Psychology of Learning

A sketch of the historical background of an investigation can hardly be made complete. The enumeration of a great number of similar or only slightly differing studies and theories would serve no useful purpose and perhaps would mar the clearness of the final picture. Moreover, the researches relating to several specific problems in this investigation will be reviewed in their proper places in the following chapters. This applies above all to our two main problems, transfer of training and forgetting. At this point, therefore, only a few representative theories will be outlined in order to show the position of the present research among the established systems of the psychology of learning.

By studying the accounts of learning in textbooks of psychology, we find that the type of textbook based on behavioristic or associative principles is much more common than the textbook which does not assume that the formation of specific connections reveals the fundamental features of the psychology of learning. Special mention must be made, however, of Experimental Psychology by R. S. Woodworth ( 112 ), who concludes his discussion of the conditionedreflex research by stating: "The conditioned response . . . is perhaps no more simple than other types of learned responses, and we cannot regard it as an element out of which behavior is built" (p. 123).

If the foregoing statements are correct, or to put it in another way, if the psychology of learning developed in this book represents the description of the qualities and the laws of actual processes and occurrences, then our research must yield implications for educational practice. For, psychology of learning and educational psychology are not two independent disciplines; rather, certain important parts of the second represent applications to be derived from the findings of the first. Let us therefore make a very short survey of the relationship between the theories of modern educational practice and the established psychologies of learning. Just three examples will be cited.

W. H. Kilpatrick, in many passages of his book Foundations of Method ( 42 ), in which he presents the theory and the program of progressive education (especially of the project method), appears to evaluate positively the contribution of psychology to educational practice. He discusses a psychology of learning which consists mainly of the laws of readiness, exercise, and effect as formulated by Thorndike in his Educational Psychology ( 1913). But that psychology of learning is according to Kilpatrick not broad enough to form a basis for the entire scope of educational practice.

These quotations seem to imply that the psychology of learning has a rather limited usefulness for education. But as psychologists we shall not admit that we are not concerned with life. Psychology of learning, in our opinion, has to deal with all the effects of the learning process on the pupil-not only with his learning of a specific thing-otherwise it is a psychology of an abstraction, of an unreality (as Kilpatrick said), and not a psychology of learning.

The relation between educational practice and psychology of learning is expressed in still more negative terms by C. H. Judd. It appears that in his opinion the psychology of learning of the past is not useless but harmful in its effects on education.

All three authors apparently agree that the present relationship between educational practice and psychology of learning is not quite satisfactory. However, the following argument may be raised against the plan of applying the results of our research to educational practice. One may believe that the psychology of learning as discussed in this book and educational practice are separated by a wide gulf, because the former deals with artificial laboratory situations, whereas the latter deals, or at least should deal, with preparation for life.