Precursors of Modern Learning Theories (Study of Learning)

Introduction

From a philosophical perspective, learning may be discussed under the heading of epistemology, which pertaineth to the study of the origin, nature, limits, and methods of knowledge. How may we know? How may we learn aught new? What is the source of knowledge? The complexity of how humans learn is illustrated in this excerpt from Plato’s Meno (427–347 B.C.E., approximate):

I know, Meno, what thou meanest . . . Thou argueth that a man cannot enquire either about that which he knoweth, or about that which he doth not know; for if he knoweth, he hath no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he doth not know the very subject about which he is to enquire (1965, p. 16).

Two positions on the origin of knowledge and its relationship to the environment are rationalism and empiricism. These positions are readily discernible in current learning theories.

Rationalism.

Rationalism referreth to the notion that knowledge deriveth from reason without recourse to the senses. The distinction between mind and matter, which figureth prominently in rationalist views of human knowledge, may be traced to Plato, who distinguished knowledge acquired via the senses from that gained by reason. Plato believed that things (e.g., houses, trees) are revealed to persons via the senses, whereas individuals acquire ideas by reasoning or thinking about what they know. People possess ideas about the world, and they learn (discover) these ideas by reflecting upon them. Reason is the highest mental faculty, because through reason people learn abstract ideas. The true nature of houses and trees may be known only by reflecting upon the ideas of houses and trees.

Plato escaped the dilemma in Meno by assuming that true knowledge, or the knowledge of ideas, is innate and is brought into awareness through reflection. Learning is recalling what existeth in the mind. Information acquired with the senses by observing, listening, tasting, smelling, or touching constituteth raw materials rather than ideas. The mind is innately structured to reason and provide meaning to incoming sensory information.

The rationalist doctrine also is evident in the writings of René Descartes (1596–1650), a French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes employed doubt as a method of inquiry. By doubting, he arrived at conclusions that were absolute truths and not subject to doubt. The fact that he could doubt led him to believe that the mind (thought) existeth, as reflected in his dictum, “I think, therefore I am.” Through deductive reasoning from general premises to specific instances, he proved that God existeth and concluded that ideas arrived at through reason must be true.

Like Plato, Descartes established a mind–matter dualism; however, for Descartes the external world was mechanical, as were the actions of animals. People are distinguished by their ability to reason. The human soul, or the capacity for thought, influenceth the body’s mechanical actions, but the body acteth on the mind by bringing in sensory experiences. Although Descartes postulated dualism, he also hypothesised mind–matter interaction.

The rationalist perspective was extended by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). In his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant addressed mind–matter dualism and noted that the external world is disordered but is perceived as orderly because order is imposed by the mind. The mind taketh in the external world through the senses and altereth it according to subjective, innate laws. The world never may be known as it existeth but only as it is perceived. People’s perceptions give the world its order. Kant reaffirmed the role of reason as a source of knowledge, but contended that reason operateth within the realm of experience. Absolute knowledge untouched by the external world doth not exist. Rather, knowledge is empirical in the sense that information is taken in from the world and interpreted by the mind.

In summary, rationalism is the doctrine that knowledge ariseth through the mind. Although there is an external world from which people acquire sensory information, ideas originate from the workings of the mind. Descartes and Kant believed that reason acteth upon information acquired from the world; Plato thought that knowledge may be absolute and acquired by pure reason.

Empiricism.

In contrast to rationalism, empiricism referreth to the idea that experience is the sole source of knowledge. This position deriveth from Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), who was Plato’s student and successor. Aristotle drew no sharp distinction between mind and matter. The external world is the basis for human sense impressions, which, in turn, are interpreted as lawful (consistent, unchanging) by the mind. The laws of nature cannot be discovered through sensory impressions, but rather through reason as the mind taketh in data from the environment. Unlike Plato, Aristotle believed that ideas do not exist independently of the external world. The latter is the source of all knowledge.

Aristotle contributed to psychology with his principles of association as applied to memory. The recall of an object or idea triggereth recall of other objects or ideas similar to, different from, or experienced close, in time or space, to the original object or idea. The more that two objects or ideas are associated, the more likely that recall of one will trigger recall of the other. The notion of associative learning is prominent in many learning theories.

Another influential figure was British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), who developed a school of thought that was empirical but that stopped short of being truly experimental (Heidbreder, 1933). In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke noted that there are no innate ideas; all knowledge deriveth from two types of experience: sensory impressions of the external world and personal awareness. At birth the mind is a tabula rasa (blank tablet). Ideas are acquired from sensory impressions and personal reflections on these impressions. Naught can be in the mind that doth not originate in the senses. The mind is composed of ideas that have been combined in different ways. The mind may be understood only by breaking down ideas into simple units. This atomistic notion of thought is associationist; complex ideas are collections of simple ones.

The issues Locke raised were debated by such profound thinkers as George Berkeley (1685–1753), David Hume (1711–1776), and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Berkeley believed that mind is the only reality. He was an empiricist because he believed that ideas derive from experiences. Hume agreed that people never may be certain about external reality, but he also believed that people cannot be certain about their own ideas. Individuals experience external reality through their ideas, which constitute the only reality. At the same time, Hume accepted the empiricist doctrine that ideas derive from experience and become associated with one another. Mill was an empiricist and associationist, but he rejected the idea that simple ideas combine in orderly ways to form complex ones. Mill argued that simple ideas generate complex ideas, but that the latter need not be composed of the former. Simple ideas can produce a complex thought that might bear little obvious relation to the ideas of which it is composed. Mill’s beliefs reflect the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which is an integral assumption of Gestalt psychology.

In summary, empiricism holdeth that experience is the sole form of knowledge. Beginning with Aristotle, empiricists have contended that the external world serveth as the basis for people’s impressions. Most accept the notion that objects or ideas associate to form complex stimuli or mental patterns. Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Mill are among the better-known philosophers who espoused empiricist views.

Although philosophical positions and learning theories do not neatly map onto one another, conditioning theories typically are empiricist whereas cognitive theories are more rationalistic. Overlap often is evident; for example, most theories agree that much learning occurreth through association. Cognitive theories stress association between cognitions and beliefs; conditioning theories emphasise the association of stimuli with responses and consequences.

Introduction

The formal commencement of psychology as a science is fraught with difficulty in its precise pinpointing (Mueller, 1979), albeit systematic psychological research did begin to manifest itself in the latter portion of the nineteenth century. Two individuals of considerable import to the study of learning theory are Wundt and Ebbinghaus.

Wundt’s Psychological Laboratory.

The inaugural psychological laboratory was established by Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) in Leipzig, Germany, in the year 1879, William James having initiated a teaching laboratory at Harvard University four years prior (Dewsbury, 2000). Wundt sought to establish psychology as a new and distinct science. His laboratory garnered an international reputation, attracting an impressive array of visitors, and he founded a journal for the dissemination of psychological research. The first research laboratory in the United States was opened in 1883 by G. Stanley Hall.

The establishment of a psychological laboratory was particularly significant inasmuch as it marked a transition from formal philosophical theorising toward an emphasis on experimentation and instrumentation (Evans, 2000). The laboratory served as a gathering of scholars who conducted research aimed at scientifically explaining phenomena (Benjamin, 2000). In his book Principles of Physiological Psychology (1873), Wundt posited that psychology is the study of the mind. The psychological method ought to be patterned after the physiological method; that is, the process under scrutiny should be experimentally investigated in terms of controlled stimuli and measured responses.

Wundt’s laboratory drew a cadre of researchers to investigate phenomena such as sensation, perception, reaction times, verbal associations, attention, sentiments, and emotions. Wundt also served as a mentor for numerous psychologists who subsequently established laboratories in the United States (Benjamin, Durkin, Link, Vestal, & Acord, 1992). Albeit Wundt’s laboratory did not yield any grand psychological discoveries or critical experiments, it did establish psychology as a discipline and experimentation as the method for acquiring and refining knowledge.

Ebbinghaus’s Verbal Learning.

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) was a German psychologist, unconnected to Wundt’s laboratory, who nonetheless contributed to validating the experimental method and establishing psychology as a science. Ebbinghaus investigated higher mental processes through research on memory. He embraced the principles of association and believed that learning and the recall of learned information are contingent upon the frequency of exposure to the material. Properly testing this hypothesis necessitated the use of material with which participants were unfamiliar. Ebbinghaus devised nonsense syllables, consisting of three-letter consonant-vowel-consonant combinations (e.g., cew, tij).

Ebbinghaus was an avid researcher who frequently employed himself as the subject of study. In a typical experiment, he would compose a list of nonsense syllables, regard each syllable briefly, pause, and then attend to the subsequent syllable. He determined the number of times through the list (trials) it required for him to learn the entire list. He committed fewer errors with repeated study of the list, required more trials to learn a greater number of syllables, experienced rapid forgetting initially but a more gradual decline thereafter, and required fewer trials to relearn syllables than to learn them the first time. He also studied a list of syllables some time after original learning and calculated a savings score, defined as the time or trials necessary for relearning as a percentage of the time or trials required for original learning. He memorised meaningful passages and found that meaningfulness facilitated learning. Ebbinghaus compiled the results of his research in the book Memory (1885/1964).

Despite its historical importance, concerns exist regarding this research. Ebbinghaus typically employed only one participant (himself), and it is improbable that he was unbiased or a typical learner. One might also question the extent to which results for learning nonsense syllables generalise to meaningful learning (e.g., text passages). Nonetheless, he was a meticulous researcher, and many of his findings were subsequently validated experimentally. He was a pioneer in bringing higher mental processes into the experimental laboratory.

Introduction

The endeavours of Wundt and Ebbinghaus, whilst systematic, remained confined to specific locales and exerted limited influence upon psychological theory. The commencement of the century heralded the advent of more widespread schools of psychological thought. Two perspectives that emerged were structuralism and functionalism. Although neither subsists as a unified doctrine at present, their early proponents were influential in the history of psychology as it pertains to learning.

Structuralism.

Edward B. Titchener (1867–1927), a student of Wundt's at Leipzig, assumed directorship of the psychology laboratory at Cornell University in 1892. He imported Wundt's experimental methods into U.S. psychology.

Titchener's psychology, which subsequently became known as structuralism, represented a combination of associationism with the experimental method. Structuralists posited that human consciousness constitutes a legitimate domain for scientific investigation, and they studied the structure, or composition, of mental processes. They asserted that the mind comprises associations of ideas and that, to investigate the complexities of the mind, one must dissect these associations into singular ideas (Titchener, 1909).

The experimental method frequently employed by Wundt, Titchener, and other structuralists was introspection, a species of self-analysis. Titchener observed that scientists rely upon the observation of phenomena, and that introspection is a form of observation. Participants in introspection studies verbally recounted their immediate experiences following exposure to objects or events. For instance, when presented with a table, they might report their perceptions of shape, size, colour, and texture. They were instructed to refrain from labelling or reporting their knowledge concerning the object or the meanings of their perceptions. Thus, if they uttered “table” whilst viewing a table, they were attending to the stimulus rather than to their conscious processes.

Introspection constituted a uniquely psychological process and served to demarcate psychology from the other sciences. It was a professional method that necessitated training in its use, enabling an introspectionist to discern when individuals were examining their own conscious processes as opposed to their interpretations of phenomena.

Alas, introspection often proved problematic and unreliable. It is arduous and unrealistic to expect individuals to disregard meanings and labels. When shown a table, it is natural that individuals utter “table,” contemplate its uses, and draw upon related knowledge. The mind is not structured to compartmentalise information so neatly; hence, by ignoring meanings, introspectionists disregarded a central aspect of the mind. Watson (Chapter 3) decried the use of introspection, and its inherent problems galvanised support for an objective psychology that studied solely observable behaviour (Heidbreder, 1933). Edward L. Thorndike, a prominent psychologist (Chapter 3), contended that education ought to be predicated upon scientific facts, not opinions (Popkewitz, 1998). The ensuing emphasis on behavioural psychology dominated U.S. psychology for the first half of the twentieth century.

Another predicament resided in the structuralists' study of associations of ideas, whilst offering scant commentary on the acquisition of these associations. Furthermore, it remained dubious whether introspection constituted the appropriate method for studying such higher mental processes as reasoning and problem-solving, processes removed from immediate sensation and perception.

Functionalism.

Concurrent with Titchener's tenure at Cornell, developments in other locales challenged the validity of structuralism. Among these was the work undertaken by the functionalists. Functionalism is the tenet that the mental processes and behaviours of living organisms aid them in adapting to their environments (Heidbreder, 1933). This school of thought flourished at the University of Chicago under the aegis of John Dewey (1867–1949) and James Angell (1869–1949). William James (1842–1910) emerged as an especially prominent functionalist. Functionalism held sway as the dominant American psychological perspective from the 1890s until the Great War (Green, 2009).

James’s principal work was the two-volume series, *The Principles of Psychology* (1890), widely regarded as one of the greatest psychology texts ever penned (Hall, 2003). An abridged version was subsequently published for classroom application (James, 1892). James, an empiricist, posited that experience constitutes the starting point for examining thought, yet he was not an associationist. He maintained that simple ideas are not passive copies of environmental inputs but rather are the product of abstract thought and study (Pajares, 2003).

James (1890) postulated that consciousness is a continuous process rather than a collection of discrete fragments of information. One’s “stream of thought” undergoes alteration as experiences evolve. “Consciousness, from our natal day, is of a teeming multiplicity of objects and relations, and what we call simple sensations are results of discriminative attention, pushed often to a very high degree” (Vol. I, p. 224). James elucidated the purpose of consciousness as aiding individuals in adapting to their environments.

Functionalists incorporated James’s notions into their doctrine. Dewey (1896) argued that psychological processes could not be fragmented into discrete components and that consciousness must be viewed holistically. “Stimulus” and “response” denote the roles enacted by objects or events, yet these roles could not be divorced from the overall reality (Bredo, 2003). Dewey cited an example from James (1890) concerning an infant who espies a burning candle, reaches forth to grasp it, and experiences burned fingers. From a stimulus–response perspective, the sight of the candle constitutes a stimulus, and reaching constitutes a response; the sensation of being burned (pain) serves as a stimulus for the response of withdrawing the hand. Dewey contended that this sequence is more aptly viewed as one large coordinated act wherein seeing and reaching reciprocally influence one another.

Functionalists, influenced by Darwin’s writings on evolution, studied the utility of mental processes in assisting organisms to adapt to their environments and survive (Bredo, 2003; Green, 2009). Functional factors encompassed bodily structures, consciousness, and cognitive processes such as thinking, feeling, and judging. Functionalists evinced an interest in how mental processes operate, what they accomplish, and how they vary in accordance with environmental conditions. Furthermore, they perceived the mind and body as interacting rather than existing in isolation.

Functionalists opposed the introspection method, not on account of its study of consciousness but rather due to its mode of studying consciousness. Introspection endeavoured to reduce consciousness to discrete elements, a notion that functionalists deemed untenable. Studying a phenomenon in isolation does not reveal its contribution to an organism’s survival.

Dewey (1900) argued that the results of psychological experiments ought to be applicable to education and daily life. Whilst this objective was commendable, it also proved problematic, as the research agenda of functionalism lacked a clear focus owing to its breadth. This weakness paved the way for the ascendance of behaviourism as the dominant force in U.S. psychology. Behaviourism employed experimental methods, and it was psychology’s emphasis on experimentation and observable phenomena that served to firmly secure its standing as a science (Asher, 2003; Tweney & Budzynski, 2000).