Learning Theories: A Comparison for Business Educators

James B. Schreiber, Ph.D.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Introduction

As teachers we are deeply interested in how students learn and how to increase student learning. But how do we decide what we should do and what students should learn? To answer these questions we begin with goals. Two main goals of classroom instruction are to have students acquire more knowledge about a given area and to have them acquire more capabilities in order to become functionally autonomous in that area. But what helps us decide the behaviors we should engage in as teachers? How do we decide what to do since the purpose of instruction is to promote learning?  Learning theories can assist us in answering all of these questions.

            The purposes of this paper are to outline the major characteristics of several theories of learning, (their definitions of learning, philosophical bases, basic explanations of the theory, activities of the teacher and student), and to act as a guide to show how all the theories can be used despite what appears to be major differences. This paper is intended to also act as an introduction for some and a review for others who are interested in the theories that are at center of our understanding of human learning. For those who wish to investigate this material further, a list of suggested readings is provided at the end of the article.
            The grounding for the learning theories discussed in this paper is based upon three epistemological traditions, objectivism, pragmatism, and interpretivism. For objectivists, reality is assumed to be external to and separate from the knower. Knowledge is seen as absolute and we tend to equate knowledge with truth. We claim to know something once we are able to verify objectively that it is true (Shank, 1992). For example, we claim that the earth revolves around the sun because we have verified that it is does. Pragmatists acknowledge that reality exists but cannot be known directly, thus sometimes knowledge corresponds with reality and sometimes it does not but we are still able to function in our daily lives (Leahey & Harris, 1997). Reality for the pragmatist is negotiated and consensual (Cunningham, personal communication). My knowledge, or mental model, of how a cell phone works, exactly, is incomplete and inaccurate, but I am still able to send and receive phone calls based on a sequence of buttons. Recently, I failed to reach someone on my cell phone and learned of a more efficient way to “dial.” My mental model of how the phone works is inaccurate, but I function.  Finally interpretivists believe that reality is constructed solely by the knower. Try to think of a time when you changed your frame of reference. The day you ceased being a student and became a teacher, the facts concerning instruction, assessment, and developmental progress changed. When our frame of reference changes, how we interpret facts changes. 

            The first half of this paper discusses core components of each of the four learning theories with a business education example. Each of the theories also aligns with one of the three epistemological traditions above. Table 1 provides the integration of the epistemologies and the learning theories along with several other pieces of information from this article. The table is designed to be a simple and quick comparison and is not all inclusive.  The second half of this paper discusses being an “opportunistic learning theorist.”

Student as Radio, Teacher as Station

            According to the behaviorist viewpoint, knowledge exists outside of the student and is received through the senses. Learning, in the behaviorist paradigm, can be simply defined as a change in behavior, largely because of the behaviorists’ insistence of defining all human characteristics in observable and directly measurable terms. The most commonly associated name with behaviorism is B. F. Skinner (1938) who developed the operant conditioning model. In the operant conditioning model, learning occurs when the bond between a stimulus and response is strengthened by means of a reinforcer (consequence). There are three components to the operant conditioning model: the stimulus, the response, and the consequence. The primary role of the student is to behave and respond in a manner which increases the likelihood of obtaining a reinforcer. For educators, this translates into a student responding correctly and receiving praise or a high grade. For example, I ask a student, “Name one form of advertising (stimulus)?” The student states, “Commercials” (Response). I give the student five points toward the semester grade (Positive Consequence). If the positive consequence chosen by the teacher is a reinforcer, the student will be more likely to study the material and answer future questions. Student activities, in this case may include listening, rehearsing, taking notes, completing a work sheet, responding to questions, or responding to prompts on a computer. The teacher’s task is to maximize opportunities for positive reinforcement by transmitting information to the student in small linear increments that progress from less to more complex as the student correctly responds. By correctly, I mean the students respond according to the teacher’s predetermined criteria for correctness (i.e., teacher’s view of reality).

Many years ago, I and many other students learned the basics of price, supply, and demand using a linear programmed instruction (microeconomics) book. Linear programming is an application of the operant conditioning model and was also developed by Skinner (e.g., Holland and Skinner, 1968). By programmed instruction, I mean the material was organized in small steps and correct responses were reinforced by flipping to the next page to see the correct response before moving on to the next question. For example, “A  __________ relationship exists between price and quantity demanded on an ordinary demand curve.” As you flipped the page, you saw the answer, “Negative” and to the right of the answer the next question was printed. A year later, the same linear program was available in software form for the computer and a student who answered a question correctly heard a pleasant tone after each correct response. A derivative of the linear programming model is the branching program (Crowder & Martin, 1961). In the branching program books multiple choice answers are provided, and the answer the learner chooses directs the learner to a different page in the book. Therefore, a correct answer leads the learner to the next new piece of information and an incorrect answer directs the learner to a statement discussing why the learner might have made that choice and then the learner is directed back to the item to make another choice.

Student as Processor (Retriever), Teacher as Technician

            The shift from behaviorism to information processing began in the 1960’s with Noam Chomsky’s language acquisition device, research such as Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) model of human information processing, Ulric Neisser’s (1967) book “Cognitive Psychology,” and many others not named here. Reality, in this view, is still objective and fragmentable, but it is influenced by our prior knowledge, i.e., information stored in long-term memory. Learning is defined as the acquisition of information and its integration into an existing knowledge base. Three core stages of the information processing model are, sensory register, short-term memory (a.k.a, working memory), and long-term memory. Information that we receive from environmental stimuli is processed as it passes from one stage to the next. When we see, for example, the numbers in our checkbook they stimulate our sensory register which holds a literal copy of the numbers for a very brief amount of time (1-2 seconds at most) until we recognize and or pay attention to the numbers. Once the numbers that we are paying attention to reach short-term memory, they begin to take on meaning because we retrieve the meaning of the numbers from an integrated knowledge base in our long-term memory. Short-term memory is also where we hold information we are currently aware of, are working with, and where various encoding, organizational, and retrieval processes from long-term memory occur. Short-term memory is limited in capacity to about seven unrelated bits of information and in duration to about twenty seconds. Have you ever had to remember a phone number without being able to write it down? Once you hear the number, if you are distracted by something for the duration length of short-term memory you most likely will forget the number. For information from our checkbook to be processed into long term memory we must encode its meaning (e.g., the positive numbers mean we still have available funds for grocery shopping). Finally, long-term memory is where we store information to be retrieved at a later date. Based on decades of research, the consensus among cognitive psychologists is that long-term memory is unlimited in size and duration.

The major processing activities of the student are attending to and recognizing stimuli, working with that information in short-term memory so that it is encoded into long-term memory, and retrieving that information at a later time. To make information retrievable, students must create retrieval cues so they can access that stored information. Tactics, specific techniques that a learner uses to accomplish an immediate task such as repeating a poem, are one way to create retrieval cues (Snowman and Biehler, 2002). One group of tactics is called memory-directed. Memory-directed tactics help students produce accurate storage and recall of information and include such activities as rote rehearsal (i.e., simple repetition over and over) to mnemonic devices such as rhymes (conjunction junction, what’s your function), acronyms (HOMES, Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior), and acrostics (ROYGBIV, for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).

The activities of the teacher center on presenting information in a way that helps the student encode the material for later use. For example, given the size and duration of short-term memory discussed above, teachers will want to present information in an amount and at a pace that students can process efficiently and effectively. Simply, try not to overload their processing system. The teacher should model the tactics that students can use to create retrieval cues based on the objectives for the material presented.

From an information processing perspective, the teacher would present material in small chunks and possibly in multiple forms in order to help students create retrieval cues. In our business example, a teacher may provide on an overhead or marker board the definition of quantity demanded, then the definition of price, and then draw a graph of relationship between quantity demand and price. By doing this, the teacher is chunking the information into smaller bits so that it is easy to keep in working memory and presenting multiple modes to assist with retrieval later. The teacher may also use examples of products that the students are familiar with (i.e., information in long-term memory), such as video games, to help students create retrieval cues by linking the new information with prior knowledge. 

Student as Construction Worker, Teacher as Facilitator

Cognitive constructivism, based on Jean Piaget’s work, posits that though an external real world may exist outside the learner, the learner has limited access to it. Cognitive constructivists believe that we actively construct our knowledge of the world through our experiences. Learning is based on the changes to an individual’s schemes or knowledge structures through assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when one incorporates new information into an existing scheme. When we encounter information or an experience that is inconsistent with our current knowledge, a disequilibrium, we engage in accommodation by restructuring schemes in such a way as to logically incorporate that information. The student’s role is to construct his or her world through experience by assimilating and accommodating new information. The teacher’s role is to create learning experiences that provide students opportunities to construct new knowledge, in essence challenge their current perception of reality. Simply, the teacher’s role is to promote a cognitive disequilibirum with discrepant events and objects.

In the business education classroom, this means creating and implementing activities so that students can interact in their physical and social environment in order to assimilate and accommodate the information. Imagine, the students have recently finished up a project concerning the ordinary demand curve and understand that as price increases quantity demanded decreases. The students are then given an example of a product where the price keeps increasing but the quantity demanded does not change. The students are in a state of disequilibrium because this new information does not match the reality they have just come to understand and will have to work through this experience to restabilize their knowledge structures concerning price and quantity demanded. 

Student and Teacher as Shared Meaning Makers

The final theory to be discussed in this paper falls under the title of social constructivism. For social constructivists, knowledge is socially constructed and subjective in that it is distributed across knowers. Meaningful learning occurs when students are taught how to use the psychological tools of their culture (language, mathematical modeling) and are then given the opportunity to use these tools to in small are large groups create a shared understanding of a phenomenon (Snowman & Biehler, 2002). Social constructivism is most commonly associated with the work of Russian Psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1962).

Students in a social constructivist classroom create reality during their interactions with others and the environment. They are actively engaged in open-ended inquiries with their classmates and the teacher or teachers of the classroom. The teacher is participating with the students in creating reality, or coming to a shared understanding. The teacher acts as a collaborator in the inquiries. Initial learning for students, though, can be greatly influenced by the presence of more knowledgeable others. The knowledge and skills acquired from others are eventually internalized and connected to other knowledge and skills. The teacher, besides acting as a collaborator, helps the students through creating realistic open-ended tasks that are scaffolded. Scaffolding is where a more competent individual provides some form of guidance or support that allows a student or students to engage in activities and perform tasks that they would not be able to complete alone. Scaffolding does not have to be provided by a person Many new software programs that are designed with constructivism in mind have “technological” scaffolds built into them. Also within this learning theory, teachers emphasize the construction and internalization of shared meaning.

To continue our demand curve example, a teacher has been working with students on projects concerning the ordinary demand curve where price and quantity demanded are negatively related. The students may have been required to ask people how much soda pop would they buy if the price moved from point x to y to z. As the class plots their responses, they notice a negative relationship. Then the teacher has them go ask people about gasoline and price and students notice that the quantity demanded is not changing (perfectly inelastic) and together they construct a meaning for why this is occurring.

What do I do with all of these theories?  

            I have heard this phrase many times in my career. In reality, I do not want you as a practitioner to spend your time having heated discussions with colleagues about the “right” learning theory to use. You can do that if you wish, but what I really want you to become is an “opportunistic learning theorist.” Recently, Jack Snowman, an Emeritus Faculty member at my university, used this phrase to describe me. I want you to understand and implement learning theories to help you reach the goals of your classroom and help you analyze data from your classroom when the phenomenon you expected to occur failed to materialize (e.g., Gold stars no longer seem motivating to Angie). The orthodoxy of learning theory, picking one and discarding the rest, is arrogant and unnecessary for the day-to-day functioning of a classroom. The main reason I want you to be “opportunistic” is that your classroom goals should be isomorphic with the learning theory that you are implementing. For example, a main goal for my students is to be able to critically synthesize a body of literature. Operant conditioning does not lend itself to this goal (i.e., skill) as does a Vygotskian zone of proximal development model. Skinner’s believed that the purpose of education was the transmission of information we already know as fact (e.g., see Skinner, 1986). That goal is quite a distance away, academically, than my goal. But, this is only one of my goals and objectives and does not negate the use of other theories for other goals and objectives. I am using information processing derived tactics to help students reorganize the articles that have been read and create new outlines. But, I am also using shaping principles from operant conditioning because there are specific behaviors (e.g., reading the original article, not the summary from a chapter) I want students to learn and I believe there are positive reinforcers I can provide that will motivate my students to acquire those behaviors.

            Being “opportunistic” allows one to also examine other theories for explanations of why a certain phenomenon did not occur. More specifically, what happens when you reach the limit of a theory? For example, a student you have been working with for several days on writing a complete sentence begins to behave as if he or she had never been reinforced for correctly writing a sentence. What do you do? Operant conditioning has some difficulty answering this, but other theories may provide an explanation and a tactic for handling such a case. 

            When you are opportunistic and truly understand the theories, you can see the connections between theories and make new connections that could substantially help your students successfully meet the goals and objectives of your course. Functionally, shaping and scaffolding  (operant conditioning and Vygotskian principles, respectively,) are not that different. For a given student you need to know what the student can do without assistance, what the student can complete with some assistance, and what the student cannot complete even with assistance. In essence, you are finding out the skill or academic level of the student and then determining how far way the student is from the ultimate objective. Once you know these two components you work with the student in a systematic progressive way to help the student reach the objective. That is a functional comparison of two theories, but there are also combinations you can make. For cognitive constructivism, the theory implies that interactions should occur with peers and for social constructivism the theory implies that interactions should occur with experts. Well, why not both peers and experts? Imagine the powerful combination of peers who may or may not be experts and experts who may or may not be peers all working with you to learn a skill or solve a problem.  

Nothing of what I had written here implies that one should implement theories “willy nilly” (Kennedy, ) or implement only the parts you “like” about the theories. Being opportunistic means you completely understand how the theory works and how it functions during implementation.

Each theory aligns well with different goals and objective you have for your students. It serves no functional purpose to pick one theory and discard all others –each theory has limitations. The goal is to know each one intimately well so that you can use them to reach all of your goals.

References

Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory. A propsed system and its control mechanisms. In K. Spence & J Spence (Eds.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation (Vol. 2). New York: Academic Press.

Crowder, N. A., &  Martin, G. (1961). Trigonometry. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Holland, J., & Skinner, B. F. (1961). The analysis of behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kennedy, M. M. (1997) The connection between research and practice.  Educational Researcher, 26 (7), 4-12.

Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Shank, G. (1990). Qualitative vs. quantitative research: A semiotic non-problem. In T. Prewitt, J, Deely, & K Haworth (eds.), Semiotics: 1989 (pp. 264-270).  Washington D. S.: University Press of America.

Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Skinner, B. F. (1986) Programmed instruction revisited. Phi Delta Kappan, 68 (2), 103-110.

Snowman, J., & Biehler, R. F. (2003). Psychology applied to teaching (10^th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Behaviorism

See Skinner 1938

            Skinner, B. F. (1968). The technology of teaching. *******

Bower, G. H., & Hilgard, E. R. (1981). Theories of Learning 5^th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Also see the journals: Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Journal of Experimental Behavior Analysis.

Information Processing Theory

Gagne, E. D. (1985). The cognitive psychology of school learning. Boston: Little, Brown.

Phye, G. D., & Andre, T. (1986). Cognitive classroom learning. Orlando; Academic Press.

Anderson, J. R.  (2000). Cognitive psychology and its implications 5^th ed. New York: Worth Publishers.

Cognitive Constructivism (Piaget)

Gruber, H. E., & Voneche, J. J. (1995). The essential Piaget. New York: Basic Books.

Wadsworth, B. J. (1996). Piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development 5^th ed. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Social Constructivism

Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wertsch, J. V., del Rio, P., & Alvarez, A., Eds. (1995). Sociocultural studies of mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Table 1 Distinctions Among Four Major Learning Theories

Learning Theory	Operant Conditioning	Information Processing	Cognitive Constructivism	Social Constructivism
Role of Student	Radio	Processor (Retriever)	Construction Worker	Meaning maker/Apprentice
Role of Teacher	Station	Technician	Contractor	Meaning Maker/Mentor
Epistemological Tradition	Objectivism	Objectivism	Interpretivism	Pragmatism
Nature of Knowledge	Reality is objective and fragmentable	Reality is objective and fragmentable	Reality is constructed	Reality is negotiated and consensual
Definition of Learning	Learning is a change in behavior or behavior potential	Learning is an internal mental phenomenon that may or may not be reflected in behavior	Learning is a refinement and transformation of mental structures	Meaningful learning occurs when people are taught to use the psychological tools of their culture to create a common shared understanding
Teacher Activities	Present information in a linear incremental fashion Reinforce correct responses	Help students process presented information Model memory and retrieval strategies	Create activities that promote cognitive disequilibrium	Create and present open-ended inquiries for the students to engage in
Student Activities	Listen, Respond, Rehearse	Practice, Think, Create Schemata, Automatize skills and information	Assimilate/Accommodate information and develop new schemes	Engage in open ill-structured problems with more knowledgeable people