Principle: Sequence
Sequence may be the most frequently addressed principle of learning among the theories
reviewed. Aristotle explained the association of connected ideas as starting with the central most
idea, or “middle member” of the series (Ross & Aristotle, 1906, p. 113) and that once the central
most idea is established, all other subsequent ideas may be grouped around it.
Theory Group
Behaviorism
Local Principles
Aristotle:
The linking of ideas similar, contrary, or contiguous Central concept is key to accessing
related ideas
Thorndike:
Associative shifting
Assimilation
Partial activity or prepotency of elements
Influence of prior experience
Associative polarity
Response availability
Order of bond formation and effect of the formation of one bond upon the condition
of other bonds
Pavlov:
Prior experience sets the stage for association Higher-order conditioning
Watson:
Individual acquisitions as building blocks of behavior
The integration of separate movements to form new unitary activities
Positive effects of prior learning on new learning
Positive effects depend on similarity between the old habit and the new habit to be
learned
Movements displayed in a novel situation will be those gained from a past habit
Organization
Skinner:
One trial learning
Establishing a discriminative response to the sound of the food magazine prior to
introducing the lever response The law of chaining
Shaping
Hull:
New learning occurs only when existing responses do not reduce need
The fractional anticipatory goal reaction
Convergent habit-family hierarchy mediate transfer of reaction from one situation to
a second which may be totally different
Guthrie:
Recency principle
New situation response based on familiar parts of the situation Learning a skill requires
learning many associations Forgetting requires active unlearning
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Theory Group
Local Principles
Estes:
In each trial, the probability of a certain response is modeled as the relative portion of active
stimulus elements in the stimulus condition that are already conditioned to that response
Response subclass hierarchy
Cognitive
Ebbinghaus:
Savings in number of repetitions when learning a derivative list created by skipping members
Increased number of repetitions required when learning a list created by permutation of
previous list
Slight savings when learning a known list in reverse:
Tolman:
Previous knowledge acquired through latent learning applied when needed to accomplish a
goal-oriented task
Kohler:
Preference to using existing knowledge and skills Generalized use of the box
Cognitive Information Processing:
Interference and serial-position curve Retroactive interference
Proactive interference
Automaticity
Stages of L1 language acquisition: a building sequence of development
Pattern recognition: recognizing environmental stimuli as exemplars of concepts
already in memory
Ausubel:
The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows
Availability in learner's cognitive structure of specifically relevant anchoring ideas Extent to
which anchoring ideas are discriminable from both similar and different
concepts in the learning material
Stability and clarity of anchoring ideas
Acquisition of new information is highly dependent on the relevant ideas already in
cognitive structure
Progressive differentiation
Importance of prior consolidation of more particular habit exemplars
Stability of anchoring ideas
Sequential organization of subject matter
Advance organizers
After junior high school age, we require less empirical and nonverbal contact with
data on which verbal constructs are based
With increasing age concepts are learned through assimilation more than formation
Concept acquisition sequencing
Representation learning: representing known concepts with culturally designated
signs or symbols
Forms of meaningful learning: subordinate, superordinate, combinatorial, and
assimilation
Acquiring information results in a modification of both the newly acquired
information and the specifically relevant aspect of cognitive structure to which the
new information is linked
Adequately established subsumers
Rote learning
Positive transfer attributable to carry over of general elements of strategy,
orientation, and adaptation
Prior learnings are not transferable until overlearned
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Theory Group
Local Principles
Gradual acquisition of a coding principle to facilitate solution of a given class of
problems
Prior learning helps to circumvent limitations of memory and process of storing
Information
Constructivism
Schema Theory:
The schemata a person already possesses are a principal determiner of what will be learned
from a text
More significant than the structure that is in some sense contained in a text is the structure the
reader imposes on the text
Acquisition of schema: accretion, tuning, and restructuring
General:
Endogenous constructivism: the construction of new knowledge from old Synthesizing new
experiences into what we have previously come to understand Structuring curriculum around
primary concepts
A repertoire of previously learned thinking and reasoning strategies enables
achievement of complex goals Generalization and transfer
Piaget:
During first 18 months cognitive substructures are developed that will be foundation of
intelligence for all later learning
Through sensori-motor activity the broad categories of action are constructed (object, space,
time, causality)
Sensori-motor knowledge is reconstructed at the perceptual level Assimilation: reality data are
treated or modified in such a way as to become
incorporated into the structure of the subject
Accommodation: adjusting to the environment
The semiotic function appears at end of sensori-motor period
Search for causality of previously experienced phenomena
Consistent succession of stages
Intellectual development is connected to, and builds on, organic biological growth Consistent
succession of stages
Intellectual development is connected to, and builds on, organic biological growth
Bruner:
Spiral curriculum
Cumulative constructionism, or the use of previously acquired information in
guiding further discovery
Integration of smaller units into larger units
Language makes possible the representation and transformation of regularities of
experience with greater flexibility and power
Importance of learning structure of a subject
Specific and non-specific transfer
Continual deepening through progressively more complex forms
Humanistic
Biological Motivation:
First learning has advantage over later learning due to less interference from
contradictory habits
Self-Efficacy:
Self-efficacy built on previous success
Social
Vygotsky:
Language and the use of tools provide the rudiments of solving practice tasks
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Theory Group
Local Principles
Transfer through similar elements
Zone of Proximal Development – what makes one child able to do more with
assistance than another is that which he has obtained through prior experience
which can now be brought to bear in solving a problem with assistance Progressive utility of
language
Learning creates the ZPD
Example of arithmetic operations providing basis for highly complex thinking Internal
development a pre-requisite to master cultural methods
Rich psychological experience
Bandura:
Availability of component skills pre-requisite to complex performance Attention, retention,
motor, and motivational subfunctions pre-requisite
Situated learning:
Learning progresses from learning simple to more complex tasks
Activity theory:
Implied: new models proposed in the third step of the cycle of expansive learning are
generated based on previous experience
Cognitive apprenticeship:
Sequence without sacrificing significance
Global before local provides conceptual model of target skill or process Increasing complexity
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