LEARNING

LEARNINGLearning is any permanent change in behaviour of a

person that occurs as result of experience. It is accompanied by acquisition of knowledge, skills & expertise which are

relatively permanent.

FEATURES OF LEARNING

1) Learning involves change in behaviour of a person :

The change may be good or bad from organisation’s point of view.

For example : bad habits, prejudice, etc may be learnt by an individual.

2) Change in behaviour must be relatively permanent :

To constitute learning, change should be relatively permanent. Temporary changes may be only reflective and fail to represent any learning . This rules out behavioural changes caused by fatigue or drugs.

3) The change in behaviour should occur as a result of experience, practice or training:

It implies that behaviour caused from maturity, disease, or physical damages does not constitute learning.

4) The practice or experience must be reinforced in order for learning to occur:

If reinforcement does not accompany the practice or experience, the behaviour will eventually disappear.

5) Learning is reflected in behaviour :A change in an individual’s thought process or attitudes, not

accompanied by behaviour, is no learning.

PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

1) TRAINEE MUST BE MOTIVATED TO LEARN:An employee must see a purpose in learning the information presented

& have a clear understanding of what is presented. If these two factors are considered, there will be a greater chance of satisfaction.

2) INFORMATION MUST BE MEANINGFUL : The training material must relate to the purpose of the training

programme or it will stop being a motivator. The material should be presented in a sequential manner & should provide variety to prevent boredom & fatigue. Material can be presented through case studies, lectures, films etc.

3) Learning must be reinforced :

In organisations, both positive & negative reinforcements should be used.If behaviour is undesirable, the negative reinforcement such as denial of a pay raise, promotion or transfer can be effective. However, during the orientation & training period, positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement.

4) Organisation of material :

Trainer must remember that well organised material will help the trainees to remember the things taught to him. A complete outline of the whole course should be made with the main topics included under each heading. The training material should be distributed among trainees well in advance so that they may come prepared in the lectures, understand operations quickly & remove their doubts by asking questions from the instructor.

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5) FEEDBACK ON LEARNING :

People like to know how much they have learnt & how well they are doing. The sooner employees know the results of a quiz test, the sooner they can assess their progress.

Self graded tests & programmed learning kits provide the necessary feedback to a person on his progress on a particular subject.

THEORIES OF LEARNINGThere are 4 theories which explain how individuals

learn new patters of behaviour :

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING -Classical Conditioning deals with the association of one event with

another desired event resulting in a desired behaviour or learning.

-Classical conditioning was given by Ivan Pavlov, a famed Nobel prize winning physiologist.

-Pavlov conducted an experiment on a dog to study the relation between the dog’s salivation & ringing of a bell. When he presented a piece of meat to the dog, he noticed a great deal of salivation. He called the food as unconditioned response. During the second stage, he merely rang the bell, but the dog did not salivate in response to ringing of the bell. He subsequently introduced the sound of the bell each time the meat was given to the dog. Thus, eventually the dog learnt to salivate in response to the ringing of the bell even when there was no meat. This is how Pavlov conditioned the dog to respond to a learned stimulus.

OPERANT CONDITIONING Operant conditioning is based on the work of B.F. Skinner. It is based on

the premise that behaviour is a function of its consequences.

Individuals emit responses that are rewarded & will not emit responses that are either not rewarded or are punished. Behaviour is likely to be repeated if the responses are favourable & it is not likely to be repeated if the consequeces are unfavourable.

Operant conditioning is a powerful tool for people in the organisations. Most behaviours in organisations are learned, controlled & altered by consequences.

Management can use this process to control & influence the behaviourof employees by manipulating the reward system. Thus, behaviouralconsequences that are rewarding increase the rate of response , while the aversive consequences decrease the rate of response.

COGNITIVE LEARNINGCognition refers to an individual’s ideas, thoughts, knowledge, interpretations,

understandings, etc about himself & his environment. The theory states that when people observe a model performing a behavior

and the consequences of that behavior, they remember the sequence of events and use this information to guide subsequent behaviors.

SOCIAL LEARNING • Social learning theory is extension of operant

conditioning

• The view that we can learn through both observation and direct experience is called social learning

SHAPING BEHAVIOUR In any organisation, managers are concerned with making then

subordinates learn those behaviours that are most beneficial to the organisation. When a manager moulds individuals by guiding their learning, he is shaping behaviour.

THE LAW OF EFFECT :

The operant conditioning is based on the law of effect propounded by Thorndike. The law states that the behaviour that has rewarding consequence is likely to be repeated, whereas the behaviour that leads to negative consequences tends not to be repeated.

Example : If Employees work hard to achieve organisational objectives & are directly rewarded with bonus , they will tend to repeat their efforts when new objectives are set.

SRATEGIES OF REINFORCEMENT

Reinforcement may be defined as anything that both increases the strength of response and tends to induce repetitions of the behaviour that preceded the reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement is a reward or other desirable consequence that follows a particular behaviour or activity. Its

used to increase the frequency of action or behaviour.

Negative reinforcement takes place when individuals learn to escape or avoid from unpleasant

consequences. For example : people learn to drive carefully to avoid

accidents.

PUNISHMENT Punishment is a means of reducing a desired behavior

by introducing a potentially undesirable consequence. For e.g. salary cuts, termination, loss of privileges and layoffs.

EXTINCTION Extinction is an effective method of controlling undesirable behaviour. It

is based on the principle that if a response is not reinforced, it will eventually disappear.

For example : A disruptive employee who fights & is punished by the supervisor for doing so may continue the disruptions because of the

attention they bring. By ignoring the employee, attention is withheld & also the motivation for fighting.

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MADE BY : Jyoti ChadhaB.com (H) 3rd yearsection B