Learning Process

Firanbon T (MPH/HPHB)

Department of Health, Behavior and Society

Jimma University
Feb, 2023
E-mail: firanbonteshome@[Link]

17-Feb-23 By Firanbon T 1
Learning objectives

• At the end of this session, you should be able to:-

• Define what learning is

• Understand the principles of learning

• Understand the concepts of learning theories

• How you understand the term learning ,
training and education?

• Explain how a child learn new things?

• Is there any difference between

adulthood and childhood learning?
 Definition of learning
• Learning is the process involving acquisition of knowledge, skill
and attitudes.
• Every process in life including eating, working, playing, singing, etc.,
is the result of learning.
• Learning is also the basis of behaviour.

• Learning is relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of

experience or practice.

• Change in behavior may be positive or negative.

 Positive when it is acceptable by society e.g. education.

 Negative when it is unacceptable by society e.g. theft.

Steps in learning
• Steps in childhood learning:
1. The first step is observation, (watching) very carefully.

2. Next, they also try to use other sensing methods like

listening, touching or tasting.

3. They will start to ask ‘why?’ ‘how?’ when something happens.

4. The next step is to imitate or copy the same action saying,

‘Let me do it myself’.
Steps in childhood learning......

5. Learning takes place by repeating the action again and again

6. Children usually start to ask others to observe them so they

can show that they are able to do the activity they have just
learnt.

7. Perform the action for themselves, having learnt something.

 Principles of adult learning
• Most of the time adults follow the same general patterns of
learning as children do.

• But while there are similarities between child and adult

learning, there are also additional features of adult learning,
that will help you while planning and conducting your health
education sessions.

• Principles of learning (laws of learning) are: readiness, exercise,

effect, primacy, recency, intensity and freedom.
 [Link]
• Readiness implies a degree of willingness and eagerness of an
individual to learn something new.

• The health educator is responsible for getting the

audience ready to learn, creating interest by showing the value
of the subject matter and providing continuous mental or
physical challenge.
 2. Exercise
• Things that are most often repeated are the ones that are best
remembered.

• Your audience will learn best and retain information longer

when they have meaningful practice and repetition.

• The health educator must repeat important items of subject

matter at reasonable intervals and provide opportunities for the
audience to practice while making sure that this process is
directed towards learning something new.
 [Link]
• The principle of effect is that learning is strengthened when
accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying feeling, and vice versa.
• Positive reinforcement is more likely to lead to success and
motivate the learner.
• As a health educator you should tell your audience how well
they are doing.
• The health educator should also set up the learning situation
in such a manner that each person being taught will be able to
see evidence of their own progress and achieve some degree of
success.
 [Link]
• Things learned first create a strong impression in the mind
which may be very difficult to change.

• ‘Unteaching’ or erasing from the mind incorrect first

impressions is harder than teaching them correctly in the first
place.

• As a health educator you should present your subject matter in

a logical order, step by step, making sure the audience has already
learned and understood the preceding step.
 [Link]
• Things most recently learned are best remembered.

• For example, it is easier for a mother to recall what children

were fed this morning than to remember what they were fed
three days ago.

• Frequent review and summarizing will help fixing in the

audience’s mind topics that have been covered.

• The health educator should repeat, restate or

re-emphasize important points at the end of a lesson to help the
audience remember them.
6. Intensity
• The principle of intensity implies that a learner will learn more
from the real thing than from a substitute.

• The more intense the material taught, the more likely it will be
retained.

• A learner is likely to gain greater understanding of tasks by

performing them rather than merely reading about them.
• Demonstrations and role playing will do much to increase the
learning experience of your audience.
7. Freedom
• The principle of freedom states that things freely learned are
best learned.
• Conversely, if the audience is forced to learn something, the
more difficult it is for them to learn.

• Therefore the health educators should motivate the

audiences through proper education.
Theories of learning
• The 3 major theories of learning:-
Behaviourism
Cognitivism
Constructivism
 • New behaviors or change in
behaviors are acquired through
Behaviourism association between stimulus and
response.

• Learning occurs through internal

Cognitivism processing of information

• We construct our own knowledge of

Constructivism world based on individual
experiences
1) Behaviourism
• Key behaviourist thinkers including Thorndike, Pavlov and
Skinner

• Hypothesized that learning is a change in observable

behaviour caused by external stimuli in the environment.
• Behaviorism is a worldview that operates on a principle of
“stimulus-response.”

• The key principle of behaviourism is the reward or

punishment of a new behaviour, commonly described as the
'carrot and stick' approach to learning.
Behaviourism....

• All behaviors are caused by external stimuli (operant

conditioning).

• All behavior can be explained without the need to consider

internal mental states or consciousness.

• Assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to

environmental stimuli.
 Behaviourism.......
• Examples of behaviorism theory of learning:

 E.g.1: Classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov dog)

 E.g.2: Instrumental/ Operant Conditioning

E.g.1: Classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov dog)
Behaviourism.......
What does Pavlov's theory suggests?

 Suggests that learning is associated.

 What meaning it has in health behavior?

 E.g.: Gloomy face of health professionals affects clients

attitude towards services utilization. They stop to utilize or
go to another place (conditioned response)
E.g.2: Instrumental/ Operant Conditioning

 Occur when we make conscious choices to behave in

certain way based on the association of our behaviours
with positive or negative consequences.

 Learning occurs as a result of changes in the environment

that increases or decreases the probability of the behavior
to occur in the future.

 People learn to perform new behaviors through the

consequences of the things they do.
Instrumental conditioning.......

 If a behaviour they produce is followed by a reinforcement

then the likelihood of that behaviour being repeated
increases in future (the behaviour is strengthened).

 A consequence can be reinforcing in two ways: either the

person gets something good (positive reinforcement) or they
avoid something bad (negative reinforcement).
 Instrumental conditioning.......

• Both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement

increase the probability that the antecedent behavior will
happen again.

• In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative)

decreases the likelihood that the antecedent behavior will
happen again.
 Instrumental conditioning.......
• Positive reinforcement: Something is added
(pleasant)to increase the likelihood of a behavior

E.g. A mother gives her daughter a toy for doing homework.

• Negative Reinforcement: Something is removed

(unpleasant) to increase the likelihood of a behavior.

E.g. Freedom to escape extra classes if students perform well in

exams
Instrumental conditioning.......
• Positive Punishment: Something is added (unpleasant) to
decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

E.g. Mom gives her child additional chores for lying.

• Negative Punishment: Something is removed (pleasant) to

decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

E.g. when a child misbehaves, a parent can take away a favorite

toy.
Instrumental conditioning.......

 What meaning it has in health behaviors?

 Good communication and establishment of common

understanding with patient can increase the cooperation of
the patient.

 MCH services free of charge reinforces mothers to

demand for the services and increases utilization.
 2) Cognitivism
• A response to behaviorism, people are not “programmed
animals" that merely respond to environmental stimuli;

• People are rational beings that require active participation in order to

learn, and whose actions are a consequence of thinking.

• Learning comes from mental activity such as memory,

motivation, thinking and reflection.

• It regards the mental processes of the human mind as the most

influential aspect of learning.

• Cognitivism uses the metaphor of the mind as computer: information

comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.
 3) Constructivism
• From the constructivist perspective, learning is not a stimulus-
response phenomenon as described by behaviourism, rather it
requires self-regulation and the building of conceptual
structures through reflection and abstraction.

• The learner takes an active role in constructing his own

understanding rather than receiving it from someone who
knows, learning through observation, processing and
interpretation.

• The learner is an information constructor.

Constructivism.....
• Knowledge is constructed based on personal
experiences and hypotheses of the environment.

• Each person has a different interpretation and construction

of knowledge process.

• The learner is not a blank slate (tabula rasa) but brings

past experiences and cultural factors to a situation
any Question?