Conditions of Learning

Types of Learning and Learning Hierarchies

The specific conditions of learning are dependent on the types of learned capabilities that are being targeted. There are five learned capabilities: verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, attitudes, and motor skills. Verbal information refers to declarative knowledge including facts, concepts, principles, and procedures. Intellectual skills include the application of procedural knowledge that allows the learner to carry out controlled procedures based on discriminations, concrete concepts, defined concepts, rules, and higher order rules. These intellectual skill knowledge types are in prerequisite order where discriminations are prerequisite to concepts, and concepts prerequisite to rules, and so on. Cognitive strategies are where the learner exercises control over learning, thinking, acting, and feeling. Attitudes refer to the ability to choose one’s actions based on an internal state of feeling and understanding. Motor skills refer to the execution of a performance involving the use of muscles. These different types of learning will determine what specific conditions are needed for optimal learning.

Learned hierarchies are a set of component skills that must be learned prior to learning more complex skills. These hierarchies are most evident in the intellectual skills realm. A learned hierarchy identifies the specific learning components that naturally delineate the progress of skill development. An understanding of desired learning capabilities and any associated hierarchies has implications for the types of internal and external conditions that would be the most effective for learning to take place.

Internal Conditions

There are various internal conditions that must be met for the learner to acquire specific types of learned capabilities. These internal conditions are specified in the information-processing model and include the process of attention, selective perception, rehearsal, semantic encoding, retrieval, control processes, and expectancies.

There are three major internal conditions that vary depending on the learning capability. These internal conditions that need to be considered include (1) type of relevant prior knowledge, (2) encoding knowledge into long-term memory, and (3) retrieval and transfer to new situations. Gagné was very interested in determining how various external conditions could support internal processing needed for learning to occur.

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