full potential but not to break. When dealing
with children we must know their gifts and limitations in order to nurture
their gifts and help to improve their limitations. We should not allow a
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child with a high intellectual gift to underachieve and we should not
expect a child with an average gift to show outstanding performance.
Every child should be allowed to perform within the limits of their rubber
band strechability.
Different environments
The environmental influences include everything from the health of a
child’s mother during pregnancy to the amount of poisonous substances
in the environment to the quality of teaching the child receives. We shall
examine the influence of the following environments briefly”
 The environment before birth. The first environment the human
organism encounters is the uterus or the womb. This environment has the
potentiality of promoting the child’s development as per the genetic plan
or changing the course of development completely. In this environment
the genetic blueprint is given chance to begin unfolding through the
process of growth, maturation and development of all characteristics
programmed by genes. These characteristics are physical, physiological,
mental and psychological. If the uterus is baby “friendly” or compliant it
produces nutrition, warmth and security which allow the genetic
potentials to unfold as per plan. So the child is given the chance to
develop a healthy body and mental capacity. Those children meant to be:
highly gifted, average or low intellectually realize their natural gifts.
On the other hand, the uterus may have adverse effects on the developing
child if the expectant mother is exposed to the following teratogens:
 Undernourishment and malnourishment
 Certain diseases during the first three months of pregnancy (e.g.,
rubella and STDs)
 Ingestion of psychoactive drugs or is dependent on them e.g.,
alcohol, nicotine, and heroine)
 Certain medication (e.g., antibiotics, anti-convultants, and antimalarial drugs).
 High doses of X-radiation
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 Prolonged stress
 Rhesus factor
These conditions change the course of development in extreme cases causing
either the death of the unborn baby or still birth. If the baby survives the
adversity that these conditions cause he may be physically or mentally defective
or both. This means that a baby who would otherwise have been born with a
healthy and well functioning body is born with physical and psychological
defects. A baby who would have been born with normal intelligence is born
with mental deficits due to brain damage these conditions may cause.
So the womb as the first environment the human baby encounters is very
critical. It sets the foundation to intellectual development. All other
environmental effects come later and they may come when damage has already
occurred.
 The home environment. Ideally every child is born in a home. The home
environment means many things. A home has physical and social
dimensions. These refer to the buildings and facilities as well as the
people. The home provides for all the developmental needs of children:
physiological and psychological. The manner in which these needs are
provided determine how the child will develop physically and mentally. It
is critically important to point out that the homes are diverse
environments. No one name is like the other and therefore even their
influence on children’s development is bound to vary. However, there are
certain basic features that we can examine in relation to their effect on
intellectual development. We can broadly place homes in two categories:
the simulative and non-simulative homes
The simulative homes. These are homes that are enriched in terms
of facilities that promote intellectual growth such as paper,
number charts, letter charts, pictures, colours, and play materials.
Besides these facilities the child needs space in which to
manipulate and interact with the provided facilities. These
facilities play a simulative role on development of intelligence.
They also aid in language development. An enriched home
provides the child with varying experiences, for example trips to
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various places. In the modern world enriched homes expose
children to facilities like television and computers. All these
facilities go a long way to stimulating a child’s intellectual
growth.
The non-simulative homes. These are homes that do not provide
intellectual growth. They are impoverished as they possess
minimal facilities. The material things present are only those that
are necessary for bare survival. These environments are restrictive
as well as monotonous and nothing exiting seems to happen.
There are many homes where paper, pen, number charts or
colours are non-existent. Children never venture far from home
unless they are sick and have to be taken to hospital. When a car
visits the neighbourhood the whole village goes to witness the
wonder. A child growing up in this environment may have high
levels of intelligence but the necessary stimulation is lacking. This
child has limited experiences, even fewer words to express
himself and may have problems with ideas.
Activity: Suppose you were asked to advise the chief of your location on issues
concerning intellectual life of the children in your location, how would you
handle issues regarding mental health, family planning and overcrowded school
conditions?
 The social economic status. We have noted that children are born in
simulative and non-simulative homes. The question of concern is whether
children born in rich homes excel in intellectual ability while those born
in poor homes fail in intellectual ability. The term social economic status
refers to variation sin wealth, power and prestige. Most researchers
identify four levels of social economic status the upper, middle, working
class and lower. For a long time the relationship between SES and school
performance has been tricky. Studies done on this relationship suggest
that parents’ education may not be strongly related to a child’s excelling
performance. Variables that have been found to yield positive results in
this area are parents’ attitudes towards education, their aspirations for
their children and the intellectual activities of the family. These studies
explain why children from affluent families may not necessarily excel in
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academic matters. We understand why families with limited incomes do
an excellent job of supporting their children’s learning because of their
positive attitudes and behaviours. Lack of income ceased to be an
important factor for school achievement. This not withstanding an
exploration of how poverty could mitigate against intellectual ability is
deemed necessary at this juncture.
Effects of Low SES on Achievement
There are cases where poverty acts as a motivator. This happens when
parents have encouraged their children or individual children have
worked hard to excel in academic work in order to get a good job and
escape from poverty. This scenario is very familiar to many educated
people. These are people whose efforts have been recognized and they
have received support from well wishers and bursary awarding bodies.
There are many children who are not this lucky and who seem bound in
completely difficult situations when they have above average
intelligence. This picture is occasioned by many factors that exist and
which help to maintain the cycle of poverty: limited resources, family
stress, interruptions in scholarships and discrimination. All these factors
lead to school failure or even school dropout for both boys and girls.
When a girl or boy drops out of school they get poor paying jobs, tend to
marry and get children earlier than their age mates who continue with
their education. This leads to another generation born in poverty.
Children raised in low SES are exposed to hostile psycho-sociological
environments such as:
 They wear old and torn clothes
 They experience problems in verbal and non-verbal skills e.g.,
speaking ungrammatically.
 They are less familiar with books and school activities.
 They experience difficulties with reading and comprehension,
maths, and general information
 Consequently teachers and other children may assume that these
children are not bright
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 They believe that these children are not good in school work and
show a negative attitude towards them
 The low SES children may respond:
 By being more inhibited and withdrawn leading to repeated
failure
 Repeated failure leads to learned helplessness where pupils
come to believe that doing well in school is hopeless. The
child has experiences of many of his friends and relatives
who never finished school anyway. So it is normal to quit
school as well.
 If he does not finish school he finds a less rewarding job
where he barely makes a living and continues to live below
the poverty line.
 This kind of person tends to get more children than his
income can support. These children also drop out of school
early and the poverty cycle continues.
Activity: Suppose you are the district director of education in your
district, what challenges would you like to see effected in the homes and
in the schools to ensure improved intellectual performance in the district?
 The school environment. The schools differ just like homes. Some
schools are more enriched than others and therefore provide varying
experiences. Like the home, the schools are made up of physical
resources and human resources.
The physical resources constitute buildings and the facilities. Some of the
schools could provide simulative environments for intellectual
development of learners while others remain non-simulative. Issues of
concern are adequacy, appropriateness, and security of the school
facilities. There are those schools which are lacking in these things and
those that are overflowing with them.
Equally important is the issue of human resources mainly the teaching
staff and support staff. Like we have said about the home, the attitudes
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held by the teachers and school administration regarding their learners are
very important in determining academic excellence of failure. You have
seen schools where nothing that one asks for in terms of facilities is
lacking but when you examine the student’s performance you are faced
with terrible or appalling results. Other schools exist where resources are
limited but the results excellent. This goes to show that the good will of
the teacher, positive attitudes towards their work and towards their
learners may hold the key to whether learners will succeed academically
or fail miserably (dismally).
Revision Questions
i) What do you think is the cause of mass failure in subjects
like chemistry and maths in a school where students score
high marks in other subject areas? Do you think students
may have been born with inability to learn them?
ii) What in your opinion are the major causes of individual
differences in your area? Is it poverty influence or nature
of schools?
iii) Suggest ways of improving performance in your district.
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LECTURE SEVEN: MOTIVATION
Definition of the term motivation
Motivation is defined as the driving force or impetus behind behaviour,
thoughts and actions. Motivation energizes behaviour and gives it direction
towards a goal. The goal is always to satisfy a need, for example hunger, thirst,
pain avoidance, temperature regulation and elimination. At a higher level the
motivation energizes behaviour towards achievement, competence, affiliation,
esteem and so on.
Motivation in the School Setting
Motivating students is one of the critical tasks of teaching. Teachers are
expected to get learners interested in learning or interested in displaying
desirable behaviour. This problem can be appropriately summed up by the old
adage (proverb) that says “you can take the donkey to the river but you cannot
force it to drink water”. Analogous with this saying the teacher should realize
that he could have learners in the classroom and even provide an atmosphere
conducive for learning but whether they learn or not depends on them. It heavily
depends on their interests or disinterests, priorities and needs, attitudes and
values. This means that the teachers interest in wanting to get learners to learn
may not coextend to their wanting to learn. Given this picture the teacher needs
to know how to play his cards right so that he creates a desire in the learner to
want to learn.
Theories of Motivation
Motivation is a vast and complicated subject encompassing many theories that
try to explain it. These theories include
 The behavioural theory. The behaviouristic approaches advocate the use
of reinforcement. Reinforcement refers to the use of rewards or
incentives. A reward is an attractive object or event supplied as a
consequence of a particular behaviour. An incentive is an object or event
that encourages or discourages behaviour. For example the promise of an
A+ is an incentive. The threat to punish is also an incentive. According to
the behavioural approach, an understanding of student motivation should
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begin with a careful analysis of incentives and rewards present in the
classroom. These could be:
 Affection
 Money
 Praise
 Privileges
 Grades or even stars
This list is by no means exhaustive but it gives the teacher the general idea of
what he/she could do. He/she could come up with a catalogue of desirable
behaviour and a list of possible reinforces.
Application
The teacher should always be alert and notice when the desired behaviour
occurs. Its occurrence should be accompanied by a reinforcer. A student who
shows improved performance could be praised or rewarded. One who shows
improved grooming should be rewarded appropriately. The idea here is to
acknowledge the desired behaviour and accompany it with reinforcing stimuli.
The principle is that reinforcement strengthens behaviour and gives it the
chance to occur again. The teacher should remember that any behaviour which
is ignored goes through the process of extinction; it dies off. So if you want any
behaviour to happen again (recur), reinforce it by all means.
 The cognitive theory. Cognitive approaches to motivation developed as
a reaction to the behavioural views. Cognitive theorists believe that
behaviour is determined by our thinking not by rewards or punishments
we anticipate or receive. In their view, behaviour is initiated and
regulated by inner plans not by external events or physical conditions like
hunger.
Cognitive theorists tend to see people as:
 Active
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 Curious and always searching for information to solve personally
relevant problems.
In their view people work hard because they enjoy work and because they want
to understand. They emphasize intrinsic motivation (Weiner, 1984). The teacher
should help learners to develop their curiosity and methods of searching for
information. Students need to be trained to be intrinsically motivated so that
they can search for knowledge for its own sake.
 The social learning theory. The social learning theories of motivation
are integrations of behavioural and cognitive approaches. These theories
see motivation as a product of two main forces: The individual
expectations of success in a task and the vicarious experience.
The person’s expectation of success in a task is determined by personal
effectiveness also called self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to personal
competence. One important idea that teachers could borrow from these
concepts is that learners need to be empowered to perform learning tasks
with high chances of succeeding. If a learner knows he will succeed in
solving a maths problem or in balancing a chemistry equation, his/her
motivation will be heightened. Students with a high sense of academic
efficacy display greater persistence, effort and intrinsic interest in their
academic learning and performance.
The vicarious experience constitutes observations of other students. A
student compares his/her performance with that of other children. If a
child discovers that his/her performance is poor he/she is likely to lose his
sense of competence and efficacy altogether. In this respect the teacher
should help the child to keep up with the level of performance of other
children in order to keep up motivation. In many instances teachers
aggravate the problem when they torment the child who is comparing
with peers unfavourably. They make the child sink deeper in despair and
apathy. A little help, understanding, encouragement and even persuasion
and moral support may be all that this child needs to improve his sense of
efficacy.
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Activity
1. Observe learners who are failing, those getting less than 30%
in a given subject in their tests and examinations. Compare
the amount of time they spend studying the subjects they
perform well. Find out when they are likely to be missing
classes.
2. Observe well-rounded pupils, those performing well in most
of the subjects they take. Find out why they enjoy school
work and school life. Discover whether they are likely to
turn in complete assignments.
 The humanistic theory. The proponents of the humanistic approaches to
motivation are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. The humanistic
perspective is referred to as the “Third force” psychology because it
developed in the 1940s as a reaction against two dominant forces at the
time. The first force was Freudian psychoanalysis while the second was
Watson’s behaviourism. The humanistic perspective emphasized intrinsic
sources of motivation. They held the view that every human being has an
inherent desire to self actualize. This desire motivates the person to
continually want to seek self-actualization. According to Abraham
Maslow students cannot develop in the direction of self actualization
unless their needs are met. He developed his hierarchy of needs in order
to illustrate the levels of motivation.
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow (1970) suggests that humans have a hierarchy of needs ranging
from lower level needs to higher level needs. The lower level needs are
survival and safety needs. They consist: The primary needs, the basic
biological needs like the need for food, water, temperature regulation, and
pain avoidance. Safety needs refer to the person’s desire to feel secure in
non-threatening physical and social environments. The higher level needs
are those for intellectual achievement and self-actualization. Selfactualization is Maslow’s term which means self-fulfilment realization of
personal potential.
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SELF-ACTUALIZATION
SELF-ESTEEM
BELONGINGNESS
SAFETY NEEDS
PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
a) Physiological Needs
At the base of the hierarchy are physiological needs. They constitute the
need for food, water, temperature regulation, and pain avoidance. These
needs are basic for the survival of an organism and they must be first met
before the learner can be motivated to learn. A student who is hungry, or
in pain, or who even needs to go to the toilet has to satisfy the need first
because the needs are proponent or pressuring.
What can the school do in order to help meet this need?
The school could ensure that:
 There is a lunch program
 There is clean water to drink
 There are usable toilets for students
 There is a nurse to help learners in pain.
Students should never be punished by being deprived of food neither should
they be denied time to use the toilet facilities.
b) Safety
The second level of the hierarchy consists of safety needs. These are
needs to do with security of the environment. These are natural
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elements like wind, floods, lightening, etc. These are needs to do with
the security of the environment. They can be met when school
provides firm safe buildings that will not be blown away by wind or
washed away by floods. The school buildings should be fortified
against natural elements like lightening. In lightening prone areas
lightening arresters should be installed. In flood prone areas, proper
drainage should be put in place.
What are other sources of insecurity?
 Insecurity can also be caused by human factors like politically motivated
aggression found in bandit prone areas, areas hit by tribal clashes, etc.
These should be eliminated in order to give students a safe environment
in which to learn.
 Insecurity can also exist in form of bullying where new comers are
physically or psychologically harassed. These incidents should be
minimized if not completely eliminated.
 Teachers too can pose insecurity to the learners. They use physically or
psychologically threatening methods in their discharge of duty.
Whatever the source of insecurity is, it makes the students fearful and
they spend a lot of their time and energy dwelling on their fears rather
than on learning tasks.
c) Belongingness.
The third level of need is the need for belongingness. This is the need
to be loved by significant other people and to be accepted by them.
For the student, significant other people are parents, siblings, peers,
and teachers. Every person has the desire to feel accepted and if no
love is perceived, then he/she begins to malfunction psychologically.
How can the teacher help learners meet the needs for love and
belongingness?
The teacher should help learners:
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 To make and keep fiends by training them in social skills when
and where necessary.
 The teacher should also try to bond with the students by
developing a loving relationship with them which is parental in
nature and not romantic.
 The teacher should also show concern and sensitivity to the
needs and feelings of the learner and communicate the attitude
of care. Students respond to this by extending love and
sensitivity towards the teacher in reciprocation. This is an
aspect that can go very far in instilling discipline and at the
same time motivating learning.
Of course there are prevailing circumstances that make it
difficult for the teacher not to bond with students such as work
overload, overwhelming teacher student ratio among other
professional challenges. However, the teacher should make
effort to communicate care and sensitivity to his/her learners at
every opportunity.
d) Self-esteem
This is also referred to as prestige need. It underlies the general
competitiveness. The need to be outstanding in various aspects of
school life. Some students will excel in:
 Academic performance while others will shine in field events
 There are those who hold positions of prestige and strength.
How do teachers help students meet these needs?
In helping learners to fulfil this need, the teacher should:
 Open their eyes to the school stars and give them an opportunity to shine
by creating conditions that allow healthy competitiveness. Some schools
do this by promising field trips or valued awards to the students or groups
of students who show excellence in academic work, games and sports in
school, beauty contests, leadership, and in any other areas of excellence.
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The main idea here is to put the lamp on the housetop where all can see it
and not cover it up with a bucket.
e) Self-actualization
At the top of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization. This is the
need to develop one’s highest human capacity to think and feel and
understand the world. In Maslow’s view, people’s failure to satisfy
“lower” needs leave the individual unable to focus on “higher” level
needs. If students are hungry, insecure and unloved, they will not worry
about academic success.
Although this need looks like it’s beyond the attainment of learners, I
believe there are ways in which they can be assisted to systematically
self-actualize. Learners can be helped to:
 Become the best they are capable of becoming,
 Realize their potential to optimum levels if the school creates the right
conditions consciously and systematically.
 Learners physiological, safety, affiliate, and esteem needs should be
planned for and delivered.
 There should be deliberate effort to help learners improve in many areas
of school life like:
 Knowledge
 The need for beauty
 The need to perform at the peak in all school endeavours.
 As far as knowledge is concerned learners can be trained to study
and value good performance
 In the pursuance of beauty or aesthetics learners can be trained to
value cleanliness, neatness not only personal but also
environmental as well. They can be trained to appreciate good
hand writing and strive towards perfection in these things. These
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are not difficult things to do as long as the teacher has the will
and the necessary communication towards learners.
Types of Motivation
Extrinsic Motivation
This refers to the external forces that motivate a person’s behaviour.
Extrinsic motivation can be delivered in two ways:
Use of punishments or coercive power. This refers to the use of
punishments or threats to punish the learners who do not meet the
met standards of behaviour whether academic or general conduct or
attitude. One thing to be said before engaging in the discussion is the
following. The use of force and even threats to use it often serve as
powerful motivators of behaviour. If used properly and wisely
punishment can instil discipline. It is important to understand the
effect coercive power has on the learners’ behaviour. When a teacher
promises to punish a student;
 Who does not score 50% and above in a test or
 The one who does not complete assignments.
 When punishment is promised to late comers,
 Those whose work is untidy, those who are rude. A question
that we need to ask is: what effect does the threat or
punishment have on these behaviours? Two things are bound
to happen when we use coercive power on behaviour: first it
serves as an incentive to motivate the desirable behaviour and
motivate the learners to escape the punishment. But it has two
limitations, these are:
 Even if it succeeds in stopping undesirable behaviour it
is likely to create dependence on external agents.
 A learner who is used to the use of force never learns
self- direction.
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 He/she relies on others to direct him/her.
 A learner who is punished never performs the task with
enthusiasm.
 He/she resents the things he/she does.
 He/she never learns cooperation.
Use of incentives or rewards. This refers to the use of rewards or
promises of rewards to learners who display desirable behaviour. For
example, the promise of trips, status, points, marks, money, etc. This
kind of motivation is useful because people want and need rewards.
 Learners will work hard to get good grades so that they can
get the promised rewards.
 They will also strive to attain standards of behaviour that
will lead to rewards. However, the use of rewards has
similar effects on motivation as the use of coercion. It causes
dependency, the learner works to please the teacher but in
the absence of reward behaviour stops. So the motivation is
shot lived. For this reason it is important to rely on intrinsic
motivation.
Intrinsic motivation
This refers to the internal forces that motivate behaviour.
It also refers to motivation that comes from within the learner. It also means
identification or ego involvement. This motivation results from the learner’s
identification with desired goals. An intrinsically motivated learner is one who
has the desire and the will to learn. His ego is fully involved in the learning task.
If this is the case then, the teacher needs to know what will make a learner
identify with the learning task. The learner will identify the learning task if
his/her need for competence is met. By competence we mean;
 The ability to perform a task,
 Mastery of a task,
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 Competitiveness in a task.
Note: intrinsic motivation can be observed in
The need to be competent
Achievement motivation
Personalized goals and incentives.
NB: The teacher needs to understand both forces of motivation as well as how
to use them correctly.
In fact every learner has an inherent desire to perform competently in school
tasks. The teacher’s role is to discover how to help the learner to achieve this.
The teacher can assist the learner by providing him with the opportunity to
become competent. This can be done by helping the learner to avoid failure.
This can be achieved if learners are given tasks they are intellectually capable of
performing. If a learner is successful in performing a task, his/her self concept is
enhanced and he gains self-respect from the good feeling of being able to
perform the task. This is ego inflating it makes the ego grow fat. Another thing
that the teacher could do is to help learners set up both short term and long term
goals. The short term goals could consist of mastering topics and sub-topics and
getting good grades in the tests set on them. Passing the end of year or terminal
examinations should be the long term goal. For example aiming to score an A or
B+ in a given subject. At all stages the teacher should provide the learners with
immediate feedback. This means that they should know their performance soon
after a test or an examination.
The feedback should inform them of the correct responses expected as well as
informing them how well they have achieved their goals. Basically we want to
emphasize the importance of empowering the learner so that he is successful in
the learning task and making sure that the marks he or she earns are reflected on
the paper. It is to dispel the myth that a learner who scores 90% becomes self
confident and may slacken (relax) in his performance. Let the teacher know that
a learner who is successful develops an interest in an activity and continues to
pursue that activity. On the other hand failure results in declining interests.
Failure has other negative consequences such as:
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 Avoidance of the activity
 Absenteeism
 Total loss of motivation
Achievement motivation
This refers to the desire:
 To excel
 To complete difficult tasks
 To meet high standards
 To outperform others
Learners who are high in the need to achieve are those who are intrinsically
motivated. They differ from low need achievers in a number of ways:
 They do better on problem solving tasks
 They show better performance and more rapid improvement on verbal
tasks
 They set realistic but challenging goals for themselves
 They show a need for competence for its own sake as early as three years
of age.
What are the factors that promote achievement motivation?
1. Parental expectations
o The parents should put realistic pressure on the child’s performance.
o They should not allow the child to underachieve nor should they expect
the child to achieve beyond his/her level of competence
2. Sex of the child
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Depending on socialization, boys tend to show higher achievement motivation
than girls. This occurs in cases where they are expected to perform well, pass
their examinations, get jobs and finally become providers for their families.
However, this situation has changed in Kenyan families because girls are no
longer waiting to get married to men who have made them. There are families
in Kenya today where girls are achieving and the boys are failing not only in
academic work but also in life.
3. Family Size
The view held is that in small families where there are parents and probably two
children, achievement motivation is higher while in large families achievement
motivation is low. In the African context and Kenya in particular, the issue is
not as simple as whether the family is large or small. There are large families
which have produced prominent people. However, as the cost of educating
children continues to be higher and higher, then families with many children
may not be able to sustain them in institutions of learning.
4. Birth order of the child
First born children are said to have higher achievement motivation than later
siblings. Again this is determined by the family’s expectations of its first born
child. If the first born is pressurized to achieve in order to take up parental roles,
then he/she will work hard in order to fulfil parental expectations. There are
however many instances today where the first born ends up becoming spoilt and
unable to complete school.
5. Culture
Culture is another factor affecting achievement motivation. There are cultures
that encourage cooperation while others encourage competition. Achievement
motivation is nurtured. Children learning in competitive cultures learn to excel,
outperform others and generally to be outstanding. In the cultures that
encourage cooperation, achievement motivation remains hidden due to lack of
competition.
Nurturing Achievement Motivation
How can a teacher encourage the development of achievement motivation?
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The tendency to achieve success is determined by three things:
 The motive to succeed or need achievement
 The person’s estimate of the likelihood to succeed on a task
 The incentive for success
The teacher should make every possible attempt to arouse in the learner the
need to achieve. This can be done by empowering learners to succeed by:
 Providing them with tasks that they can master under conditions of
reinforcement
 Promising the learner that the likelihood of success is high. If he/she
knows that he is more likely to succeed then he will pursue the learning
task
 It is the teacher’s duty to help learners to be achievers.
Personalized goals and incentives as motivators
Intrinsic motivation is also demonstrated by personal goals and incentives.
Many motives are personalized. For instance:
 There are people motivated to be leaders and others to be followers.
 Some people want to assert themselves by physical actions while others
want to use the spoken word
 Others want to seek recognition by becoming somebody e.g., a teacher,
lawyer, doctor, engineer, lecturer, etc. These personal motives determine
the individual’s level of aspiration (here aspiration means expectations of
accomplishment)
 Some people have high levels of task accomplishment while others are
low. A person’s level of aspiration is usually modified by his success or
failure. A person who usually succeeds continues to have high aspirations
while the failing person’s aspiration drops. If a person is succeeding and
hence the level of aspiration is high then his self concept is positive. This
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can be noted in a person who considers himself an intellectual and studies
hard to become a scholar. The person does everything he can to maintain
the image of a scholar. On the other hand the person who develops a
negative self-image of failure will not do very well and much to change
the situation. Instead he becomes resigned to his fate. With this in mind
the teacher is advised to help each learner to identify his personal goals
and aspirations.
Revision Questions
1. In your assessment what are the conditions that demotivate learners in a
school setting?
2. Why do teachers sometimes ignore desirable behaviour and fail to
accompany it with reinforcement?
3. What happens to a learner who experiences continued failure in any subject?
4. What are some of the learners’ needs that schools should meet in order to get
learners to focus on learning tasks?
5. What is the effect of good performance on motivation?
6. Do you really believe that first born children have higher achievement
motivation than later siblings?
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LECTURE EIGHT: ATTITUDES
Like many psychological constructs attitude does not lend itself easy to be
defined. However, we shall define it as:
 A favourable or unfavourable evaluative reaction towards something or
someone exhibited in one’s beliefs, feelings, or intended behaviour
(Myers, 1996).
 Severy Brigham and Schlenker (1976) defined attitude as an orientation
towards an object in one’s environment inferred from behaviour.
 An attitude is a tendency to react favourably or unfavourably towards a
designated class of stimuli such as a racial group, a custom or an
institution (Anastasi, 1988).
 An attitude denotes the sum-total of a person’s inclinations and feelings,
prejudices or bias, preconceived notions, ideas, fears, threats about any
specific topics (Thurstone, 1931).
 Attitude can also be defined as a predisposition to act in a negative or
positive way towards persons, objects, ideas, or evens.
 Other definitions include:
 As predisposition, attitudes are anticipatory responses.
 They describe a relationship between a person and something else called
the attitudinal object
 The attitudinal object could be another person, a place, an event, or even
oneself
 Attitudes are directional in the sense that they represent a positive or
negative preference for the attitudinal object
 Attitudes also vary in intensity meaning that an attitude towards
something can be very strong, moderate, or weak.
 Attitudes can also be defined as learned ways of consistently interacting
with and responding to the stimuli in the environment
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 We can also look at attitudes as general response patterns in the sense that
they predispose a person to be motivated in ways that are consistent to the
attitude
 The ways people behave reveal the attitudes they hold. Sometimes it is
difficult to infer attitude from behaviour.
Characteristics of Attitudes
 It is a point of view which may be true or false that one holds towards
an ideas, object, person.
 It includes certain aspects of personality such as interest, appreciation
and social conduct e.g., extroverts and positive attitudes towards
social gatherings.
 An attitude is learnt from parents, teachers, role models, etc.
 An attitude is adopted e.g., dressing code and slim size from the
Western world through media like television shows and magazines.
 An attitude has aspects such as direction (positive or negative),
intensity (low or high), generality (e.g., I hate science courses), or
specificity (e.g., I hate maths).
Components of Attitudes
Attitudes have three components
 The affective/feeling component. This component describes one’s
emotional reactions towards the attitudinal object. It consists of
positive and negative feelings. In the positive direction there are
positive feelings of liking, loving, enjoying accompanying the
attitudinal object. Whereas in the negative direction there are negative
feelings of dislike, hate, feeling uncomfortable in the presence of the
attitudinal object.
In terms of component evaluation, the affective component is the
primitive and irrational of the three components. Any attitude
operating at this level can cause a lot of destruction. Many animosities
that people visit each other are caused by attitudes operating at this
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level. In this life Muslims may hate Christians, Catholics may fight
with Protestants and vice versa, men may dislike women, boys may
dislike female teachers, one tribe may rise up arms and massacre
another tribe simply because of negative feelings held. Students may
dislike a teacher, a subject, or a school without knowing why. Most
politically motivated attitudes operate at this level.
Activity: Imagine that you have quarrelled with a neighbour or a
colleague. Basically you feel like throwing an insult at him every time
you see him/her. For a whole year you have not greeted each other
and you do not intend to do so for a long time. Then, a friend of yours
invites you to attend a function in his home and you agree to grace the
occasion. When you get to your friend’s house, you find your enemy
among the invited guests. Will you shake hands, smile and hug him?
Or will you show open hostility and start a quarrel? Of course you
might pretend that nothing is the matter and painfully go through the
motions of greeting and hugging. This illustrates that sometimes it is
difficult to infer the attitude held from observed behaviour.
 The cognitive component. This component includes beliefs, facts,
and information about the attitudinal object. At this level, the person
holds an attitude on the basis of information. This component has its
inherent problems in the sense that the attitude may be based on a
large store of incorrect information and false beliefs. For example a
person may believe that somebody is good or bad or one may rely on
stories told by people who have various biases and prejudices
regarding the attitudinal object. For example a principal who does not
want to go on transfer because of certain vested interests in the
current school may tell terrible stories about the incoming principal.
He may summon the school on the parade ground and tell the students
that the incoming principal will eat up all the money in the school, or
that he is being transferred because of his inability to run his previous
school. The story may run to the effect that the incoming principal has
even killed a student and so on. Given all the misinformation the
students will rise up in rebellion against the incoming principal before
he sets his foot in the neighbourhood leave alone the school
compound. With this in mind it is very important for people to
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confirm the sources of their information by considering the evidence
and cross checking facts. People should seek to base the cognitive
component of their attitudes on solid, factual and unbiased
information.
 The behavioural Component. Attitudes towards a person, an event,
a place or an idea affect how the person behaves towards the
attitudinal object. An attitude is never observable. We cannot look at
a person and tell the attitude he holds. Therefore we can infer
attitudes from observable behaviour. Attitudes are assumed to be
important in determining behaviour. That is if a person’s attitude
towards a certain object is positive then the person’s behaviour should
be positive and therefore correspond with the attitude. Likewise if the
held attitude is negative we expect the person to display negative
behaviour towards the attitudinal object. Logically, we expect a
person to display positive behaviour towards an attitudinal object that
evokes positive feelings. Contrary we expect a person to display
negative behaviour towards an attitudinal object that evokes negative
feelings.
Activity:
Consider this, you have a friend in a rival team or group. Your group
or team meets for a competition. Ordinarily you would help your
friend and he would help you in things. When you meet you hug,
laugh and spend hours together. Just now you are in rival groups.
Where will your loyalty be? With your friend or with your group?
Also consider this. You are sworn enemies with Mike. Suddenly you
find yourselves in the same group and you must prepare for an
important competition. Again will you allow the negative attitude you
have against Mike to interfere with the training and subsequent
competition?
These examples are meant to tell us that sometimes the link between
attitudes and behaviour tends to be weak. So although social
psychologists agree that attitudes and actions feed each other, they
also agree that attitudes are poor predictors of our actions. Many
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times people pay verbal pledge when they are not committed in their
behaviour. This can be seen in friendships and even religion. People
pay lip service to their friends and even their religious faith. They say
one thing but do the opposite. A person will proclaim he underlying
friendship with you when they need a favour but run away when you
need them most. Under these specific circumstances we have to
observe the behaviour in order to know the attitude. We also confirm
that actions speak louder than words.
Functions of Attitudes
Attitudes play the following functions in our lives
 The cognitive action
Attitudes play a role of assisting the individual to understand the world.
Under this function, attitudes give a frame of reference, a way to structure
the world so that it makes sense. For example a learner’s attitudes about
possible professional fields may help him in the choice of subjects and
also determine the effort to put in order to attain the specific goals.
 The social adjustment function
Human beings are social creatures. Certain individuals and groups are
very important to the person. These important individuals are called
significant other persons. They expect one to hold certain attitudes
particularly attitudes consistent with those they hold. When the person
holds the desired attitudes he earns group membership through being
accepted as one of them. This is important and promises the individual’s
survival in the group. The expression of the approved attitudes earns the
person rewards, identification and approval. On the other hand if the
individual does not hold attitudes consistent with the group, he is
threatened with ex-communication. When a child is sent away from the
family home, or a learner is expelled from school it is because they fail to
comply with the attitudes fostered by either the home or the school. When
Bishop Milingo of the Catholic Church went against the behaviour
prescribed by the church he was threatened by ex-communication.
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 The ego defence mechanisms. Human beings are psychologically
uncomfortable with situations that threaten their self-esteem or their ego.
So in order to live with such situations they build psychological defences
around their egos. The defence mechanisms involve a degree of self
deception as well as distortion of reality. For example a learner who has
not worked hard for their examination will refuse to accept responsibility
for the failure or poor results. He will attribute the failure to other
sources. He will say that the teacher dislikes him and therefore can never
give him good grades. Or the teacher is incompetent and the like. Or a
man who is beaten by his wife finds it extremely difficult to acknowledge
and accept that indeed it happens, so when he is among other men he
becomes the staunchest advocate for the supremacy of men, the power of
the men over women and the need to keep women in their place.
A person who uses ego mechanisms looks for the slightest opportunity to
confirm the belief. This confirmation protects him from acknowledging
this weakness and basic truths about him. At times, the ego defence
mechanisms lead to self fulfilment prophesies. They serve the purpose of
maintaining the erroneous beliefs.
 Expressing values. Attitudes help cultures, religions, etc in expressing
their values and customs. For example the Christian value for life.
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Development of Attitudes
The key question here concerns how attitudes are acquired. Attitudes are
acquired early in life through the following methods:
 Observation. According to the social learning theory, attitudes are
transmitted through the process of imitation. This is learning by
observing others. From early in life children see how a parent,
sister, brother, teacher, television character or model reacts towards
a kind of food, a certain animal, a person or event. The child then
models his own attitudes after those expressed by these important
models. In later childhood and adolescence the person observes the
peer group and identifies with them by assuming the attitudes they
hold.
 Instrumental conditioning. According to this theory, attitudes can
be established or modified through reinforcement procedures.
Throughout life people are rewarded with praise, approval, and
friendship for expressing certain attitudes. They are punished for
expressing others. The attitudes that are rewarded tend to be held
more strongly while those punished attitudes are weakened.
According to these theories the environment must be organized in
such a way that an attitude has all the likelihood of being
reinforced until it is established.
 Classical conditioning. This is learning through association. In
life, people see smoke and they know that smoke and fire occur
together. When lightening is seen thunder is anticipated. Likewise
when a person visits a dentist, pain is anticipated. Experiments in
classical conditioning have revealed that when a neutral stimulus is
consistently associated with a stimulus that produces emotional
response, classical conditioning occurs. After repeated pairing of
stimuli the previously neutral stimulus becomes conditioned
stimulus and elicits the same response that the unconditioned
stimulus does. At home mention of the neighbours name by the
parents is associated with negative comments e.g., they are of
dubious character or background, they steal, they are proud and so
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on. The children also assume these negative attitudes towards the
neighbours.
If a boy continually hears his father comment negatively or
derogatively about women he acquires negative attitudes towards
girls and women. Every time a child hears people speak negatively
about members of a certain religion, community, race, region, then
the child assumes similar attitudes.
In the school situation, classical conditioning influences attitude
formation in the following ways:
 If a math lesson is paired with difficult incomprehensible
concepts and math tests with failing grades the learner
acquires negative attitudes towards math
 If school life is paired with physical and psychological pain
and discomfort, then the child acquires a negative attitude
towards school.
 Direct experience. Many attitudes are learned through direct
experience with the attitude object. This occurs through our
interaction with the attitude object as well as our memory for these
interactions. For example, a learner may have heard that a certain
teacher is very harsh and everybody fears him. When this teacher
takes up the maths class he instils discipline, goes about teaching
seriously and systematically and eventually maths grades improve.
The pupils learn to respect the teacher and his hope for passing
maths is renewed. This positive attitude towards the teacher is
likely to endure. Attitudes formed as a result of first hand or direct
experience are more thoughtful, more certain, more stable, and
more resistant to attack.
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Attitude change
The same theories that have been used to explain how attitudes are
acquired can be used to explain how they can be changed.
At times a person who had acquired a positive attitude towards
something a negative attitude and where a positive attitude was, a
negative one might replace it.
If we consider social learning theory and attitude change, a child or
a learner will change a held attitude in order to conform to the one
held by significant other people. For example a boy who did not
like a certain kind of food changes his attitude when he learns that
that dish is his father’s favourite. Since he wishes to identify with
the father he is most likely to like the food as his dad.
Using the operant conditioning theory we note that the attitudes
that are not reinforced go through the process of extinction until
they disappear. In association learning, when the stimuli paired
together cease the conditioned behaviour dies.
Attitudes can also be changed through persuasion. In school we
may wish to change;
 Attitude regarding learners’ social behaviours.
 Attitudes towards the positive aspects of the African
culture
 Attitudes towards healthy living habits, etc
In persuasion we use persuasive messages. These messages should be repeated
often until they become familiar. This is similar to the methods used to
commercialize products. Every time the television or the radio is on the
commercial selling product is on. This method can be used in school to ensure
that learners continue hearing certain messages over and over again. The use of
persuasive arguments can also help to foster attitudes.
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Arguments should be delivered depending on the audience receiving them. That
is:
 To an audience that is dull, a one sided argument will do. This is the side
that presents the attitude that is intended to be acquired. Many politicians
and theologians use this method
 The school could use this method when dealing with young audience.
When dealing with an intelligent audience a two sided argument works
very well. Let the audience know the attitude to hold while presenting
them with the opposing view as well. You tell them something like “pro
abortion say this... but remember...” Or “students are not working hard
because they say there are no jobs ... but remember...”
This gives the audience psychological immunity. Again theologians and
politicians are very good at this. In persuasion emotional appeal is very
important. By emotional appeal we mean reaching the feelings of the
audience. For example:
o Telling a person repeatedly that smoking causes mouth, throat
and lung cancer
o The person could be shown a video of doctors operating on
cancerous lungs. The emotions that will arise from watching the
video will make the person stop smoking
o If a girl who wants to abort is exposed to a video showing how
suffering people go through before eventually dying of AIDS
passes the message clearly across.
Role models can also be used to help change attitude. The role model must be a
person who is trusted, one who is an expert, credible, competent, better
informed than most and one who is gregarious (loves to mix with people). The
model should be a person perceived as being high. For religious and moral
issues the Bishop of the Kadhi should be the role model. For legal matters the
lawyer should be the role model and for medical issues the doctor. If we want
girls to change their attitudes towards maths and science, female professors in
the respective fields should be taken as role models. This person could be
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invited to school to talk to the students. The students can also be shown a video
of the person at work.
Yet again commercial advertisements are very good at using famous people to
sell their products. For example the famous Kenyan rally driver was at one time
used to sell panadol. There were huge billboards with Njiru saying that “I could
not do the rally without my AAR membership”. The famous one time gold
medallist Kipchoge Keino was used to sell the kilometric biro pens with the
message that it runs and runs...
The use of dissonance in attitude change
Cognitive dissonance theory of attitude change was developed by Leon
Festinger (1957). The theory states that we change our attitudes because we are
motivated to maintain consistency among our cognitions. According to the
theory human beings are psychologically comfortable when the cognitions they
hold about themselves objects events and other people are consistent, (all in
agreement). For example you believe that someone is your friend and when you
have a problem he helps you out. One cognition in this example is: John is my
friend. The other cognitions are said to be consonant because they are consistent
or in harmony. We could also have a statement like “I have always known
Wafula is a traitor”. When we sneaked out of school, he betrayed us and told the
school administration. The second cognition is that he sold us or betrayed us by
telling the school authority. Again these two cognitions are consonant.
Consonant (i.e., consistency, agreement of cognition) cognitions help us to
stamp in an attitude. It helps us to confirm it and not to change it.
Dissonance
Cognitions are said to be dissonant when they are inconsistent and in
disagreement. The inconsistency is called dissonance and it is caused by
psychological tension arising from mixed feelings. Dissonance is
psychologically uncomfortable hence human beings strive hard to remove it.
Examples of dissonance
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 Having the knowledge that something is bad or harmful yet one
continues to indulge in it e.g., the knowledge that cigarette
smoking is harmful to the lungs, yet I cannot do away with my
cigarette. The first cognition is that cigarette smoking is harmful.
The second cognition is that I smoke.
 Excessive drinking of alcohol is harmful to the liver. I love to drink
heavily. The first cognition is excessive consumption of alcohol is
harmful. The second is I love to drink heavily. In both instances the
cognitions are dissonant.
Sources of Dissonance
Inconsistency with cultural moves. In this case dissonance occurs when one
holds beliefs that go against one’s culture or religion, particularly when there
are strong cultural or religious feelings about an attitude. For example when a
country is going to war and everybody is in the war mood but there is a person
who holds feelings to the contrary. In school there could be a culture of hard
work and seriousness but one student many want to incite the others to strike.
Dissonance can also be caused by inconsistency between a particular behaviour
and the general trend of behaviour. For example a person who is known to be
honest or truthful or even obedient at all the times but at one time he is forced to
be dishonest, untrustful or disobedient. In a school situation a student may be
performing very well academically but suddenly he begins to perform poorly.
How does dissonance cause attitude change?
All situations where dissonance occurs call for rethinking, decision making and
change of attitude. In school the teacher could use dissonance to change attitude
in a way that will benefit learning. For example the teacher who is posted in a
new school where the dominant culture is mass failures in his subject can use
this approach. He could change the teaching methods, use teaching aids, teach
in an interesting manner, initially give tests that students can pass and then
increase the level of difficulty as pupils improve their performance. At the end
of it all, the students will turn around and say “we had no imagined that maths
or chemistry can be this easy or interesting”. Dissonance will have worked to
change attitude.
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Attitude and School Setting
How do attitudes relate to school setting?
Attitudes can help to determine what a learner perceives and how he perceives
it. The learner may have acquired a positive or negative attitude towards:
 A particular teacher
 A subject
 School in general.
The acquired attitude affects school life:
 Learning and adjustment. It goes without saying that positive attitudes
towards the teacher and school work leads to success and healthy
adjustment to school whereas negative attitudes make the learner desist
(give up) and dislike school.
 When the learner desists and dislikes school his energies and interests are
channelled elsewhere.
 This learner will fight all attempts to make him learn. He will perceive
the learning task as unpleasant and useless. The learner’s attitudes
towards self are also very important.
 There are learners who have positive attitudes towards themselves. They
become self-confident and they approach learning tasks confidently. This
makes them successful. Success is reinforcing and satisfying and helps to
maintain the positive attitude towards self and school. On the other hand,
the learner who holds a negative attitude towards self loses confidence
and consequently this leads to failure. In turn failure leads to
disorganization and disorientation.
 The failing learner will resort to the use of defensive mechanisms for
example blaming his failure on the teacher who he may accuse of being
bad, biased and unfair, or even incompetent.
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 The negative attitudes block future learning which results in repeated
failure. Repeated failure produce strong feelings of insecurity and
inferiority, which eventually affect adjustment to school.
The Teacher and Attitude Change
What is the teacher’s role in attitude change?
The teacher is the person on the ground. He is in direct contact with the students
and therefore his role in attitude change can never be overestimated. For him to
be effective in changing pupils’ attitudes, he should be conversant with the
following
 Remember that attitudes are very resistant to change because they are
tied up with personal feelings, needs and self-concept
 Note that schools are usually unable to change attitudes because their
programs do not appeal to the total person.
With this in mind, to be effective in attitude change, the teacher should
first know the attitudes held by learners, then use the following methods
to change them”
Use the peer group. The peer group can be used in discussions or
debates on certain topical issues. For example
a. Sexuality
b. Abortion
c. School life
d. Friendship etc
As the peers exchange their views and give points for and against the topic
being debated or discussed they influence each other’s attitudes. The catch here
is that youths will readily accept values of their own peers. Attitudes changed
this way are more effectively inculcated.
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Firsthand experience. Students need to be exposed to first hand
experiences in the attitude issues concerned. If they had
previously thought that the subject is boring or difficult, they
should be exposed to interesting teaching and to proper guidance
that leads to success. If they are taught in an interesting manner
and they experience how a good teacher works, they will change
their attitudes.
Appeal of feelings. The teacher should always ensure that the
students register information not only with their senses but also
with their feelings. If they are expected to cultivate positive
feelings towards the attitudinal issue or even negative feelings this
issue should be well addressed. The teacher could refer the pupils
to sources of information that will arouse feelings. Video shows
that arouse feelings could be shown. Stories with firsthand
experience could be exchanged. Whatever feelings the teacher
thinks will be beneficial should be evoked. Feeling lead to
experience of catharsis, which is very important in attitude
change.
Discovery method. The teacher could also allow the students to
discover for themselves basic information concerning the attitude
object. For example there could be a student who is HIV positive
or one who has lost a parent through AIDS and the rest of the
class do not know how to behave towards him/her. Nobody wants
to share a desk or books with her. For the teacher to instil positive
attitude towards the particular student he could give students
projects to visit doctors for information, to read about the topic, to
contact families with AIDS patients and then present their
feelings in class. After they have discovered all the basic
information that they can, they will be friendlier, more helpful and
acceptable towards their fellow student.
Persuasive periods. The teacher should look for persuasive
periods in the child’s life and then foster the necessary attitudes.
There are times when students will be most receptive to new
attitudes, for example during a transition or crisis. This is the time
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when the student is facing some challenges or some kind of
failure.
 This could be when a good student’s performance has been
dropping steadily due to influence from bad company.
 It could be a well-behaved student whose behaviour has
suddenly changed and is facing punishment almost daily
 It could be a lazy student who has lost a parent and now he
needs to see the importance of being serious and focused in
his life.
Whatever the case a student who is in a crisis situation will be more receptive to
suggestibility and attitude change.
Consistent attitudes. In attitude change, the teacher should foster
attitudes that are consistent with attitudes held by the home,
community, and the mass media. In other words the teacher’s
attitudes should not deviate from generally held attitudes. Of
course some care and discretion may be required here because
there are widely held attitudes which need some revision if not
complete overhaul.
Personality Traits that Characterize Persuasibility
The teacher as a person who is central in attitude change needs to know the
personality traits that characterize persuasibility. These are traits that make a
person open or closed to suggestions that change attitudes. These are the
following:
 Congruence. This refers to agreeability. In this respect individuals will
readily listen to messages with which they agree. They turn away when
confronted with a message with which they do not agree. By way of
example let us consider a boy who comes to school with his trouser
hanging dangerously around his hips, his shirt lacking all the burtons and
shoes that have not seen polish for months. His hair has not encountered
the torture of a comb in weeks. This is an ungainly (awkward) sight
capable of revolting even the most compassionate teachers. If we want to
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change his attitude there are nice things that this boy wants to hear. He
wants to hear that he is a good boy and handsome, that you like him, but
is there something that he can do about his dressing? On the next day he
will appear looking better. This should not be ignored, he should be
applauded for improved grooming and within no time he will have joined
the flock.
Activity:
 What will most teachers do when confronted with the scenario
described above?
 How many will start with throwing insults, punishments and
abuses?
 What do you think the punishments and insults will do to this
student?
 How many teachers will ignore this student?
 What do you think ignoring will do to this student?
 Age factor. Age is a factor that influences suggestibility. Children are
more influenceable when they are young. This suggestibility increases
from childhood through age nine. This means that all the positive
attitudes should be instilled at this time. From age nine through
adolescence the influence is from the peer group. So it is very important
that the peer group has imbibed (taken in) the appropriate attitudes.
 Intelligence and educational level. Intelligent and more educated people
are more persuadable because they can process more information. They
need to be presented with both sides of an argument because they have no
problem dealing with pros and cons of an argument. The less intelligent
people can be persuaded by naive arguments. The politicians, theologians
and even people who move masses for personal gain use this popular
insight. In school a few people use this style. They use a few arguments
on people who do not think for themselves and in a short while the school
is burned down.
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 Sex. Women are more readily influenced than men. This is because they
are better listeners and they absorb more messages.
 Self-esteem. People with high or low self-esteem are more influenceable
than people with average self-esteem.
 Dogmatism. This deals with the area of belief systems where people are
supposed to take in religious teachings and trainings without questioning.
They are also expected to escape any possibility at questioning and even
become militant when people question their beliefs. In dogmatism there
are people who are high while others are low.
 High dogmatic people are intolerant, stereotypical in their thinking,
and highly defensive. They tend to avoid views that are
inconsistent with those they hold and they avoid information as
well. Due to these reasons they are unable to mix widely with other
people. This is why they tend to spend a lot of time together so that
they foster narrowly held attitudes. Generally they tend to be
psychologically immature and poorly adjusted. Teachers will
encounter students who come from different dogmatic orientations
like student who dress in a certain prescribed way, who eat only
certain foods, drink certain beverages. The issue of the Sabbath in
the seventh day Adventist areas has been contentious for long and
will not be resolved. The issue of how women should dress and
how they should not, has been controversial with conservative
thinkers wanting to prescribe a particular dress code and subjecting
women to humiliating horrors in public undressing of women in
trousers and miniskirts.
 The low dogmatic people are enterprising, calm, mature, forceful
and efficient. They listen to information even when it is
inconsistent to their beliefs. Teachers should actually be sensitive
to students with this orientation so that they do not confront and
attack them. Confrontation makes students more resistant because
in the process of acquiring the various dogmas they also get
psychological inoculation (immune booster) which makes them
very resistant to attack.
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Revision Questions
1. Discuss four ways in which attitudes affect performance
and adjustment to school
2. Discuss explosive situations that you have witnessed and
which have been prompted by the affective component of
attitudes
3. Many attitudes are established and have their roots in
large store of misinformation. Discuss.
4. Teachers need to be very careful when they are teaching
in areas with tendencies towards high dogmatism.
Discuss.
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LECTURE NINE: PERSONALITY
Personality psychology examines the differences that exist among people. The
teacher who is dealing with learners in any one classroom situation needs to be
aware of individual differences that predominate at any one time.
 If there are forty learners in the classroom there are forty different
personalities. Each pupil is unique and different from every other pupil.
 These differences exist even when many variables like age, sex, social
class, cultural background and family background are the same.
The knowledge of personality helps the teacher to know what causes individual
differences among learners and at the same time gives him insight in the
sensitivities required when dealing with the learner.
 The teacher gets to understand that there are learners who will not take a
joke or humour.
 The information is also beneficial in classroom management and
behaviour modification because
 If the teacher knows where the learner is coming from he will be better
equipped to deal with any situations requiring behaviour change.
Definition of the term personality
Personality is a complicated concept to define. The complication not
withstanding psychologists have agreed on some definitions
Some psychologists define the term personality as the individual
characteristics and ways of behaving that in their organization or
pattern accounts for an individual’s unique adjustment to his total
environment.
Personality can also be defined as the dynamic organization
within the individual of these psychological systems and
determine his characteristic behaviour and thought.
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In a third definition, personality refers to the whole of a person’s
outstanding characteristics: his physiology, drive, level of
aspirations, emotional and social traits, interests, and attitudes.
What do we learn from these definitions?
There are common themes that run through these definitions of personality
 That personality is the sum total of what a person is: the body, mental
characteristics, as well as psychological traits.
 Organization and structure of personality. There is agreement that
personality is organized and structured so that there is frequency and
consistency of personality characteristics. For exampleif we know
someone to be kind and hard working, friendly, honest, etc, we expect the
person to display these characteristics most of the time, now and in the
future.
 In the same token, if we know someone to be bad and mean, unfriendly
and dishonest, we expect these traits to be consistent over time.
Determinants of personality
There are two major determinants of personality. That is
 Nature which refers to the biological makeup of the person or the genes
 Nurture which refers to all the environmental influences on personality.
Question: What do people inherit from genes and which go towards the
shaping of personality?
Genetic Determinants of Personality
From genes individuals inherit the “blueprint” towards certain traits. The
“blueprint” refers to the laid down potentialities.
o There are potentialities towards certain physical traits e.g., height, body
structure, and skin pigmentation.
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o Genes also lay down the potentialities towards the quality of the central
nervous system. This means that the quality of brain and intellectual
functioning has genetic heritability to it.
o Thirdly, genes determine the biochemical balance of the body.
o Genes determine developmental lifespan
Question: What are the materials of personality?
The principle raw materials of personality are physique, intelligence and
temperament. These are the foundations of personality which are determined
through structural inheritance.
These raw materials are then patterned into personality characteristics through
maturation, experience and learning. Genetics or heredity produces the raw
materials and sets the limit of development.
Question: Does genetics or heredity alone account for individual
differences in personality?
When we acknowledge that we are unique, we have our own ways of thinking,
feeling, and behaving that distinguish us from everyone else, we also need to
acknowledge that genetics explains these differences partially. There are many
environmental influences that shape and modify personality. The genetic
blueprints are given room to unfold as the person interacts with different
environmental conditions and demands.
Question: What lesson should the teacher derive from genetic information?
That each learner possesses a distinctive personality from all other
people.
Physical traits, emotionality, sociability, activity levels, and intellectual
functioning are all influenced by the genetic potentials inherited by
every child
That these potentials cannot develop beyond the set limits and therefore
have realistic expectations for every child.
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Environmental Determinants of Personality
Children find themselves growing up in many different environments. Each
environment leaves its own mark on the malleable (flexible) human being. Of
course the most important environmental influences are those that impact the
child early in life during the formative period when the self-concept is being
formed. Many of these influences are experienced at home as the child interacts
with the parents, siblings, and other persons in the home. Today many children
go to school as early as age three. By the time the child attains school age which
is set at age six in Kenya, they have been through:
o Baby class at age three
o Nursery school at age four and
o Pre-unit at age five.
The home environment influences love and acceptance
The home is usually the first social encounter. It provides the child with the
earliest social experiences as he interacts with the mother, father, siblings, and
other people. These people normally referred to as significant others in the
child’s life lay down the foundations of trust or mistrust.
During infancy and early childhood the individual will learn to trust the mother,
then the self and the world if they are exposed to:
o A stable loving, acceptable and warm social environment
o Parental love and acceptance sow the seeds of trust and feelings of
security in the child
o These become the foundation upon which psychological health is built.
o There are children who suffer rejection and who are unloved. These
develop a deep mistrust towards the mother, the self and the world. They
feel insecure and their psychological development starts on a troubled
note. It is therefore extremely important for parents to ensure that their
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young ones enjoy love and acceptance because these lay down the
foundations of psychological health.
Time spent at home
The time the child spends at home with the family members is very important in
the determination of personality.
 The critical issue and which many parents may be oblivious (unaware)
about is the fact that family influences on personality are greater when a
major part of one’s time is spent in the home with family members.
 Here we are concerned about the amount of time parents and children
spend together at home
 The amount of time spent with a person determines how significant that
person is
 Many times parents imagine that if they provide for the physical needs of
the children, they have done their work. If they have paid for their fees,
there is food at home and other necessities are catered for. So what else
does the child want from me? The child needs to spend time with parents
both the father and mother.
 If the parent is spending time with the child then it becomes easy to
influence his attitudes, values and behaviour
Question: Who is at home with the children?
In many Kenyan homes the child is with other children raising each other with a
little help from the television and other electronic devices, cooks and cleaners
around the house. This means that for some children parental influence is
remote possibility. Many parents are strangers to their children and vice versa.
Personal identifications
Identification is Freud’s concept. It refers to the child’s wish to become like the
father for the boys or to become like the mother for the girls. If the boy becomes
like the father he assumes the male gender role while the girl assumes the
female gender role if she becomes like the mother. Mostly a child will identify
with family members he respects and loves he/she consciously or unconsciously
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imitates that person. The big question here is “is the father at home to give the
boy the model for identification”? “Is the mother at home to give the girl the
model for identification”?
Activity:
 Identify activities that keep mothers and fathers away from home after 5
o’clock in the evening, on Saturdays, and Sundays
 How can these activities be rescheduled to allow parents time with their
children?
 When parents keep away from home, could it be that they are escaping
from something? What is it?
 In your own assessment, what should be the role of the “ayah”? the
inevitable household technician? To run the home? To raise the children?
Or to offer assistance?
We are concerned about parental absences from the home because each
parent has specific contributions towards rearing children, which nobody
else can deputize.
The mother’s role is very specific: she should be there to provide
nurturance as well as female role modelling
The father should provide discipline as well as the male role model
The absence or non-participation of one parent in the child’s life
leaves deficits or gaps which could be easily filled by many
negative influences. When we complain that our children are using
indecent language, are lacking in respect, are dressing badly etc,
we should be concerned about the kind of influences they are
exposed to as a result of our absences or non-participation in their
lives.
Methods of Behaviour Control
The methods used by parents to control the child’s behaviour are very
important. These refer to the incentives the parents put in place to induce good
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behaviour, the frustrations and punishments they meet to discourage
unacceptable behaviour.
 Many times some parents leave children’s discipline to chance. They
hope that the children will pick up all desirable behaviour by and by.
These parents are usually shocked when the children turn into monsters
that nobody can tame.
 Other parents are conscious of their role in instilling discipline in their
children but they do all the wrong things in this endeavour. When they
beat their children they do it with vengeance (revenge) that leaves
children physically and psychologically damaged.
 When they deprive their children favours, they deny them food and other
basic requirements leaving their children hungry, uninvolved and
damaged.
 Parents should know that even when they must discipline children it
should be love oriented discipline.
 The child should never feel unloved or rejected during the formative
years.
 Child discipline should be accompanied by love, acceptance,
unconditional positive regard.
Security of the environment
 Every child needs to feel secure. For this reason the home should be that
secure environment where the child should go with his joys and success
as well as with his sorrows and defeats without feeling unwanted,
inadequate and unhappy.
 The home should provide the child with firm ground that gives him
anchorage/ haven (a place of safety).
 If the child is well anchored ( secure) his development moves in the
direction of self actualization
Emotional climate of the home
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 The emotional climate of the home is very important. Children need a
healthy emotional climate. This is aided by empathy, communication, and
respect for each other, togetherness, and appropriate methods of coping
with disagreements. These conditions are conducive in the development
of psychological health in children.
 However in many homes these conditions are unattainable as the order of
the day in many homes is
 Lack of feelings for one another
 Lack of communication
 Disrespect and
 Inappropriate methods of coping with disagreement
 Many children are treated rudely with shocks day and night when parents
“offer free for all entertainment” in the neighbourhood as they hurl
(throw or launch) verbal barrage (bombardment or storm) of insults
mixed with some physical actions of flying kicks and fists at each other
 The unfavourable frictional home climate affects children negatively.
Children from such homes develop hostility, antagonism (hatred) and
they grow to resist authority.
Negative Home Influences
There are negative home influences which damage the developing personality.
We may not be in position to mention all of them but offer a few examples.
 Favouritism. This refers to the condition where the parents prefer some
children openly in their words and actions. Parents are known to openly
talk about the children they like and those they dislike. They will extend
favours to the “good” children while the “bad” ones don’t get to visit
exciting places nor have nice things bought for them. The favoured child
gets new things while the “bad” one gets the old ones. This practice
promotes sibling rivalry which could at one time cause dire (terrible)
consequences leading to death or injury. It causes insecurity and
inferiority.
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 Feelings of inadequacy shown by parents. A parent who feels
inadequate for their role may be because they lack basic resources or may
be because they have misused or mishandled resources and thus become
dangerous persons. Many men and women will not accept their
shortcomings. They will use defence mechanisms. They may become too
harsh and blame the other parent or children to the point that no one will
dare approach them for anything. A woman or man who comes home and
starts finding fault in everything around him/her fortifies (secure)
themselves against any questions.
 Cheating parents. Parents who cheat use a lot of psychological energy to
cover up the things they want to keep hidden. They also must use
resources and they institute some unexplained restrictions. They become
difficult and complicated and sometimes fearful. They don’t want you to
meet their relatives or people who know them. They go to places alone
and won’t entertain questions.
 Maladjusted family members. Sometimes a family has someone who is
maladjusted. For example a known thief, a drunkard, a known criminal.
Mostly teachers and other children make it their business to keep
reminding the child bout their defective family member. The child is
made to feel inferior and unacceptable because of a father who is in jail or
a mother who crawls home drunk or a brother who steals and so on. This
child feels insecure and rejected which are not recipes for the
development of psychological health.
 Authoritarian control. There are parents who are known to rule the
family with an iron fist. The child is supposed to be seen and not to be
heard, to obey every command without questioning. A child raised in this
kind of family background never learns to be resourceful and neither does
he learn to be autonomous. Parents are therefore requested to be
authoritative and not authoritarian. Being authoritative means allowing
children room to ask questions and reason out while at the same time
being firm and loving when dealing with discipline issues.
 Marital maladjustment. Marital maladjustment refers to the situation
where the married couple discover that the marriage is not working yet
they still share a roof amid fights, insults, separate lives, and public
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dramatic scenes or pretences. In many cases where there is marital
maladjustment the child suffers a great deal. There are instances where
the parents decide to use the child as a weapon to fight the other partner.
In cases a partner can gang up with the child against the other partner or
the child could go through a great deal of suffering torn in between the
two parents.
Note: the family factor is recognised as the single most important
influence on cognitive development, emotional development and the
development of self-concept.
Question: what causes insecurity in children?
When children are rejected they feel both insecure and nervous and they
are likely to become non compliant. Rejected children may be abandoned,
beaten up, or starved. These children build up hate and hostility which
they vent through retaliation against people and property. These children
are likely to become un-socialized, aggressive, and who fear neither man
nor beast. They take on everybody in a compulsive desire to revenge.
 Child overprotection. Over protection refers to cases where parents
insist on prolonging a child’s infancy or childhood. They feed and dress
up the child who should have outgrown being fed. The parent over
restricts the child’s activities saying that he should not play with other
children or do anything that can cause him injury. The overprotected
child develops feelings of insecurity, jealousy, nervousness,
submissiveness, and even enuresis. Enuresis is night bed wetting after age
three.
 The over-demanding parent. When the parents demand more than the
child is capable of achieving children react differently, one child may
become submissive and work hard to attain parental standards. In the
process of pushing oneself so hard this child could develop neurotic
symptoms. When another child is driven too hard he may resort to
cheating to give the parents false belief that he is achieving. A third child
may become out rightly rebellious and refuse to be driven.
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 Defective home discipline. When home discipline is defective children
become poorly adjusted, aggressive delinquent or even neurotic.
Educational Determinants of Personality
Educational institutions play a significant role in personality development.
 Schools rank second to the home as their influence comes early in life
when the self-concept is being formed
 In fact once children join school they spend more time there that in
any other place outside the home
 The school has different influences and challenges on the child.
 It is the first place that provides the child with challenge. At
school the child is no longer a baby. When he is an equal
among peers.
 When he cries, they laugh at him and tease him as a cry-baby.
 When he wets or soils himself and they break into laughter.
 School provides the child with the opportunity to measure
himself against the peers in terms of intellectual, social and
physical abilities.
Question: What is a critical factor to consider before introducing the child
to school?
Activity:
A child wakes up in the morning and starts to cry, refuses to take breakfast and
neither will he prepare to go to school. The mother beats him and forcefully
dresses him up for school. He won’t walk to school so he is half carried and half
dragged there. When he gets to school he looks a pitiable (disgraceful) sight. He
is dirty, full of tears and mucous. The child is resisting school.
i) Can you guess several reasons causing the resistance?
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ii) What do you think the teacher is likely to do to this crying, dirty, tear
eyed and nose running child?
iii) What is the likely response of the other children towards this child?
iv) How is the child likely to behave on the following day?
Readiness for School
The purpose of the following activity is to point out some difficulties
experienced by children when they enter school.
 Some little boys and girls are traumatized by the school experience
and there is nowhere they can run to escape the torture that school can
be
 The mother or father beats them without wanting to find out why they
are unhappy with school
 When they get to school, the teacher continues the tormenting ordeal
(nightmare) while other children laugh at and taunt the poor child.
 We should ensure that the torments (nightmares) children go through
in an attempt to go to school are minimized by ensuring that first and
foremost, the child is physically and psychologically ready for school.
That is,
 He has control of his bowel movement
 He can control his urination
 He has the ability to communicate his needs and he possesses
the social skills to ask the teacher for permission to go to the
toilet.
 The social skills must extend to the child’s ability to live with other
children with the degree of harmony that his age permits
 At least the child should be able to share materials and to control his
aggression to a certain extent so that he earns peer acceptance. The
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child should also possess competencies that other children have and is
able to meet other demands of the school.
 The parents and teachers should try to find out the problems the child
is experiencing early and alleviate them instead of aggravating them as
happens many a time.
 If the child’s problems are dealt with early enough adjustment to the
school becomes possible.
 A child fails to adjust to school if they encounter ego-deflating
experiences. They wet or soil their clothes and other children laugh at
them,
 The teacher beats them,
 The person who washes their soiled clothes shows open disgust and
hostility
The emotional climate of the school
The emotional climate of the school is very important to the child. This is
where the teacher’s role becomes very critical, as she is normally responsible
for setting the emotional climate.
 The teacher’s influence on personality development is second only to
that of the parents.
 She is the mother of many children, all of them the same age. They
look up to her for love, acceptance and fair play.
 The teacher should be seen to treat all children equally, avoiding
favouritism. She should be seen to have a keen interest in children and
;
 Always remember that children are very sensitive. They want to
be assured of love, acceptance and unconditional positive
regard.
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 Indeed the teacher sets the foundation for the child’s adjustment
or maladjustment to school.
 The teacher should use the enormous powers she possesses to
put children on the right footing in the direction of
psychological health, the direction towards self-actualization.
Academic success
The degree of academic success that the child achieves affects personality
development. If a child is getting good grades in schoolwork he enjoys inner
satisfaction which boosts his ego.
 Good grades not only lead to praise and commendation from teachers
and parents, they also attract envy from peers
 They promise a good future as well as adjustment to school.
 A child who is performing well will most likely steer away from any
disciplinary problems.
 This is the child you ask what he wants to become when he grows up
and he has a clear vision of it: a pilot, a lawyer, a surgeon, an
engineer, they will say.
Success in extracurricular activities
Some children may not show excellent performance in a class but when they
are in the field they hold their own very well.
 Some run for the school at district or national levels.
 Others are on the school teams: football, volleyball, basketball, rugby,
tennis, netball, and so on.
 There are those who have talent in leadership while others shine in
drama, choir, or dance.
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 These activities influence the amount of peer acceptance the student
enjoys. They also boost the ego and are good recipes for positive
development.
School Type
Schools differ just like homes. Some schools are well endowed with physical
and human resources while others could do with a lot more than currently
available in both types of resources. Schools also differ in terms of culture.
Some schools have established cultures of hard work and success while
others have a culture of complacency (self satisfaction) and failure. This
means that a child’s personality will be shaped according to what the school
has to offer. The unfortunate bit here is that a child’s success in school and in
life may be determined solely by the school factor.
Activity
i) Why do students rise up against their own schools?
ii) Why do they burn school property?
iii) In recent times the country has been treated to distressing and bizarre
activities by students who buy petrol and burn other students as they
are sleeping. Rape cases have been reported where students break
bond and visit a neighbourhood village or girls’ schools with the sole
purpose of raping and killing. Can we explain why these things
happen?
iv) What is it that turns our good boys into terrors?
v) Are they factors in the school perhaps? Or are the teachers going to
forever continue blaming factors that exist outside the schools?
Personality Adjustment and Maladjustment
It is difficult to discuss personality without giving some attention to the
concept of personality adjustment and maladjustment. A pupil will become
adjusted or maladjusted depending on the experiences encountered both at
home and at school. Children who are exposed to pleasant experiences from
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early childhood are more likely to develop capacity for adjustment and
psychological health while those who are exposed to unpleasant or traumatic
experiences are likely to develop tendencies towards maladjustment.
Adjustment is the term used to refer to the process by means of which the
individual seeks to maintain physiological and psychological equilibrium. It
refers to the adequacy of behaviour patterns the individual uses to satisfy his
needs. A person is adjusted if he satisfies his needs within the framework of
the expectations and constraints of the social order. The person must satisfy
his needs in ways that are consistent with social expectations for age, sex,
and status. To be well adjusted, a person must have adequate coping skills.
Characteristics of a well adjusted person
A well-adjusted person is efficient in dealing with situational
demands. This means that he adapts well and deals with challenges
competently.
He accepts his strengths and weaknesses and goes about life
confidently
He also displays social sensitivity and conforms to social standards.
This person does not violet rules.
Adjustment gives the person happiness because the adjusted person
lives in harmony with his world and is oriented towards selfactualization.
Maladjustment
People are faced with adjustment problems all the time. If the problems are
too severe and solutions not forthcoming, frustrations arise. Severe and
continued frustration leads to maladjustment, desperation (extreme anxiety),
queer (funny or odd), or atypical (out of character) behaviour.
Characteristics of a maladjusted person
The maladjusted person displays inability to interact appropriately
with the physical and social environment.
Is unable to satisfy ones needs.
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Is likely to be an underachiever
Suffers from anxiety motivated affiliative needs
Has cultivated a self concept of inferiority and guilt.
Suffers a breakdown of efficiency under stress
Withdraws from participation and can easily disrupt group work
Uses defence mechanisms like excessive aggression and
destructiveness.
Will engage in repeated transgressions despite punishment
Suffers loss of constructiveness
Will withdraw from school or social activities
Worries excessively and is likely to fall into depression and
pessimism.
Question: Who is responsible for children’s adjustment?
o The primary responsibility for the child’s adjustment lies with the
parents. They are the ones who set the basic personality pattern through
the security they provide in early childhood
o It also lies with the teachers. The teachers hold the key to whether the
child will be fulfilled or frustrated.
o Both the parents and teachers should help children develop their capacity
for adjustment so that they learn to deal with present as well as future
problems competently.
o If the parents and teacher do their job well then cases of children who
become delinquent, school dropouts, those who have hopeless and
helpless lives will be minimized.
Revision questions
i) Why should the teacher study the topic personality?
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ii) From observation of people in your neighbourhood or family can you tell
which physical, intellectual, or social traits children inherit from their
parents?
iii) Who spends more time with the children where you come from? Mom or
dad or the housemaid? When parents are not at home, where are they?
iv) What is the prevalence of domestic violence in your community? Who
batters who, mom or dad?
v) What do you remember of your best and worst teachers?
vi) How will the understanding of forces that shape personality influence you
as a teacher?
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LECTURE TEN: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
One of the principles of teacher unhappiness is indiscipline problem. Any
time you have a collection of learners in a classroom you have a fertile
ground for all possible misdemeanour (misbehaviour). They make noise,
pinch each other, steal, cheat, cough or yawn contagiously. They appear in
class looking untidy, with unfinished homework or reports. When you report
in a new school for the first lesson, you may find a cartoon caricature
(picture) of you deftly (skilfully outlined or drawn on the chalkboard. On the
next morning you discover that the teacher’s chair is missing and in its place
is a three-legged one. You intend to ask about the missing chair but you are
confronted with blank faces of girls and boys who won’t leak any
information. Somewhere at the corner of the chalkboard is one word
“unbwogable” or three words “hatucheki na watu”. Somewhere else is your
nickname inscribed!
Which teacher will have the courage to go through all these and still
teach?
The relevance of classroom management
The teacher’s roles in the classroom are mainly two:
 The first being to ensure the classroom environment is conducive for
learning
 The second one is the delivery of content.
The first role is crucial because it might be the sole determinant to the amount
of learning that takes place. The classroom environment is largely determined
by the teacher’s ability to manage all the variables present in the classroom at
any one time for the purpose of promoting conditions for learning.
Therefore the teacher’s ability to run a well-managed class is of utter
(absolute/complete) importance. In fact many teachers fail in their job because
of their inability to manage their classroom than for any other reason.
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Classroom management is seen as the teacher’s number one professional
problem (Gage/Berliner, 1991).
For the teacher to be an effective classroom manager, he should:
 Possess methods of identifying problem behaviours in the classroom, he
should
 Know why students misbehave
 Possess effective skills for maintaining discipline.
Methods of Identifying Problem Behaviours in the Classroom
For the teacher to be able to identify problem behaviours in the classroom,
he needs to be in touch with the class.
 This means being aware of what is happening in all parts of the
classroom so that he can intervene promptly and accurately when
inappropriate behaviour occurs.
 The teacher should possess observation skills. Observation refers to
watching children.
 The teacher’s observation of children will reveal facial expressions that
may indicate :
 Unhappiness
 Anxiety
 Restlessness
 Hyperactivity
 Tension
 Self-consciousness
 Anger
 Nervous habits and
 Day dreaming.
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The teacher could observe the learner’s social activities. When the children are
playing in the field the teacher could use scientific gadgets like the binoculars to
observe the pupils social interactions unobtrusively. The use of this method will
reveal the pupils;
o Who are playing together and
o Those who are left out by the others so that a lot of time they sit or stand
by themselves. If a student is observed alone on many occasions the
teacher should know that this student has a problem.
o Who bully others
o Those who are bullied
o The fearful ones
o The quarrelsome ones and
o Those who are defiant.
 The teacher could also use sociometric questions to discover the pupils
who have problems. For example ask pupils in the class to nominate other
pupils from the same class with whom one would like to share a cubicle,
to be desk-mates, to go for walks with and so on. This method will reveal
those children who are isolated or rejected by others.
 It is the teacher’s duty to discover why any pupil will be rejected by the
classmates.
 The teacher could also ask the class to write a story with the following
themes:
 What I dreamt last night. Normally people dream about things that
bother them.
 If I had three wishes. Again as children write about this theme their
stories and the teacher will know the problems they have
 The day I was almost afraid. This theme will reveal the fears that
individual learners may have about school and home life.
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 The teacher could also use the direct approach of finding out what is
bothering the children. The use of this method requires the teacher to
ensure private discussion in the staffroom and not public address in the
classroom or on parade grounds.
Why do learners misbehave?
Learners do not misbehave for the sake of doing so; they have their own
reasons. A good teacher is the one who knows why learners are likely to
show problematic behaviour. The following are some of the reasons:
 Unmet needs. Every child must achieve reasonable satisfaction of his
o Physical
o Social and
o Personality needs in order to develop in a normal and wholesome
manner. When these needs are frustrated then problematic
behaviours arise.
 Poverty. Children coming from poor homes may lack basic necessities
like food. They will also be lacking the things required by the school. For
example, when other children who have good uniforms and can afford
other things like pens, books, money for trips, the child from a poor home
lacks these things. This child is also likely to be taunted (teased or
criticized) by other children and called names referring to his torn clothes
and inability to have things like them. As a result the poor child will be
ashamed of himself, his home and his parents. Due to the hostility of his
socio-psychological environment, this pupil has a high likelihood of
showing maladjustment. Of course this does not apply in all the cases.
There are children from poor homes who are very brave and who give a
deaf ear to the things that are said about them. These children use poverty
as a motivator.
 Broken homes. There are children who come from broken homes. A
home may be broken by,
o Death of a parent or
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o Separation, and
o Desertion
Any of these conditions make children feel very insecure. This
insecurity translates itself into behaviour problems.
 Conflict-ridden homes also produce children who are:
o Nervous
o Unhappy and
o Insecure and who are likely to show behaviour problems
 Personal inadequacies. Sometimes a pupil may feel inadequate
o When he is unable to carry out tasks that are expected of him.
o The pupil who is unable to engage in physical tasks like the rest of
the group or one who is unable to achieve on mental tasks like the
other children experiences frustration. This pupil tends to feel
inferior and unhappy. In order to live with his problem,
inappropriate behaviour arises.
o There are pupils who set for themselves goals that they cannot
attain. For example a child with average mental ability wanting to
be position number one in class where competition is high. This
pupil can never attain the goal and therefore the frustration that
arises becomes a source of behaviour problems.
o The pupils who are self-conscious tend to feel inferior and
friendless and may crave for affection. They may become attention
seekers or even aggressive.
 The rejected child. Many children come from homes where they are
neither loved nor valued by their parents; their need for affection and
security is threatened. These children may suffer:
o Neglect
o Separation from parents
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o Nagging
o Humiliation before others
o Comparison with others unfavourably
 These children will engage in attention seeking behaviour,
 Some will become restless or non conforming
 They are likely to develop unstable tendencies with
disregard for rules and convection of society.
 They will develop shallow feeling like:
 Lacking in reaction of guilt
 Suffer emotional instability
 Lack self-control
 They have underdeveloped ego which makes them have no
feelings of remorse. This means that many undesirable
behaviours may be associated with child rejection
 The overprotected child. This is the child whose very flimsy (weak)
need is catered for.
o He eats whenever and whatever he wants
o Have many material possessions
o May be restricted from playing with other children so that he does
not get hurt
o This child is likely to become selfish and aggressive
o Lacks a sense of responsibility
o Develops infantile behaviour
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o Exhibits problems like thumb sucking, enuresis, and temper
tantrums
o He is likely to develop poor social adjustment, bad manners,
impoliteness, rudeness, disobedience,
o Will be bossy, selfish, show off and
o Lacking in frustration and tolerance.
 Unfavourable school practices. Many times conditions that exist in the
school may result in a child’s unwholesome development. These are
conditions which could be detrimental to the good psychological health of
their pupils. These are:
a) Failure to cater for individual differences. When the students feel that
the teachers are not caring for them individually they tend to feel
o Insecure
o Uncertain and
o Afraid.
o These students may show disobedience.
b) Autocratic control. If the teachers and the school administration do not
exercise democratic control in their interaction with learners them
problems arise. The learners who are ruled with an iron fist have their
resourcefulness and initiative stifled. This happens because they can
never learn to control
o Their behaviour
o Their thoughts or
o Their actions
c) Humiliating pupils in public. There are times when students do wrong
things. For example when;
o They fail to complete assignments
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o They make noise in class
o They are rude
o They tell lies, cheat, etc.
Many teachers react to these misdeeds by scolding the learners publically in
class or on school assembly. Many times the scolding is meant to make the
erring boy or girl suffer humiliation in the presence of peers or the whole
school. A teacher who exposes learners to this kind of humiliation is likely to
contribute to delinquency. This will occur when the pupil decides to skip
school altogether and join a gang of truant learners who care nothing for
school.
d) Teachers can also use labels on learners. This happens when the
teacher decides to refer to learners’ inferiority or even stress on the
learner’s negative behaviour or weakness. This kind of cruelty is
experienced by many learners who have been convinced that they are:
o Dumb
o Bad
o Stubborn
o Disobedient and
o Outright defective
Naturally children have a way of fulfilling their teacher’s prophesies by
displaying their labels. They become what their teacher says they are.
e) The teacher’s competence. The teacher’s ability to fit their roles is
critically important. Any teacher who has problems in any area of his
duty is likely to contribute to the emergence and existence of problematic
behaviour. Such a teacher is likely to use defensive mechanisms. In order
to cover up his shortcomings, he will blame;
o The school
o The learners
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o The parents
o The society
How Learners React to Problems
Learners react to problems by becoming problematic. Problematic pupils cannot
or will not adjust to the socially acceptable norms for behaviour. A problematic
learner will disrupt his own academic progress and that of his classmates. He
may lack the ability to make and to keep friends due to poor interpersonal
relations.
The problematic learner is likely to show any of the several outwardly
manifested behaviours. For example;
Absenteeism. This can either be
 Physical absence which means that the child is bodily away from class
many times with faked reasons of sickness or other reasons.
 Psychological absence means that the learner is bodily present in class
but mentally he is far away. This can be observed if the learner is looking
outside the window, passing notes to others in the class, is staring
vacantly, fidgeting, or day dreaming
Show of misconduct. The problematic child is likely to be involved in
misbehaviour, for example
i) Noise making
ii) Aggression
iii) Defiance
iv) Use of profane language or
v) Basically acting tough.
Stealing. Learners will engage in stealing for various reasons:
 Sometimes they want to get revenge or
 They wish to vent hostile feelings towards parents
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 A child may steal due to lack of respect for other people’s
property.
 There are children who steal without an apparent good reason.
This may happen when a child has problems that are
psychological in nature. In this case a child will steal in order to
fulfil a psychological deficit with material things.
Lying. This refers to twisting or falsifying information for selfish
motives. Children tell lies
 In order to escape the consequences of punishment or to get
attention.
 Also they tell lies in order to reduce anxiety or
 Even to get something they want.
Cheating. Learners will cheat
 When a task is too difficult and particularly when parents and
teachers have set standards that the child cannot attain.
 The child will also cheat in order to avoid failure
 The cheating child may also be the one who feels both
inadequate and inferior.
Truancy. The truant child stays away from school without the knowledge
of the parents.
 He may go fishing, movie watching or just any other activity
that keeps him away from school.
 A child will become truant if school is threatening. For example
a learner who is being bullied or one who is performing poorly
in school will be truant.
 Also the learner who has neither found love at home nor at
school will develop a strong dislike for school and can turn to
truancy.
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Activity
i) Try and list all the methods teachers use to deal with inappropriate
behaviour
 Types of punishments
 Other methods
ii) From your observations do these methods succeed in eliminating
undesirable behaviour?
iii) Try to suggest reasons for your answer
Methods of Behaviour Change
 Punishment. In their effort to maintain order in the classroom, teachers
use many methods of behaviour change. Among them punishments rank
very high. Punishment is a form of aversive control of behaviour.
Aversive means unpleasant, noxious, or painful. Students can be punished
through the following ways:
 A teacher could administer an aversive stimulus like canning, or
kneeling
 A teacher could also remove an individual from a reinforcing
situation e.g., removing a student from class also called timeout.
 Even removing a desirable stimulus from the student e.g., taking
away playtime is punishment
 Punishment can also be psychological like scolding or blaming a
student.
Purpose of Punishment
When a teacher administers punishment to a pupil, he hopes to do the following:
 To make undesirable behaviour less probable
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 To weaken it
 To suppress it
 To eliminate it
With this in mind we need to acknowledge that punishment may not always
have any of these effects on the undesirable behaviour. There are times when
the punished behaviour is not suppressed nor eliminated and the teacher needs
to know why this happened. Undesirable behaviour will not be eliminated if the
following conditions are not met:
 Intensity of punishment.
Intensity refers to the strength or severity of punishment. Punishments of high
intensity are likely to eliminate undesirable behaviour. Good examples are
When a child touches fire and is burned he ceases to touch fire for all
time.
Also any child playing with a sharp object stops doing so if cut by the
object.
In the school situation, very severe punishments are discouraged because
they can harm both the body and mind.
Teachers are not allowed to give out punishments which are physically
and psychologically damaging as well. The punishments that are allowed
are mild and bearable so that the learner may not have problems
repeating the punishable behaviour.
 Consistency of punishment
Consistency refers to the condition of punishing a learner every time the
undesirable behaviour occurs.
Consistency in punishment is difficult to maintain because the teacher
cannot watch the child 24 hours a day, seven days a week and so on. This
means that the pupil knows that he can escape with the punishable
behaviour when the teacher is not around.
Making punishment consistent is not humanly possible.
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Inconsistency makes the undesirable behaviour recur.
 Contingency of punishment
Contingency refers to the pairing of punishment with the undesired behaviour.
 It means that punishment should be administered immediately the
undesirable behaviour occurs.
 Punishment should not be removed in time; it should accompany the
undesired behaviour. For example at home, if one wants to punish a dog
that is messing up the compound, the punishment should be administered
when the dog is at the act not minutes or hours later.
 The principle is that if punishment is made contingent upon the undesired
behaviour the association between it and the behaviour will be created
and thus it will have the power to suppress that behaviour.
What is the situation like in the classroom or in the school?
 Many times teachers are unable to deliver punishment contingent upon
the undesirable behaviour. E.g., a student who comes late, or one who
disrupts the classroom activity may have to wait for hours before
punishment is delivered.
 Also it is not humanly possible to monitor a pupil so as to punish him
contingently.
 Therefore learners know they can get away with punishable behaviours.
 Consequently, punishment as a method of behaviour control fails.
Activity
Imagine you are in a day school in one of the low SES areas. One week you are
on duty and you notice this boy who reports to school late. You give him the
punishment for lateness. The same boy did not wash his uniform and you give
him the prescribed punishment. You also discover that he did not finish his
home assignment. By the end of the day you have not noticed any other learner
because you are preoccupied with this particular one.
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 Are you going to punish this learner every day for all the ‘wrong’ things
that he has done or the ‘right’ things he has failed to do?
 Discuss this case suggesting how you could intervene in the case of this
learner.
Facts about Punishment
When we talk about punishment we have certain expectations.
o We expect that it will serve as an incentive to induce behaviour change
o We expect the punished learner to avoid errors. But whereas this
punishment could meet our expectations we should also realize that it
could also be an incentive to induce other undesirable behaviours.
o There are times when punishment can provide the learner with need
satisfaction. For example
 A child who attracts the teacher’s attention only when he talks in
class will continue talking. For this learner, punishment is
desirable, it is rewarding. This happens when the teacher
recognizes the presence of that learner only when he misbehaves.
 For this reason, teachers are advised to recognize learners and
reward them for any good behaviour they show and not wait to
recognize them only when they have misbehaved.
 Another factor determining whether a learner will engage in
undesirable behaviour or not is knowledge of punishment. A
learner may choose to engage in undesirable behaviour with full
knowledge of the punishment and also with the willingness to take
the punishment.
 Also if the teacher punishes the learner for dependence behaviour,
the child becomes more dependant. This happens even at home
when a mother beats the child for clinging on to her. Common
sense would have it that the child should run away from the mother
but he doesn’t. This child clings to the mother even more firmly.
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The punishment of Aggressive Behaviours
If the teacher punishes a learner for aggressive tendencies, this learner is
likely to be more aggressive and particularly if subjected to harsh
physical punishment.
Punishment may not eliminate the undesirable behaviour. For example a
child who is punished for smoking in school may stop smoking while in
school but continue to do so in other places.
At other times punishment may eliminate one undesirable behaviour but
another equally undesirable behaviour emerges e.g., a child may be
punished for being aggressive and actually stops but becomes withdrawn.
There are learners who may fear punishment so much that they become
avoidant. They may fake illness, become truant, fail to attend school
sessions.
It is also noted that when a learner is punished he is not provided with an
alternative behaviour, for example a child can learn to control his
aggressive tendencies but doesn’t learn to be friendly.
Negative Effects of Punishment
It has become increasingly important for teachers to know that the effects of
punishment are frequently undesirable.
 For one, the threatening aspects of punishment may produce emotional
tension in the learner who may actually learn to hate the punisher because
of the fear of punishment.
 The learner may acquire many undesirable behaviours to avoid being
punished. He may cheat, lie, and become anxious.
 The teacher needs to be aware that punishment has limited usefulness as a
control technique.
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 It has real disadvantages in terms of total learning of the child
 Teachers need to note that if their interaction with learners is
largely characterized by punitive relationships, they are likely to be
ineffective in promoting a wide range of desirable behaviour.
Conditions under which Punishment should be given
From the foregoing, it looks like we are discouraging the use of punishment.
However, we recognize that punishment cannot be dismissed or ignored. We
would therefore want to look at it as one of the methods of behaviour change
which should be used under specified conditions in order to be beneficial. The
teacher may find the following suggestions useful:
If the teacher must punish he should specify and communicate the
punishable behaviour to the learners by means of classroom rules and
regulations.
The pupils should be involved in the drawing of rules
These rules should be posted where the learners can see them
The rules should be reviewed often
The school should also provide the learners with models of acceptable
behaviour. If the acceptable behaviour is good grooming, punctuality,
honesty, hard work or responsibility, then a student who displays any of
these characteristics should be called in front of the school during the
school assembly for all to see an example of the desirable behaviour that
the teacher wishes to reinforce. The schools should never display models
of undesirable behaviour because every time they do so they create hero
worship of the learners with the undesirable characteristics: Those with
the most unkempt (uncombed) hair, lazy, dishonest or poorly groomed
learners should never be put on the display. They should be denied
recognition.
If the punishment must be delivered it must be done immediately. This
should be done in line with principles of contingency discussed above.
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Learners should be informed of alternative behaviours that is what they
would have done instead of the punished behaviour.
The punishment should always be perceived as fair. This means that the
teacher should not be seen to practice partiality (biasness). Those who
deserve to be punished must receive their punishment as prescribed.
Impartiality can be a major cause of school unrest and increased
indiscipline.
Punishment must be delivered consistently in line with the principle of
consistency. This means that whenever possible the punishable act should
never be allowed to escape punishment.
The teacher should try and avoid group punishment at all costs. A lot of
gain is made if the teacher is able to isolate a student or two and punish
them instead of punishing the whole class. If the whole class is making
noise or failing to cooperate it is advisable to sometimes ignore the
incidence or to look for alternative methods of dealing with the situation.
When the teacher uses group punishment, it ceases to be punishment as
learners may actually enjoy it.
Behaviour Modification Techniques
There are several methods the teacher could use in classroom management and
which could go a long way to minimize cases of indiscipline while at the same
time they will help to maximize the occurrence of desirable behaviour. These
methods are derived from the theories of behaviour modification. They follow
the principle of learning that we are quite familiar with. They are the following:
From classical conditioning eliciting and extinction principles
From operant conditioning, reinforcement and Behavioural contracting from
Premark principle
Classical Conditioning
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1. Eliciting
This is the act of expecting and calling upon the learner to display the desirable
behaviour. The teacher could call the student by name and ask him to answer a
question or to do a certain assignment or pick something on the floor. The most
important concept here is giving the learner an opportunity of doing something
desirable. When the learner has displayed the desirable behaviour he should be
given recognition. He should be told “thank you”, “good”, and “well done”. The
positive response from the teacher will enhance the chances of recurrence of the
behaviour.
2. Extinction
This refers to elimination of a response through withdrawal of reinforcement.
The teacher could ignore a behaviour that is undesirable sometimes. For
example,
 Some attention-seeking learner who comes to class late so that he can be
asked why he is late could be ignored.
 A student who does things to make the class laugh could be discouraged
if the teacher instructs the class not to laugh.
 Extinction works very well if the teacher accompanies it with
reinforcement of alternative behaviour. For example in the above case,
the first learner is reinforced for coming to class on time. In the second
scenario, the learner is reinforced every time he displays seriousness in
classroom interactions.
3. Reinforcement
Reinforcement is the key concept derived from operant conditioning theory. It
refers to the use of rewards as incentives to induce and strengthen desirable
behaviour. The teacher should always remember that rewards are useful when
they are seen as potential sources of need satisfaction
 Therefore, certain learners will work for certain rewards. For this reason
the teacher should know his learners well in order to know what rewards
a learner will work for.
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 Secondly rewards must be attainable. If a pupil is attracted to a certain
reward but he knows that he has little chance of attaining it he will not
work for it.
 Thirdly the reward: punishment ratio should be right. A learner must
receive more rewards than punishments in a ration of 5:1. If the ratio falls
to 2:1, the learner can develop neurotic symptoms of inferiority,
inadequacy and generalized fear of failure.
 When the ratio drops further to a ratio of 1:1 the learner is likely to
develop delinquent behaviours.
4. Token economy
Tokens are concrete forms of rein force. They can be in the form of points or
poker chips. if a learner performs a desirable task, he is given tokens for
example punctuality can earn a learner two tokens, turning in complete
homework five tokens, and presenting neat work two tokens.
At the end of the month the tokens may be exchanged for something concrete
e.g., the learner can be given permission to do something interesting or
something desirable. Tokens can also be taken away if the learner misbehaves.
5. Behaviour contracting
This involves two people: the teacher and the learner. These two people identify
the undesirable behaviour as well as the desirable behaviour as well as the
desirability to change it. The behaviour to be changed could be, lateness, poor
grooming, untidy work, non-completing homework, rudeness or any other
undesirable behaviour. The teacher and the learner enter into a contract, the
contract details what will happen when the undesirable behaviour is changed.
That is, what the learner will stand to gain on one hand and what he stands to
suffer or lose if the desirable behaviour is not observed, the strength of this
method lies in the fact that the learner is an involved party in the contract. he is
cognitively involved in his own behaviour change and consequently when
behaviour change occurs it becomes durable.
6. Preventive discipline
Beyond rewards and punishments
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 The teacher should respect and love children
 Respect their identity
 He should accept the learners. Acceptance means being aware of their
unique personality, interests, strong points, failures and temperaments
 Help them to develop social competence so that they can win peer
acceptance
 Organising the school experiences to meet the need for new experiences:
 Expose them to new subject matter, new activities, responsibility,
field trips, and use of teaching aids.
 Satisfy their need for curiosity, need for mastery, need for success.
 An achieving child will feel worthy, recognized, competent and
autonomous.
 School programs should be arranged for more equitable distribution of
the experiences of success.
 Every child may achieve some degree of it
 The school should provide varied opportunities for emotional, physical,
intellectual, and aesthetic (Artistic) achievement
 Provide good teaching
 Let children be committed to behaviour change
 Establish clear behaviour guidelines, expectations, standards and rules
that are clear to all.
 Adopt a team work approach- involve teachers, administration and
parents
 Design a complete discipline ladder
 Clear description of available corrective disciplinary measures should be
put in place e.g., warning, calling parents, and referring to principal or
counsellor.
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 Train self management and discipline
 Invite goo disciplined model
 Focus on student success and self-esteem
 Implement fair and firm rules
 Plan lessons thoroughly
 Continually monitor the classroom environment
 Minimize problems early
Revision questions
i) In your own assessment what are the root causes of discipline problems in
your area?
ii) To what extent do teachers rely on punishments and with what results
iii) Have you come across a teacher who tries to use the other behaviour
modification techniques discussed above?
iv) In what ways do teachers apply preventive discipline
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LECTURE ELEVEN: THE EXCEPTIONAL LEARNER
Definition of the term exceptional children
Henry (1950) defines exceptional children as those who deviate from what is
supposed to be average in physical, mental, emotional, or social
characteristics to such an extent that they require special education services
in order to develop to their maximum capacity. Exceptional children are
those who deviate intellectually so markedly from what is considered to be
normal growth and development that they cannot receive maximum benefit
from regular school programs and require special classes or supplementary
instructional services.
Exceptional children require special skills and services. Some of them
cannot adjust to the school program without radical modifications of the
curriculum, special methods of instructions, special equipment or even
adjusted school schedule. Some exceptional children may require to be put in
a special classroom or special schools while others may need individualized
attention in regular classrooms.
Categories of Exceptional Children
Exceptional children can be categorized as follows:
Intellectually different refer to those children who deviate from the normal
group in mental characteristics. This category includes the gifted and
talented, mentally handicapped and those with specific learning disabilities.
This group includes those children who are mentally retarded and therefore
have lower IQ below 90, lowered mental functioning, and adaptive
behaviour. The category also covers those children whose mental capacity is
above the norm group above 140 and who may be talented in special areas.
The physically different- this category includes the orthopaedics, physically
handicapped, the crippled or deformed.
The neurological impaired- this category covers the hearing impaired or
deaf, visually impaired or blind and those with multiple handicaps.
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The psychosocially different- this category includes all those children with
conduct or behavioural problems which are markedly different from normal
and which is continuous e.g., the emotionally disturbed and socially
maladjusted children. The category may include children in difficult
circumstances.
Those with health problems- this category includes children with diabetes,
leukaemia, sickle cells, and anaemia.
Classification of exceptional children
a) The Gifted and Talented
Who are the gifted?
There is no agreement about what constitutes a gifted student reason being
that individuals can have many gifts. The general consensus is that, gifted
learners are those with:
 Above average general ability
 High level of creativity
 High level of task commitment or motivation to achieve in certain
areas.
There are other characteristics that distinguish the gifted learner from other
children. These are:
 They are larger, stronger, and healthier than the normal/average group
 They achieve developmental milestones earlier than the average group
i.e., they talk 3 and ½ years earlier, walk earlier, they learn to read
before age six, they master school subjects two classes beyond their
age level.
 They have great curiosity and good memory
 They are more emotionally stable than their peers
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 As adults they are better adjusted than the average person
How a teacher identifies the gifted children
 The gifted children may not be those who simply learn quickly with
little effort. Although this characteristic is present, it is important that
the teacher notices those children who reason things out, think clearly,
use common sense and practical knowledge;
o Have knowledge of many things
o Have a large vocabulary accurately used
o Perform difficult mental tasks.
 Ask many questions and are interested in a wide range of things
 The intellectually gifted child is original and uses good but unusual
methods or ideas.
 He is also alert and keenly observant and responds quickly.
Problems associated with Giftedness
The gifted and talented children constitute a group of students with special
education needs that are often overlooked by the school. The very gifts that
make them outstanding are the ones that cause them untold difficulties. The
teacher may note the following problems:
Non-participation. The gifted children need stimulating and
challenging work. If they get bored with classroom routine they may
become indifferent, restless, inattentive, disturbing, and even
annoying.
They may get into trouble. The gifted children may get into trouble
because they have abundant energy, insight, a vivid sense of humour,
strong feelings of truth and justice, which makes them outspoken.
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They get misunderstood sometimes teachers will think that the gifted
child is rude, unruly, and indisciplined if they do not understand them.
How to Manage the Gifted Children
Many suggestions have been put forward.
 Some people feel that the gifted children should be put in classes
according to mental age rather than chronological.
 They could be allowed to skip grades. This approach would solve one
problem but create another problem for the gifted learner. If the child
skips grades he is removed from his social emotional peers, which
may later affect social adjustment later.
 For these reasons some approaches have advanced that the child
should be retained in class with his age mates but be given additional
work or material. This is the concept of enriching the regular
classroom by allowing the gifted child to conduct independent
research offering them additional leaning and even offering them extra
curriculum activities.
Activity
i) Do you know that many gifted children underachieve and even drop out
of school? Tyr and find out the cause of this phenomenon.
ii) When there are problems in the school like strikes, many gifted children
are expelled from the institutions. Can you explain why this happens?
iii) Are you aware that at times gifted children are dismissed as show offs?
b) The Mentally Handicapped Children
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According to the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD),
mental retardation refers to the substantial limitations in present intellectual
functioning which is characterized by sub average intellectual functioning
exiting concurrently with related limitations in two or more of the following;
applicable adaptive skill areas e.g., communication, self-care, home living,
social skills, community use, self-direction, health, safety, functional
academics, leisure and work. Mental retardation manifests before the age of
18 years.
Causes of Mental Retardation
Mental retardation could be caused by the following factors.
 Inborn errors of metabolism for example in the case of phenylketunoria
(PKU). In PKU the child is born with a genetic defect, which interferes
with the ability to metabolize proteins. When protein is not completely
broken down it causes poisoning in the child’s body. The poisoning also
causes damage to the central nervous system causing severe mental
retardation. As a result the child has very low IQ and may not acquire
language nor any self help skills and may require life-long care.
 Chromosomal abnormalities. For example Trisomy 21. As you well
know chromosomes occur in pairs. However, there are cases when
chromosome 21 may have three chromosomes instead of two. The three
chromosomes in chromosome number 21 causes mental retardation called
Down’s syndrome or Mongolism.
 Prenatal factors. Diseases like rubella, conditions like Rh factor,
malnutrition and even drugs taken by the mother during pregnancy are
known to cause mental retardation.
 Perinatal factors. These refer to conditions surrounding the birth process
for example injury to the central nervous system during the birth process.
Anoxia which is the deprivation of oxygen to the baby’s brain during the
birth process. Prematurity is also a condition known to cause mental
retardation.
 Postnatal factors. These are conditions existing after the birth of the
baby. For example infections like meningitis.
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Categories of Mentally Retarded Children
Mentally retarded children are classified as follows:
The profoundly retarded with IQ below 30
The severely retarded with IQ between 30-35
Children in these categories cannot be trained in self-help skills like
dressing, feeding or toileting. They cannot be trained in socialization
or economic usefulness and they need lifelong care.
The trainable mentally retarded with IQ between 35-50. These
children have potentialities in three areas
 They can learn self care like feeding, dressing, undressing,
toileting, and sleeping.
 They can learn to adjust in the home and the neighbourhood.
 They can learn economic usefulness in the home.
The educable mentally retarded with IQ between 50-79. These
children can do writing, arithmetic and reading at a very slow rate. If
they are given all the help they can get, they can go up to standard 3 or
4. They acquire numeracy and literacy skills very late. They are slow
in specific attention span and they have many problems with social
behaviour. The educable mentally retarded children have some
capacity for school adjustment to a point where they can get along
independently in the community. They can acquire minimum
occupational adequacy, which will enable them to support themselves
partially or totally at a marginal level.
The slow learner whose IQ ranges between 80-90. This is a
borderline category of learners who have problems in catching up
with the rest of the children in class academically. They are capable of
achieving a moderate degree of academic success at a slower rate
rather than the average child.
c) The Learning Disabled Children
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Learning disability is a new and controversial category of exceptional
learning. There is no fully agreed upon definition.
Learning disabilities refers to those children who have significant difficulties
in listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical skills.
These difficulties are not attributed to mental retardation nor are they
attributed to environmental deprivation. They have to do more with
psychological processes than other factors.
Cartwright and Cartwright (1981) define learning disabilities as a general
term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders that manifest by
significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking,
reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities. The disorders are
intrinsic to the individual presumed to be due to certain nervous system
dysfunctions, and may occur across the life span.
Hallahan and Kauffman (1976) say that children with special learning
disabilities exhibit a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological
processes involved in understanding or using spoken or written language.
These may be manifested in disorders of listening, thinking, talking, reading,
writing, spelling, or arithmetic. They include conditions which have been
referred to as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimum brain
dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. They do not include
learning problems which are due primarily to visual, hearing, motor
handicaps, mental retardation, emotional disturbance or environmental
disadvantage.
Are Learning Disabled Children a Homogenous Group?
The learning disabled children are a heterogeneous group. Each child may
have specific difficulties in one or more academic areas e.g., poor
coordination, problems paying attention, hyperactivity and impulsivity,
problems organizing and interpreting visual and auditory information,
disorders of thinking, memory, speech and hearing or difficulties keeping
friends (Hallahan & Kauffman, 1997).
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For purposes of academic life we need to be aware that most children with
learning disabilities have difficulties in reading caused by problems related
to sounds, which consequently make spelling hard. Other children will have
problems with mathematics because they cannot perform computation tasks
and neither can they solve problems. A third category of children has
problems writing. Their writing is virtually unreadable. A forth category of
these disabled learners speak in a halting and disorganized manner.
What seems to be the problem?
The problems of learning disabled children are that:
 They lack effective ways to approach academic tasks.
 They do not know how to focus on relevant information or get
organized.
 They cannot apply learning strategies or study skills to change it.
 They tend to be passive learners partly because they do not know how
to learn.
 These learners cannot work independently on homework or seatwork.
How can they be helped?
The learning disabled learners should be diagnosed early in order to
prevent them from becoming frustrated and discouraged. If they do
not understand their problem they begin avoiding certain subjects.
Once diagnosis has been carried out they should be referred to
professionals for the necessary intervention measures.
Teachers handling learning disabled children should emphasize study
skills and methods of processing information in a given subject like
reading and mathematics.
The teachers should also help the learning disabled children and
improve their attention, memory, and problem solving abilities. Those
who need specialized attention by special education specialists should
be referred to them.
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Activity
In Kenya the learning disabled children could be confused with mentally
retarded children. Why do you think this is the case?
d) Physical differences
a) Cerebral palsy
What is cerebral palsy?
This is a disorder affecting voluntary movement. It causes a child to have
difficulty moving or coordinating his/her body. The problem may be mild
making the child appear clumsy. It can also be severe making voluntary
movement practically impossible.
The most common form of cerebral palsy is characterized by spasticity.
Spasticity refers to muscles that are too tight or tense. Most children with
cerebral palsy may also have secondary handicaps e.g., hearing problems,
speech problems or mild mental retardation.
What causes cerebral palsy?
Cerebral palsy is caused by damage to the brain before birth like in cases
associated with anoxia (reduced oxygen supply in the foetus brain). It can
also be caused by brain damage during the birth process or during infancy.
b) Physical challenges
This category constitutes the physically different children e.g., the
orthopaedic, physically handicapped, crippled, or deformed. The physically
different children could be intellectually gifted, of normal intelligence,
average or mentally retarded.
These children may have special orthopaedic devices such as special shoes,
crutches, or wheel chairs. For these children to participate in a normal school
program, they need attention, architectural features such as ramps (raised
slope), elevators, and accessible toilets. They also require physiotherapy and
other medical services that will help them to develop their physical
potentials. They need teachers who will allow for their physical limitations.
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c) Sensory exceptionalities
i) Hearing impairments
Hearing impaired children refer to a group of children who may have partial
hearing loss or those who are deaf.
Who are deaf children?
The deaf refer to those children who are born with little or no hearing or who
suffered the loss of hearing in infancy before speech and language patterns
were acquired.
NB: Not all hearing impaired children are deaf. There are those with partial
hearing loss.
Classification of Hearing Impairments
 The deaf. The deaf refer to those whose sense of hearing is nonfunctional.
 The congenitally deaf are those who were born deaf
 The adventitiously deaf are those born with normal hearing but who
lose the sense of hearing through disease or accident.
Causes of Hearing Impairments
Hearing impairment has many causes:
 Heredity. 30-60% of deafness is attributed to genetic factors.
Deafness can be caused by dominant genes, recessive genes, or sex
linked genes.
 Maternal rubella. This is also known to cause deafness. Maternal
rubella refers to a viral infection also called German measles. If the
expectant mother suffers from this disease during the first trimester
(first three months of pregnancy), the baby may be born with hearing
impairment.
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 Prematurity. Prematurity refers to cases where babies may be born
before term and are more likely to suffer hearing impairment than full
term babies.
 Rhesus incompatibility (Rh). The Rh factor affects babies who have
a different blood group from the mother. For example if the mother is
Rh negative and the foetus is Rh positive there will be incompatibility.
The mother’s blood senses the foetus blood as something foreign and
produces antibodies that fight the baby’s red blood cells. The baby
who has suffered this incompatibility will become anaemic due to the
destruction of the red blood cells. The anaemia will cause reduced
oxygen supply in the foetus or neonatal brain. One of the
complications which may arise from this could be hearing impairment.
 Meningitis. Meningitis is a viral infection which causes inflammation
of the meninges (tissues around the brain and spinal cord). If this
condition is not checked early, it causes brain damage and one likely
complication it may cause is hearing impairment. It is estimated that
8.1% of children lose their hearing after birth due to meningitis.
 Otitis media. This is an infection that causes fluid to accumulate in
the middle ear. If the condition is chronic or untreated it can create
mild or moderate hearing loss.
Characteristics of the Hearing Impaired Children
What are some of the signs of hearing impairment?
Some of the signs of hearing problems include the following:
o Turning one ear towards the speaker
o Favouring one ear in conversation when the speaker’s face cannot be
seen
o Omission of consonant (alphabetical letters which are not vowels)
sounds
o Not following directions
o Seeming distracted or confused at times
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o Frequently asking people to repeat what they have said
o Mispronouncing new words or names
o Being reluctant to participate in class discussions
o Some of the physical problems associated with hearing impairments
are
 Ear aches
 Discomfort in the ears
 Strange ringing or buzzing noises
 Discharge from the ears or excessive heavy wax building int he
ear canal
 Frequent colds and sore throats are occasional indicators of
infections that could impair hearing
How are Hearing Impaired Children Managed?
Over the years several approaches have been developed in the management
of hearing impaired children.
They have been trained in speech reading also called lip reading.
They also have been trained in sign language and finger spelling.
A combination of the manual method of communication and oral
methods has been known to yield fruits.
Today technological innovations such as teletypewriters and many
avenues of communication through email and the internet have
expanded communication possibilities for all the people with hearing
impairment.
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e) The Visually Impaired Children
These are children who are partially sighted or those who are blind.
Definition of the term blindness
 Blindness is generally defined as a visual acuity (insight or
perception) for distance vision of 20/200 or less in the better eye with
the best correction. In other words a person will be defined as blind if
they can see an object that the normal sighted person can see from 200
feet at 20 feet. This means that a blind person has to be very close to
the object in order to see it (20 ft) while the normal person sees it from
200 ft.
 Blindness can also be defined from the perspective of field of vision.
If the widest diameter of field of vision subtends on an angle no
greater than 20 degrees, the person is partially sighted.
 A person with a visual acuity greater than 20/70 in the better eye with
correction has low vision but can learn to read large print.
 The educationally blind refer to those who cannot learn to read print
and who must use hearing and touch as the prominent learning
channels.
Causes of Visual Impairment
There are varied causes to visual impairment which include the following:
 Infectious diseases like German measles. If the expectant mother contracts
German measles during the first three months of pregnancy, the child is
likely to be born blind.
 Hereditary factors. If the child has a genetic defect affecting chromosomes
14-16 they are born with small or absent eyes.
 Accidents and injury. Accidents and injury to the eyes also cause blindness.
 Poisoning. Poisoning caused by the spitting cobra or other chemicals that are
harmful to the eyes are known to cause blindness.
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 Tumours. These are growths in the brain which suppress the visual area of
the brain can cause blindness.
Problems associated with Visual Impairment
 Children who have difficulty seeing will often hold books either very
close or very far from their eyes.
 Some will tilt the head making an effort to see
 The teacher could also notice students with crossed eyes (strabism).
These students have eyes that lack coordination in focusing so that
they see with each eye individually.
 Other problems associated with visual impairment are
 Rubbing eyes frequently
 Squinting (straining to see)
 Displaying sensitivity to bright light and or
 Being uncomfortable in games requiring eye-hand coordination
 Other characteristics of the visually impaired are
 Problems in mobility- whenever they are in new environments
they need mobility training so that they can get by
independently.
 In a way blindness affects speech blind people speaking louder
than sighted people
 Their speech is slower in rate and lacks modulations
(intonations).
 The blind people use less lip movement in articulation of
sounds
 They also lack effective use of gestures and bodily actions
typical of the sighted.
The Management of Visually Impaired Students
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There are special materials and equipments that help visually impaired
students to function in regular classrooms. These include large print,
typewriters, tape recorders, special calculators, the abacus, three dimensional
maps, charts, models and special measuring devices. Instructions in Braille
are also useful.
Intervention
Intervention is a concept that involves identifying the child with handicaps
and helping that child in developing his maximum potentials.
When should intervention programs begin?
Intervention should start early in child development. At least by two years of
age some problems should be noticeable. This is the best time to start
intervention. Intervention includes the following procedures:
o Observation. Identification of children with special needs begin with
observation. A teacher or parent can observe the child’s behaviour and
psychological processes i.e., those with problems related to hearing,
sight, language acquisition or deficits in certain processes and
achievement of developmental milestones.
o Screening. If any irregular patterns are observed in the child, e.g.,
problems with sight or hearing then screening should follow the initial
observation. Screening is a process used to find out whether the
observed problem is present in other children in the population.
Children in a school or neighbourhood can be screened. Screening
helps to identify those children who require further diagnosis in the
school or locality.
o Diagnosis. After screening process diagnosis follows. This is a
procedure carried out by qualified medical personnel. In Kenya
examples of screening and diagnosis are the free eye, ear, or dental
services offered by certain bodies of professionals. The operation
smile is one such body that deals with children with cleft lip and
palate.
Activity
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i) Have Kenyan families today shed the stigma associated with exceptional
children?
ii) Do you know homes where these children are still hidden away from the
public eye?
iii) What impairing conditions are found predominantly in your area?
iv) What in your opinion is the major cause of these impairments?
Services for Exceptional Children
In Kenya today there are many services available for exceptional children
such as the following:
 Special schools and units. There are special schools and units of
every category of special children, among them are residential and day
schools for various handicapped children. There are units attached to
regular primary schools. For example there are primary schools which
may have a class for mentally retarded or hearing impaired children.
These children learn in their special unit but can play and interact with
the rest of the children in the school.
 Grants. The government provides grants for capital development and
aid for the expenses of learning schools and units.
 Teachers and support staff. Teachers for exceptional children are
trained at Kenya institute for Special Education at Kasarani, Nairobi.
Kenyatta University and Maseno University also offer degree
programs in special education.
o The government and NGOs. The government posts teachers to
special schools and units. Some schools employ teacher aides to
assist special teachers. Some non-governmental organizations
run their own special schools and hire their own teachers.
o Support staff. Education for exceptional children requires a
teamwork approach. To run an ideal special education program
will require the following personnel:
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 Physicians
 Psychologist
 Therapists
 Occupational and physiotherapists
 Social nurses and teacher aides
Some categories of exceptional children need house,
mothers, and resource persons. All these are very expensive
services.
o The curriculum. Curriculum materials for exceptional learners
are developed at the Kenya Institute of Education. The institute
has a special education department with qualified staff in most
areas of exceptionality. The ministry of Education Science and
Technology has an Inspectorate department charged with the
responsibility of inspecting teachers and other services offered
to exceptional children
o Teacher training. Today both Kenyatta University and Maseno
University are admitting form four leavers who wish to take a
Bachelors degree in Special Education. Form four leavers who
qualify for the university admissions criteria of C+ and who do
not meet the criteria set by JAB may join the degree program as
self-sponsored candidates. Other people who qualify to take
bachelor of education (special needs are the mature entrants
who were previously P1 teachers with “O” or “A” level and
who had three years of teaching experience). These teachers
took a two years diploma in special education and Kenya
Institute of Special Education (KISE) and many of them have
enrolled and graduated with Bed Special Education at Kenyatta
University. Some of them have graduated with masters degree
while others are PhD holders today. Before KISE was
established in 1985, special education teachers were trained at
Siriba, Kamwenja and Highridhe teachers colleges.
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Those teachers working in special school and who may not
meet the requirements of either a diploma or degree courses are
given three months in-service courses at KISE.
o
Placement and referral. In 1984, 17 educational Assessment
and referral services were established. Every district had at least
one assessment centre. An assessment teacher was posted to
every district to assess children with suspected disabilities and
to make referral and placement of the children to special
schools and units. They prepare learning materials and collect
information about handicapped children in the district.
o Coordination of services. The government coordinates all
services for handicapped children through the National
Rehabilitation Committee in the Ministry of Culture and Social
Services. There are also other agencies/societies which are
actively concerned with various areas of disabilities. These
include
 The Kenya Society for Deaf Children
 The Kenya Society of the Blind
 The Kenya Society of the Mentally Handicapped
 The Association of the Physically Disabled of Kenya
o Vocational training. Some special schools offer vocational
training as part of the 8.4.4 curriculum. They teach such courses
as leatherwork, agriculture, home economics, woodwork, and
metal work. Skilled technicians are employed to help the
teachers in these programs. The Ministry of Culture and Social
Services also manages vocational rehabilitation centres where
courses similar to those offered in youth polytechnics are
offered.
o Public education and awareness. The government of Kenya
and other agents have made a lot of effort to educate the public
about the needs of handicapped persons. Media services such as
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radio, television, and local newspapers have been used to create
awareness of handicapped persons’ needs. Among other things,
talents and capabilities of exceptional persons are exposed
inculcating positive attitudes among members of the public.
Revision questions
i) Define the term exceptional children
ii) Give reasons why families with exceptional children may be stigmatized
in your community
iii) Has your community developed a kind of language for the deaf people?
iv) Which category of exceptional people is accorded full social status in
your community so that they can own property, get married and be
accorded social recognition so that they can sit on councils’, etc?
v) What are the major causes of exceptionality in your community
vi) Do you know if any attempts to screen for any of the areas of
exceptionalities in your district?
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