Laws of Learning: What’s the Beef?

Learning does not stop, they say. It is a cognitive ability that is innate to us. Evolution verifies that better learning ability helps certain species to survive longer in this world. Furthermore, how would we maximize our learning abilities? Is it merely instinctive? Let us unveil the studied principles behind.

Edward Lee Thorndike, an American psychologist, outlined a definitive set of learning process which is not limited to our cognition. He devised a theory called “laws of learning.”

Thorndike’s Laws of Learning are as follow:

Law of Readiness or Law of Action Tendency
This pertains to the preparedness and mental attitude of a person. Readiness is described here as a way to be prepared prior certain actions. It considers the given capability of the learner and his willingness to learn. It is a common sense that a year-old infant is not prepared to learn complex calculus equations. More so, a typical adult not willing to learn how to do gambling games will not also likely learn it more facilely if it is just forced on him. But more than that, preparedness means that one sees the purpose of learning.

Law of Exercise or Law of Use and Disuse
Practice makes perfect, or at least it’s supposed to be going there. The said cliché rings true as far as this law is concerned. It simply means that drills, repetitions, and the likes greatly help sharpen our learning process. A skill is maintained with ease if it is continually being practiced, and it somehow weakens when it is not. It is very applicable in multiple areas of life like sports, cognitive abilities, arts craft, etc.

Law of Effect
Desirability of learning process is a major factor on how a person will easily learn something. Hadn’t it occur to you that more often than not, it is easier to memorize song lyrics than complex mathematical operations? It is because in song lyrics, we encounter learning smoother due to the desirable effect of musical sensation (and repeatability, as law of exercise demonstrated) than the pain of repeatedly memorizing math operations without getting steady associated pleasure in return unlike the former. So basically, the effect of the learning process to us is a great deal in determining the rate of learning itself.

There are subcategories of Thorndike’s laws of learning which we will not mention here. But aside from Thorndike, other psychologists also added major laws or principles of learning.

Primacy – A learnt habit will be difficult to be replaced by another. For example, a person will find it hard to shift his dominant hand or become ambidextrous if he’s already used to using one hand over the other. A learnt habit, neutral or not, correct or not, is hard to be replaced with another one. Learning another as a replacement for an already existing ability needs more effort than when it would have been learnt the first time.

Recency – As its name suggests, recent learning can be retained more effortlessly than the not-so recent ones. As an analogy, the things you ate earlier are easier to remember than the ones you ate weeks ago.

Intensity – The higher degree of force the way a certain aspect is taught will be retained better. Mathematical operations can be learned better with more variations and complexity than merely focusing on the essentials and theories.

Freedom – When something is being taught and learned without coercion, the person will likely learn it faster and smoother. A child drawing freely what he wants to draw will have a better gross and fine motor skills in less time than forcing him to copy a subject which he has no interest in based on this principle.

Requirement – It states that there is a set of prerequisites in learning process. Say for an instance, before we can learn how to write an exemplary essay, we must have first learned the basics of grammar, the subject matter, and everything necessary for that essay to be outstanding.

With all of these, the keys to better learning or learning with more ease is combining different strategies that will depend on the circumstance. Learning is intertwined in all aspects of life. If we want to grow, at least symbolically speaking, might as well we grow with ease. Who doesn’t want things to be as laid-back as possible? I bet not you.