EDU 07 GAGNE'S HIERARCHY OF LEARNING

 EDU 07: DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE LEARNER

GAGNE'S HIERARCHY OF LEARNING

• R.M.Gagne's hierarchy of the learning process becomes very important if we believe that some type of learning is pre-requisite to some other type of learning. Gagne presents his hierarchy of eight stages in the process of learning.

• 1) Signal learning: This consists in acquiring the habit of making some kind of general emotional response to a stimulus or signal. E.g.: An infant smiles at the sight of its mother.

• 2) Stimulus-Response learning: This consists in learning to make relatively precise movements of the muscles in response to specific stimuli. E.g.: A child says 'papa' at the sight of his father.

• 3) Chaining: This consists in connecting a series of previously learned S-R connections. E.g.: A child learns to write.

• 4) Verbal association: This is a sub-variety of learning that occurs when the stimuli and responses in the chain consists of words or syllables. E.g: A child learns the Malayalam equivalent of an English word.

• 5) Multiple discrimination: This consists in acquiring the ability to distinguish a set of stimuli in such a way as to make the response appropriate to each member of the set. E.g.: A child discriminates different kinds of cars such as Fiat, Ambassador or Maruti.

• 6) Concept learning: Learning a concept means learning to respond to stimuli in terms of abstracted properties like colour, shape, position etc. As opposed to concrete physical properties. E.g.: A child learns the concept middle.

• 7) Principle learning: This consists of acquiring knowledge and understanding of relationship between concepts. E.g.: A child learns the principle 'round things roll'. Two concepts are involved in this 'round things' and 'roll'.

• 8) Problem solving: Problem solving consists of a set of events in which we apply the principles we have already learnt, in order to achieve some goal. E.g.: A child proves theorems in geometry.

• Educational implication:

  -The teaching learning activities should be so arranged that it should go in accordance with the mental abilities of the learner at each level of the learning hierarchy.

  -The formal education should be planned hierarchically on the basis of the increasing complexities of the different types of learning.

  -Due weight-age should be given to the learning hierarchy while framing curriculum.