The conditions of learning by Gagné Robert Mills 1916-

Author:Gagné, Robert Mills, 1916-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Learning
ISBN: 0030803306
Publisher: New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Published: 1970-09-19T16:00:00+00:00

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FIGURE 12. A hierarchy of rules comprising the topic “Vector Resolution of Forces.”

rules that build on each other. In the social sciences, the total structure is often a looser one, but individual topics— classifying family relationships, comparing and contrasting systems of government, formulating predictions of social trends—can obviously be viewed as examples of intellectual skills having a hierarchical character. A variety of kinds of rule hierarchies can be used to represent the learning of a foreign language: beginning with the elementary concepts of word-sounds and proceeding through the complex rules governing the generation of communicative speech.

Retention of Rules

Usually, the contrast is striking between forgetting the simpler forms of learned capabilities (such as chains and

multiple discriminations) and forgetting the more complex forms (concepts, rules). The latter kinds of learning show marked resistance to forgetting and are frequently remembered with little loss over periods of months and years. In a typical study, it was shown that learners who learned simply the verbal statements of rules forgot most of them within a month, whereas those who learned the rules themselves (so that they could demonstrate them) showed almost perfect retention after the same interval (Katona, 1940). Retention of factual details in prose passages has been found to be much less good than retention of ideas, that is, of the rules contained in these passages (Briggs and Reed, 1943). Many studies of rules and organized sets of rules encountered in school learning have demonstrated high degrees of retention over periods of many months (Ausubel, 1968, pp. 111-115).

Presumably, the factor of interference operates to produce forgetting of rules as it does with other forms of learning. But something about the organized nature of rules appears to resist the effects of interference and to maintain retention at high levels. How this works is not known, although it offers a challenging problem for experimental research. The practical implications, however, are quite clear. Learning rules not only produces a capability commonly referred to as “understanding” but at the same time it establishes a capability that is retained well for relatively long periods of time.

SOME EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

The learning of rules is obviously of vast educational importance, if only because of the fact that rules make up the bulk of what is learned in the school. They include as an important component the kinds of learned entities that are tpically referred to as defined concepts. While the distinction between rules and defined concepts needs to be maintained, we are concerned here to emphasize that these two

2* i Some Educational Implications

entities, considered as human capabilities, are formally alike. In the case of the defined concept, the individual is using a rule in order to identify something that itself embodies a relation; in the case of another kind of rule, the individual may be concerned with demonstrating the relation itself. But in both cases he is dealing with a sequence of subordinate entities that in the simplest instance of all contain the components concrete concept -» relation -> concrete concept. An example is a latch (concrete concept) opens (relational concept) a window (concrete concept).

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