Theories of Learning (Part 9)

Thorpe and Schmuller (1954) have attempted to draw from all of these theories a flexible, integrated understanding of the principle of learning.

Searching for a definition, they find that, stated simply, learning is a form of behavior in the acquisition of facts, that it is a social and educational process involving both heredity and environment, and then they go on to suggest as an acceptable statement that "Learning ... [is] ... the total changes which occur in an individual as a result of his responses to representative stimuli, present or past.

This definition includes both the formal aspects of learning of one kind of another which takes place throughout the span of life."

They believe that there is a relation between personality and the stimulus-response role of learning. Noting that all the theories of learning in acceptance today have grown out of scientific movement and have been experimentally verified, and noting also that individuals vary from the accepted norms, they suggest principles of learning drawn from all schools of thought. These include motivation, adjustment to the level of maturation, pattern learning (the importance of meaningful relationships), evaluation of progress, satisfactory personality adjustment, and social growth.

John Dewey saw learning as an experience, and was concerned with the integration and use of knowledge. His theory has been described as problem solving. Adding the social environment to the individual physical apparatus, as equally important to the process of learning, he looked forward to a time when this process would be one in which the functions of the human organism are used in such a way as to make learning socially effective.

It can now be demonstrated that the theory and practice of sleep-learning basically coincide with the accepted theories of the psychologists of learning. In both theories, major stress is given to the primary needs in learning of repetition, reward, motivation and association. Indeed, the direct approach of sleep-learning utilizes these basic concepts to a much more valuable degree than heretofore possible in the science of learning.