Thordike's laws of learning

1. Laws of Learning
Honey M. Turqueza

2. Edward Thorndike

3. • Primary Laws of Learning
–Law of Readiness
–Law of Exercise
–Law of Effect
• Secondary Laws of Learning
–Law of Primacy
–Law of Intensity
–Law of Recency
–other Subordinating Laws

4. Primary Laws of Learning

5. Law of Readiness
• the degree of preparedness and eagerness to
learn
• Law of Action Tendency
• Individuals learn best when they are ready to
learn, and they will not learn much if they see
no reason for learning.

6. Educational Implications
• The teacher should arouse curiosity for
learning, so that the pupils feel ready to
imbibe the new experiences.
• The teacher should, before taking up the
new lesson arouse the interest and
desire of the students to learn.

7. Law of Exercise
• Things that are most often repeated are best
remembered
• Law of Use and Disuse
– Law of Use: the learning are strengthened with
repeated trial or practice
– Law of Disuse: learning are weakened when trial
or practice is discontinued

8. Educational Implications
• The teacher should provide diffrent
opportunities for learners to practice or
repeat the task. (recall, manual drill, rview
etc.)
• The teacher should have constant practice in
what has once been learnt. Delayed use or
long disuse may cause forgetfulness.

9. Law of Effect
• Learning is strengthened when it is
accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying
feeling
• Learning is weakened when it is associated
with an unpleasant feeling.
• The emotional state of the learner affect the
learning.

10. Educational Implications
• As a failure is accompanied by a discouraging
emotional state, it should be avoided.
• Reward and recognition play a great role in
encouraging the pupil.
• Punishments should be avoided as far as
possible. Punishment produces a negative
effect, and it causes discouragement

11. Secondary Laws of Learning

12. Law of Primacy
• ‘Learning that takes place in the beginning is
the best and lasting’.
• Learning should be done correctly for the first
time since it is difficult to “unlearn” or change
an incorrectly learned material.

13. Educational Implications
• The learning on the first day is most vivid and
strong. The teacher also should be most
serious on the first day of teaching.
• For the instructor, this means that what they
teach the first time must be correct. It is more
difficult to un-teach a subject than to teach it
correctly the first time.

14. Law of Recency
• Things most recently learned are best
remembered, while the things learned some
time ago are remembered with more difficulty
• frequent review and summarization help fix in
the mind the material covered.

15. Educational Implications
• Instructors recognize the law of recency when
they plan a lesson summary or a conclusion of
the lecture. Repeat, restate, or reemphasize
important matters at the end of a lesson to
make sure that learners remember them
instead of inconsequential details.

16. Law of Intensity
• The law of intensity states that if the stimulus
(experience) is real, the more likely there is to
be a change in behavior (learning)
• A vivid, dramatic or exciting learning
experience teaches more than a routine or
boring experience.

17. Educational Implications
• A learner will learn more from the
real thing than from a substitute.
Demonstrations, skits, and models
do much to intensify the learning
experiences of learners.

18. Subordinate Laws of Learning

19. Law of Multiple Response
• Confronted with a new situation the learner
responds in a variety of ways arriving at the
correct response.
• Trial and Error
• If the individual wants to solve a puzzle, he is
to try in different ways rather than
mechanically persisting in the same way.

20. Law of Set Attitude
• Learning is guided by a total set or attitude of
the learner, which determines not only what
the learner will do but what will satisfy
him/her.
• The learner performs the task well if he has
his attitude set in the task.

21. Law of Analogy and assimilation
• According to this law, the individual
makes use of old experiences or
acquisitions while learning a new
situation. There is a tendency to
utilize common elements in the new
situation as existed in a similar past
situation.

22. Law of Associative Shifting
• According to this law we may get a response,
of which a learner is capable, associated with
any other situation to which he is sensitive.
• Sometimes, a reaction to a certain stimulus
might shift to a different one

23. Pre- potency of Elements:
• According to this law, the learner
reacts selectively to the important in
the situation and neglects the other
features or elements which may be
irrelevant

24. Thank you Friends.