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Conditions of Learning
Learning is not a single process but eight distinguishable classes of performance change, each requiring its own internal prerequisites and external instructional conditions, which together provide the scientific basis for designing effective instruction.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Robert Gagné's The Conditions of Learning rejects the premise that 'all learning is the same' and instead identifies eight ordered types of learning—signal learning, stimulus-response learning, chaining, verbal association, discrimination learning, concept learning, rule learning, and problem solving—each of which begins from a different state of prior capability and demands a distinct set of conditions to occur. The book shows how these types form learning hierarchies in which simpler capabilities are prerequisite to more complex ones, and how this analysis can be used to plan instructional sequences, establish learning readiness (attention, motivation, developmental status), design the events of instruction, and choose media and modes of instruction. Grounded in decades of psychological research yet oriented toward the practical problems of education, it offers curriculum planners, course designers, and teachers a systematic, evidence-based framework for getting students to learn efficiently.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A student of psychology or education, a curriculum planner, course designer, or teacher who wants to understand how people learn so they can design better education.
- The problem
- Instruction often fails: students do not acquire the intended capabilities, essential prerequisites are skipped, and learning is inefficient or ineffective. The educator feels uncertain and frustrated, lacking a systematic, evidence-based way to decide what and how to teach, and worried they are relying on guesswork or 'tricks.'
- The plan
- Learn to distinguish the eight types of learning and their required conditions.
- Define learning objectives as observable human performances.
- Analyze each topic into a learning hierarchy of prerequisite capabilities.
- Establish learning readiness through attention, motivation, and prerequisite skills.
- Arrange the events of instruction—gaining attention, informing outcomes, stimulating recall, presenting stimuli, guiding, providing feedback, appraising, and ensuring transfer and retention.
- The payoff
- Students reliably acquire generalizable capabilities that transfer to new situations and are retained over time. · Instruction is planned with confidence, avoiding omitted prerequisites and wasted effort. · The educator can motivate learners and free time for the human functions of managing, generalizing, and assessing.